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Contents
The Catholic Presbyterian (1879-1883) The Quarterly Register(1886-1936) The Presbyterian Register (1937-1948) ThePresbyterian World (1949-1955) The Reformed and Presbyterian
World (1956-1970) Reformed World (1971- )
Volume 55, No 4December 2005ISSN 0034-3056
EditorOdair Pedroso Mateus
Reformed World is published quarterly by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches
150, route de Ferney, PO Box 2100, 1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland www.warc.ch
© Copyright by the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, Geneva. Except where otherwise stated,the writers of articles are alone responsible for the opinions expressed.No article may be reproduced in whole or in part without permission.
President Rev. Dr Clifton Kirkpatrick
Vice-Presidents Mr. Helis H. Barraza Díaz, Rev. Dr Henriette Hutabarat-Lebang,
Rev. Dr Gottfried W. Locher, Mrs. Marcelle Orange-Mafi,Rev. Dr Ofelia Ortega, Rev. Prof. Lilia Rafalimanana
Geneva Secretariat Rev. Patricia Sheerattan-Bisnauth - Church Renewal, Justice and PartnershipMs. Jet den Hollander - WARC Mission Project Mrs. Maureen O’Brien - FinancesMr. John Asling - CommunicationsRev. Dr Seong-Won Park - Covenanting for Justice Rev. Dr Odair Pedroso Mateus - Theology and Ecumenical Engagement
293295
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355
369
380
Editorial ............................................................................................................................Calvin, Calvinism and Ecumenism, Jane Dempsey Douglass .............................................
The true worship of God: social and economic themes in contemporary
Reformed confessions, Margit Ernst-Habib ......................................................................
Theology of grace and theology of prosperity, Arturo Piedra ..........................................
Reformed faith, justice and the struggle against apartheid, Dirk J. Smit ...........................
Communion and catholicity: Reformed perspectives on ecclesiology, Karel Blei ...............
Berith, covenant and covenanting, Lukas Vischer ...........................................................
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Editorial
Calvin John Calvin’s contribution to Christian witness in the economic and
social spheres was the theme of an international consultation held in Geneva,
November 2004. That consultation, which marked the publication in English of André
Biéler’s Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought , called upon the Reformed family to
take the opportunity of the 2009 jubilee “to rediscover Calvin beyond the tenacious
stereotypes of Calvin”.
Reformed World published the statement adopted at that consultation in its
March 2005 issue. It now publishes four articles prepared for that occasion. Jane Douglass
shows the continuity between the ecumenical impulses in Calvin’s life and thought and the ecumenical work accomplished by WARC. Margit Ernst looks at how
contemporary Reformed confessions relate Christian faith and issues of social and
economic relevance. Dirk Smit helps us discern the universal significance and value of
the Reformed resistance to apartheid in South Africa. Lukas Vischer reflects on
covenant and covenanting in the Scriptures and in current church usage.
Communion The WARC Executive Committee has recently restated the WARC
vision in the following terms: “We are the World Alliance of Reformed Churchesconsisting of Reformed, Congregational, Presbyterian, Waldensian, United and Uniting
churches. We are called to be a communion of churches joined together in Christ, to
promote the renewal and the unity of the church, and to participate in God’s
transformation of the world.” The Dutch Reformed theologian Karel Blei provides a
brief overview of the Reformed understanding of “communion”, the central element in
the new WARC vision statement.
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The World Alliance of Reformed Churches andthe family of the late Georges Lombard,with the support of theLombard Odier Darier Hentsch Bank, Geneva
. . . . . . . . . . announce
The Lombard Prize 2006US$ 1,000
for the best essay on
“Water, source of life:socio-economic, theological
and interreligious perspectives”open to
• young students preparing for the Christian ministry inWARC related theological schools or• young pastors under 35 serving in one of the WARCmember churches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
For the conditions of submission please seewww.warc.ch
Prosperity This issue of Reformed World will reach its readers in all continents
by the time the World Council of Churches will be celebrating its ninth assembly in
Porto Alegre, Brazil, under the prayer theme “God, in your grace, transform the world”.
One of the merits of Arturo Piedra’s article is to reflect on grace out of a changing religious situation in which evangelical popular religiosity is increasingly marked by
what is generally known as “prosperity theology”.
Odair Pedroso Mateus
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VOLUME 55(4), DECEMBER, 2005
Calvin, Calvinism and Ecumenism
Jane Dempsey Douglass
Jane Douglass walks the reader through some of the main ecumenical impulsesin Calvin’s work and life. She then goes on to demonstrate how the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, in its self-understanding, programmes, and public standsseeks to honour the ecumenical dimension of the Calvinian legacy. An emerita professor of historical theology at Princeton Theological Seminary (USA), she wasthe President of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (1990-1997). She is the author of Women, Freedom and Calvin (Philadelphia, Westminster Press, 1985),
among other books and essays on Calvinism and ecumenism.
Placing Calvin and Calvinism in
ecumenical perspective in the context of
the International Consultation on the
Impact of Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought on Reformed Witness presents a
challenge, but a welcome challenge.
On the one hand, we can say that it is
not common for ecumenical discussions of
Calvin to focus on Calvin’s economic and
social thought. Far more common are
discussions of Calvin’s christology, his
teaching on the Lord’s Supper or hisdoctrine of the church. Yet each of these
topics in Calvin’s writings has a social
dimension which has not been widely
explored in ecumenical conversation and
which deserves attention.
On the other hand, it should not be
strange to look for an ecumenical perspective
in this consultation if we remember that
the ecumenical movement grew not only
out of the Faith and Order movement, but
also out of the missionary movement and
the Life and Work movement. Today we are
deeply conscious of the fact that the churchhas been and still is divided not only by
classical theological disagreements or
questions of governance, but also by different
visions of how the gospel relates to the social
order and how the church relates to the
state, by differences of culture, by racial
segregation, by different attitudes towards
women’s roles, and by economic and classdifferences.
John Calv in himself is probably not
thought of as an ecumenical figure by
modern people in the pews. His popular
reputation as a cold and divisive figure has
been shaped by his association with
Servetus’ death in Geneva, by his adamant
opposition to many aspects of Catholic
teaching, and his often severe criticism of
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the so-called “spiritualists” and of those who
rejected infant baptism.
Calvin’s role must be seen in the
sixteenth-century context where statetoleration of religious dissent was
exceptional and where the various lively
streams of reforming activity within the
church were often in conflict . Calvin
participated in that conflict , setting
boundaries in consultation with other church
leaders to what he considered the proper
understanding of the Christian faith. Thedoctrine of the Trinity and the baptism of
infants – with all that meant for the
Christian society – fell within those
boundaries.
Yet Calvin also resisted boundaries.
William Bouwsma in his portrait of John
Calvin as a sixteenth-century person has
helpfully analysed Calvin’s particular form
of sixteenth-century anxiety. He says that
Calvin experienced two diametrically
opposite sorts of anxiety: “the anxiety of the
void [the abyss] and the anxiety of
constriction [the labyrinth], of nothing at all
and too much, of freedom and oppression.”1
And so he constructed boundary systems to
recover his sense of direction and, on the
other hand, also tried to relieve the
pressures with which such human
constructions constrained him.
So Calvin pressed against boundaries in
many ways. Historians and theologians know
that Calvin had a broad and catholic
understanding of the one church of JesusChrist. Many heirs to his thought have been
active leaders and participants in the
modern ecumenical movement, believing
that Calvin’s theology supported their work.
This lecture will identify elements of
Calvin’s own thought and work which laid afoundation for Calvinist engagement in
ecumenical work. Then it will suggest a few
of the ways in which Calvin’s influence may
be still visible in the modern ecumenical
movement and in the worldwide church
today.
First, however, a working definition of
“ecumenism” as it will be used here is inorder. In a general sense, ecumenism has
been understood as a movement, inspired
by the Holy Spirit, in search of renewal and
visible Christian unity. Evidence of such
movements can be found in many periods
of church history, including the sixteenth
century.
Calvin believed that he was engaged
in such a movement. He had been caught
up as a young man in reforming circles
within the Catho lic Church in France
where Renaissance scholarship was
encouraging the reading of the Bible in
the original languages, where Paul’s
teaching about salvation by faith was very
popular, where a strong sense of moral
responsibility was leading to calls for
reform of the church and of society. It is
not easy to see precisely when Calvin
moved theological ly from Catholic
reformer to Protestant reformer. But
Calvin’s attacks on the Catholic Church
must be placed in this context . Heunderstood the Holy Spirit to be at work
making the Church new, healing it of its
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infirmities, and he saw it as his task to
participate in that reforming work.
Modern ecumenism, with its roots in the
late nineteenth and early twentiethcenturies, has grown out of the experience
of Christians of many ecclesiastical
traditions and many nations working
together as individuals and as churches to
witness to Christian unity in various ways:
in the global mission of the church; in the
attempt to reconcile different traditions’
views of doctrine, ministry and sacramentsin order to bring about full communion or
visible church unity; and also in the effort to
witness together to God’s justice in the world
through daily work with a sense of Christian
vocation, and through the transformation
of social institutions to protect the dignity
of humanity and the health of the creation
so that Christ’s reign of peace and justice
can be made more visible in the world. This,
then, is the lens through which we will
attempt to see Calvin and Calvinism in
ecumenical context.
Foundations of ecumenism inCalvin’s thought and work
Six elements of Calvin’s life and thought,all shaped by his way of reading the Bible,
seem particularly relevant to this task. l)
Calvin’s catholic view of the church, together
with his belief that the true church can be
found under many forms of church order. 2)
His struggle against the “idols.” 3) His
reaching out to and engagement with some
churches of other traditions. 4) The
multinational and multicultural community
which Geneva became during Calvin’s years
as pastor. 5) Calvin’s ministry to the diaspora
of Calvinist churches all over Europe and to
religious refugees. 6) Calvin’s emphasis onthe Christian life as stewardship, service to
the neighbour, mutual responsibility, marked
by obedience to God’s command for justice.
None of these elements is unique to Calvin
in the sixteenth-century Reformation, except
perhaps his sense of the scope of his ministry
to the diaspora and to the religious refugees.
Yet the way in which the elements cometogether has given a special character to
Calvin’s ministry and has had a profound
influence on the subsequent Reformed
tradition, encouraging its engagement in the
ecumenical movement. Let us take up these
elements one by one for consideration.
Calvin’s catholic view of the church
Calvin was insistent that there is only one
church of Jesus Christ spread throughout
the whole earth. The church is catholic or
universal because all Christians are united
in the one body of Christ, which cannot be
sundered. Calvin followed Luther in noting
as the marks of the true church only two:
the Word of God purely preached and heard
and the sacraments administered according
to Christ’s institution. Where these can be
seen, there is surely a church of God. This
formulation is, of course, a protest against
the theology of the Roman Catholic Church
which would identi fy the true church
differently. It functions, however, to permit
a Christian to find the church of Jesus Christ under many forms or structures.
There is Christian freedom to exercise
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human governance in the realm of decorum
and order in the church’s life. In this realm
the church can accommodate itself to many
cultures and can change as circumstancesand the needs of the church require. For
example, though Calvin finds his presbyterial
order for the Genevan church consonant
with Scripture, he does not in principle
exclude the use of the episcopal office. The
office of bishop should, however, be
understood to be a pragmatic human
creation to meet the needs of the timesand must be rightly used, as he thought it
sometimes was in the early church. Calvin
repeatedly points out that concepts of
hierarchy and lordship of bishops over
presbyters are inappropriate in the
governance of the church and contrary to
the Holy Spirit’s teaching (Institutes IV.4.1-
4).
On the other hand, where one finds a
church bearing these two marks, the Word
of God purely preached and heard and the
sacraments administered according to
Christ’s institution, one should not forsake
it or refuse to share in its worship, even if it
has some flaws. Calvin understood the depth
of human sin, and he knew the church was
always sinful as well as holy.
Calvin understood the reforming
movement in which he was engaged to be
evidence of the Holy Spirit’s renewing work
in his day, calling the church away from
superstition and oppressive human laws to
a new faithfulness to the Scriptures as God’s word to the church, to a proper way of
understanding the church’s tradition, to new
and more just structures for church and
society. He did not understand that he had
left the church or created a new church but
rather that he was helping to restore theone true church of Jesus Christ of all times
and places.
Calvin emphasized the powerful bonds
of love created by membership in the body
of Christ. Especially in the context of the
Lord’s Supper, he taught that one cannot
injure or offend any member of Christ’s body
without injur ing and offend ing Christ himself. He understood that Christian unity
requires mutual accountability and mutual
admonition – discipline.
Calvin frequently described the church
as the church of the whole world, often using
imagery from the Hebrew Bible of the reign
of God where people of all nations will come
to worship on the holy mountain or of the
New Testament Pentecost experience. It
seems that this was more a biblical and
eschatological vision than one rooted in any
practical strategy for world mission. Calvin
ended his sermons with a call to prayer
drawn out of the particular concerns of the
sermon. But then quite regularly the
sermon text also refers to a set concluding
prayer, too familiar to warrant repetition in
full: “May he grant this grace not only to us,
but also to all peoples and nations of the
earth, etc.”2
Calvin’s struggle against the “idols” In
contrast to this reaching out in unity,
Calvin’s struggle against the “idols” set himagainst some other Christians. His struggle
is grounded in his reading of the first two
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commandments of the Decalogue. The first
is the command to have no other gods. Calvin
believed that sinful humanity is constantly
creating other gods than the God of Abraham and of Jesus Christ and giving them
the worship due to God alone. The
commandment not to make any graven
images or worship them had for centuries
in the West been subsumed under the first
commandment, and Luther followed this
practice. Calvin argued that some in the
early church separated the prohibition of graven images as the second
commandment, and he much preferred to
do so. This, of course, gave it greater
prominence.
Some early Reformers before Calvin’s day
had used the justification of “idol-smashing”
to destroy church art. Considerable
“cleansing” of churches in Geneva preceded
Calvin’s arrival. Nonetheless Calvin’s
emphasis on the spiritual nature of worship
led him to encourage the simplicity of
worship spaces without visual distraction,
advice which many Calvinist churches,
though by no means all,3 reflected till recent
years. Lutherans and many Anglicans could
not accept this teaching.
What is more important for our purposes
is Calvin’s emphasis on undefiled loyalty to
the one God, turning away from the
superstitions which sinful minds create and
from clinging to lesser goods than God.
Worshipping God alone may require
disobeying rulers who command what Godforbids. Note that the Institutes begin with
a preface to King Francis I of France,
reassuring him that Calvin’s people are not
revolutionaries, and that Book IV is full of
respect for government. Yet the final
climactic chapter of the Institutes proclaimsthat obedience to God may require
disobedience to rulers. This steely
monotheism in the tradition of Calvin has
led to many confrontations between church
and state.
Engagement with churches of other
traditions Calvin reached out to leaders
of quite different Protestant groups,searching for common ground. Perhaps he
had been influenced during his years in
Strasbourg by the enthusiasm of Martin
Bucer for greater Christian unity. For
example, Calvin corresponded with Heinrich
Bullinger, leader of the church in Zurich,
and even went to Zurich with his former
colleague, William Farel, then pastor in
Neuchâtel, to negotiate the Consensus of
Zurich of 1549 on the Lord’s Supper. This
agreement, close to Calvin’s writing on the
Lord’s Supper, brought together the church
of Geneva with the churches of French- and
German-speaking Switzerland in an
understanding of the Lord’s Supper, whereas
they had previously been separated. It was
important to Calvin that there be
intercommunion among the Reformation
churches, that differences in opinion should
not break the fellowship.
Unfortunately this agreement probably
worsened relationships with the Lutherans.
There had been earlier disappointments.Calvin had written Luther warmly in 1545,
sending two treatises for his comment, along
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with a letter to Philip Melanchthon, with
whom he was acquainted. But Melanchthon
intercepted the letter for Luther as
inopportune.During Calvin’s sojourn in Strasbourg, he
had been sent in 1541 among the city’s
officially Lutheran representatives to the
colloquy at Regensburg with representatives
of the Roman Catholic Church. Whereas his
more senior colleagues, Bucer and
Melanchthon, drafted formulas in hopes of
agreement with the Catholics, Calvin wasmore critical of their ambiguity. He also
criticized papal substitution of this colloquy
for the free and universal council that had
been so long anticipated.
Calvin’s wide correspondence included
the Anglicans, such as Archbishop Thomas
Cranmer and Archbishop Matthew Parker,
and William Cecil, Queen Elizabeth’s chief
secretary of state. To Cranmer, who had
proposed a gathering of Protestant church
leaders to express their common Christian
teaching, Calvin replied in 1552 that he
would cross even ten seas to further the
unity of the church. He thought such a
general meeting “to confess their common
mind on the doctrine of holiness” would be
the most suitable remedy for the “disordered
condition of the church.” He suggested that
“a serious and properly adjusted agreement
between men of learning upon the rule of
Scripture” would help churches otherwise
divided to unite. “I think it right for me at
whatever cost of toil and trouble, to seek toobtain this object. But I hope my own
insignificance will cause me to be passed
by.”4 To Parker in 1561 he suggested
renewing Cranmer’s earlier proposal for a
general meeting. There was interest but no
consequent action. Ties also developed between Geneva and
two reforming movements which had
predated the Lutheran reformation.
Relationships between the Reformed
movement and the Waldensians had been
initiated by emissaries to Farel in 1530,
before Calvin came to Geneva. The
Waldensian movement began as a twelfth-century reforming movement with some
parallels to the early Franciscans, but the
Waldensians were declared heretics. Many
fled to the mountains of Northern Italy to
survive the persecution. Calvin supported
the increasingly close relations with the
Waldensians, sent pastors to them, and saw
them increasingly identify themselves with
Reformed faith and church order. He worked
to muster political support for them when
there was a massacre of Waldensians by
Francis I in 1545. During his Strasbourg
years, Calvin became acquainted wi th
leaders of the Czech Brethren, followers of
Jan Hus.
Geneva during Calvin’s years:
multinational and multicultural With
the Reformation, Geneva became a
remarkably international city. Refugees
poured in, mostly from France, but also from
many other countries in western, central,
and northern Europe and from Italy. This
audience knows well the story of the city’sremarkably creative efforts to provide for the
refugees with limited resources, and also
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the significance of the foundation of the
Academy of Geneva, precursor of the
University. It was established by Calvin in
1559 to supplement the instruction at thecollège with an advanced programme of
study in theology (taught by Beza and Calvin),
Greek, Hebrew and philosophy. The
Academy was intended to draw students
from all over Christendom, and indeed nearly
all the students in Calvin’s day came from
other countries. The Academy illustrates the
strong international focus of Calvin’sreforming programme, not just for Geneva
but for the church at large.
Heiko Oberman emphasizes that for
Calvin, a refugee himself, and undoubtedly
for others, the refugee experience had a
theological impact. Calvin identified with the
stories in the Hebrew Scriptures of the exile
of the Jews and their persecution. He
understood in the light of widespread
Christian experience of exile and
persecution that traditional claims that the
suffering of the Jews through the ages was
evidence of their guilt and punishment could
no longer be accepted. This insight led
Calvin and Calvinists to important new ways
of thinking about Jewish-Christ ian
relationships.
Calvin’s ministry to the Protestant
diaspora and refugees Calvin ministered
from Geneva through his writings and
correspondence to Reformed churches
across Europe. Some new churches
stemmed from refugee experience inGeneva. For example, John Knox had served
an English-speaking refugee congregation
in Geneva. When he returned to Scotland
in 1559, he organized a Presbyterian church
much influenced by Geneva’s experience.
What did these Reformed churches takefrom Geneva? Calvin’s theology, the Genevan
liturgy in some cases, often the Genevan
Psalter – frequently translated into other
languages while retaining the special
Genevan Psalm tunes. Reformed churches
usually adopted Geneva’s pattern of
corporate ministry by pastors, elders,
deacons, and doctors or teachers, thoughoften the doctoral office was omitted.
There was also the sense that the
churches shared a theological tradition,
despite different forms of expression. It was
customary for each of the national Reformed
churches to have its own confession of faith,
a Reformed statement of a common
Christian faith, but set in the particular
context of that church’s life. As evidence of
the conviction that they shared a common
faith, Theodore Beza helped organize a
project to create a Harmony of the
Confessions of Faith, published in Geneva
in 1581, well after Calvin’s death.
In a preface to the catechism that Calvin
prepared for the church in Geneva in 1545,
Calvin wrote to the pastors in East Friesland,
expressing the wish that there could be a
common catechism for all churches. He
accepted that such a common catechism
was not likely. Nonetheless he urged that
catechists take extreme care in their
teaching that even with variety, people willall be directed to the one Christ whose truth
will allow us to grow together into one body.
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To teach rashly and encourage dissension
would be to profane baptism, which ought
to direct us to a common faith. Calvin said
he had written in Latin, still used then as auniversal language, so that in a time of
confusion and division of Christendom,
there could be public testimonies of faith
enabling churches to recognize one another
and find mutual confirmation and holy
fellowship. He believed catechisms are one
of the best means of sharing common faith,
so he published the catechism of Genevafor others also to use. We see here both
Calvin’s profound concern about common
teaching of one faith and also his awareness
that it will necessarily be expressed in
different ways in different churches.
As part of Geneva’s international mission
to reform the church and renew the
preaching of the gospel, the Company of
Pastors regularly responded to requests to
send pastors to serve other Reformed
churches, especially in France. One small
mission was even sent to Brazil, but it was
short lived and unsuccessful.
Calvin’s emphasis on service and justice
Though Calvin was as committed as Luther
to the doctrine of justification by the grace
of Jesus Christ alone, nonetheless he
emphasized the importance of a disciplined
Christian life. One who has been saved by
grace will, Calvin thought, out of gratitude,
desire to live in accordance with the will of
God. How can one know that will? By turning
to the law, no longer out of fear but as a freeperson, out of gratitude.
This is the so-called “third use of the
law” which is critical to Calvinist ethics, but
which has been a cause of considerable
discomfort for Lutherans and some other
ecumenical partners over the centuries. Thelaw teaches not only to worship God alone
but also to respect and serve the neighbour.
Calvin understood that every Christian is
called to a vocation in the world where that
person could serve the neighbour. Worldly
possessions are a gift of God to be used in
stewardship for the needs of one’s own
family but also of others in need. One canin Christian freedom enjoy the beauty of
creation and the taste of good food and wine
as gifts of God, but one must live in such a
way that all God’s people can also enjoy the
goodness of creation. This requires a simple
lifestyle and sharing with the neighbour. The
only limit to our obligation to share is the
limit of our resources.
Calvin loved the Hebrew prophets, and
he thundered down upon the congregation
about those who exploit the poor, fail to pay
a living wage, or perform shoddy work. Calvin
lived with a biblical vision of the reign of
God as a reign of love, peace, and justice.
The church’s task is to make that reign of
God increasingly more visible to the world.
And so Christians must reform not only
church institutions but also society so that
justice will reign. The themes of Calvin’s
ethical teaching regarding social and
economic issues are meticulously laid out
in Pastor André Biéler’s book, La Pensée
économique et sociale de Calvin, whose long-awaited translation into English we are here
to celebrate.5
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As much as Calvin stressed the solidarity
of Christians within the body of Christ and
their need to serve one another, he also
stressed the solidarity of all humanity madein the image of God. Therefore any human
being in need, however sinful or apparently
unworthy of help, lays an ethical claim upon
Christians to use whatever resources they
have to meet that need, because they share
the image of God and a common humanity.
Having explored these six elements of
Calvin’s thought which help to create afoundation for Calvin’s engagement in
ecumenism, we turn now to explore how
those elements can be seen playing a role
in the later ecumenical history of the church.
The Reformed Alliance and themodern ecumenical movement6
The ecumenical thrust in the foundationand history of the Presbyterian Alliance
First we should reflect on the coming
together of the Reformed family in the
nineteenth century. Despite all that has
been said about the interconnection of the
Reformed churches in the sixteenth century,
by the mid-nineteenth century those
churches had drifted apart, spread toEuropean colonies in the New World and in
the countries of the South, and they did not
know one another well.
Still, some Scottish, Irish, and American
church leaders realized that this separation
was not normal for the Reformed family.
Part of the motivation for change was that some of the churches were discovering each
other on the mission field on the other side
of the world. So a process of outreach began,
resulting in the formation in 1875 of the
Alliance of the Reformed Churches
throughout the World holding thePresbyterian System, the first of the world
Protestant bodies. By the first meeting of
the General Council in 1877 in Edinburgh,
there were 49 member churches from
Europe, USA, South Africa, Australia, New
Zealand, Ceylon, and the New Hebrides.
Contrary to many historians’ assumptions,
the Alliance was not narrowly confessionalin its orientation. Christian unity was a
primary concern7. They discussed whether
there should be a new confession presenting
a consensus of the Reformed confessions,
but it was not produced. The new journal of
the Alliance was called The Catholic
Presbyterian.
The Alliance in its ear ly years was
concerned about the relation between
mission and unity. It urged that the new
churches being planted, for example in Asia
and Africa in areas where there had been
no prior Christian community, should not
perpetuate the divisions of Europe’s
churches, that new churches should be
rooted in the indigenous cultures of the
nations where they will live, and that they
should be independent as quickly as possible
and join the Alliance in their own right.
These exhortations seem to reflect morethe Reformed heritage we have beenobserving than the accepted missionary
strategy of the day.
Work for just ice, human rights, and
religious freedom was also one of the themes
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of the early years of the Alliance and has
continued to be. America was denounced
for its treatment of its indigenous people,
slavery was condemned, and the rights of workers in the newly industrialized countries
were supported. Pastoral visits were made
to small “evangelical” groups in the Middle
East and Russia which were experiencing
religious persecution.
Early in the twentieth century, a powerful
theology came to dominate the Protestant
world, that of Karl Barth, a Swiss Reformedtheologian. Barth was very conscious of his
roots in the Reformation and his debt to
Calvin and also to Luther. In this context it
is appropriate to call attention to his role in
the German Confessing Church movement,
resisting the pressures of the government
to transform the church and its doctrine in
accommodation to Nazi teaching.
Participants came from Reformed, Lutheran,
and United churches.
The themes of the Theological
Declaration of Barmen8 issuing from this
movement are Reformation themes: that
the Christ revealed in Scripture is the one
Word of God to be trusted and obeyed; the
insistence that Christ is lord of every area of
life, and there can be no other lords; that
Christ acts as Lord in the church, which
belongs only to Christ, so the gospel cannot
be accommodated to politics and ideology;
that church offices are for service in the
community, not for domination; that the
state cannot become the “single andtotalitarian order of human life,” nor can
the church become an organ of the state.
We hear in this message the themes of
Calvin’s struggle against the “idols.” Yet there
is also an unmistakable reappropriation of
the sixteenth-century Reformed traditionthat the common faith must be expressed
anew in the particular context in which the
church is living. Barth and his colleagues
knew this was a crisis which called for
declaring the faith. It is interesting that this
Declaration of Barmen, coming out of an
ecumenical confessing church movement
and not claiming to be a “confession,” hasbeen received as an official confession in
some Reformed churches.
Reformed people, including the
leadership of the Alliance, were deeply
involved in the movements leading up to
the formation of the World Council of
Churches (WCC) just after World War II. The
Princeton General Council of the Alliance
in 1954 declared: “We believe that the deep
stirring among the churches and Christian
groups to surmount the barriers and to
express the unity of the community of
believers in accordance with the mind and
will of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church...
is of God, not men, a sign of the Holy Spirit.”9
Among the dis tinguished Reformed
leaders in the young WCC were the first
general secretary, Dr. Willem Visser ’t Hooft;
Prof. Hendrik Kraemer, first director of the
Ecumenical Institute at the Château de
Bossey; and Madeleine Barot, secretary
general and long-term leader of the French
CIMADE and first head of the WCCDepartment of Cooperation between Men
and Women in Church and Society.
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Kraemer and Barot were laypeople.
The Alliance decided to continue its role
in gathering the Reformed family and
work ing for its greater uni ty wi th theunderstanding that it would fulfil as many
functions as possible through the WCC, such
as emergency relief services and interfaith
studies, and that it would bring to the WCC
a Reformed theological witness in the further
search for wider Christian unity.
In 1970 in Nairobi the Alliance merged
with the Internat ional Congregat ionalCouncil (founded in 1891) to become the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches. Today
it has over 200 Presbyterian, Reformed,
Congregational, and united member
churches in more than 100 countries on
every inhabited continent. About three-
fourths of these churches are located in the
countries of the South: Asia, Africa and
Latin America. Among them are churches
of the Czech Brethren and the Waldensians,
reforming churches before Luther which
have become part of the Reformed family.
About thirty WARC member churches are
united churches coming from many
continents, and their membership is
explicitly welcomed. The Asian united
churches, such as the Church of South India
and the United Church of Christ in the
Philippines, seem to be to some extent the
fruit of the Reformed concern not to
perpetuate the old divisions of Europe in
new churches. Bringing together people
from several Protestant traditions, theycontinue to honour their Reformed roots
through membership in the Alliance. The
Church of South India unites formerly
Reformed congregations with others in a
structure which possesses the historic
episcopate through its Anglican heritage. Another type of un ited church is the
Evangelical Church of the River Plate in
Argent ina, now a member both of the
Alliance and of the Lutheran World
Federation. United churches in Germany
and the Netherlands also come from
Lutheran and Reformed roots. All these
united churches provide an ecumenical wi tness in the mids t of the Reformed
fellowship. Most member churches, except
those too small to qualify, are also members
of the WCC and other ecumenical bodies.
Division and reconciliation in the
Reformed family Given this tradition of
concern for Christian unity, it remains
puzzling that movements to unite different
Reformed denominations within the same
country are so uncommon. In recent years
the Mission in Unity project of the John Knox
International Reformed Center and WARC
has attempted to nurture greater unity
among churches of the Reformed family
within a country.
It must be said that some heirs of Calvin’s
tradition have placed more emphasis on
rigorously pure doctrine and have often split
off to form new churches, holding back from
ecumenical engagement. They interpret
Calvin’s marks of the church more narrowly.
There are cases where a young Reformed
church has been splintered by successive waves of ever more conservative Reformed
missionaries from abroad. A recent
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handbook of Reformed churches worldwide
resulting from an exhaustive search
organized by the John Knox International
Reformed Center identifies many moreReformed churches than are members of
the Alliance, often quite isolated.
One situation where church division was
proper, I believe, was the struggle over
apartheid in South Africa. It was tragic that
descendants of Calvin played a large role in
creating the apartheid system that the state
then enforced. The wider Reformed familytook the position that theological
justification of apartheid by two churches
so deformed the gospel that their teaching
was heresy , and church fellowship was
impossible. It has taken the global Reformed
family and a host of ecumenical partners
supporting the courageous resistance from
within the Dutch Reformed family in South
Africa to bring about repudiation of the
heresy and restored fellowship.
We should take note of the Belhar
Confession of the Dutch Reformed Mission
Church in South Africa, adopted a few
months after the WARC 1982 declaration of
status confessionis. Here one finds powerful
restatement in that painful situation of
Calvin’s teaching on the unity of the church,
on the lordship of Christ as the only head of
the church, on the solidarity of all humanity
in one human nature, on the reconciliation,
love, and mutual responsibility which mark
the true church’s life, on the freedom for
varieties of gifts and languages and culturesto enrich the one visible people of God, and
the call for justice to roll down like waters.
The confession is on the one hand a
biblical and gracious statement of the heart
of Christian and Reformed theology, and on
the other hand a devastating indictment and repudiation of the situation in South
Africa’s racially segregated churches,
including Reformed churches. “…the Church
as the possession of God must stand where
He stands, namely against injustice and with
the wronged; that in following Christ the
Church must witness against all the powerful
and privileged who selfishly seek their owninterests and thus control and harm others…
We believe that, in obedience to Jesus Christ,
its only Head, the Church is called to
confess and to do all these things, even
though the authorities and human laws
might forbid them and punishment and
suffering be the consequence. Jesus is
Lord.”10 As in the Declaration of Barmen,
which it echoes, we see the struggle
against the “idols.” We also see a passion
for social justice as part of Christian
obedience and witness. Once again the
common faith has been reconfessed at a
moment of crisis in the very particular
situation in which that church was living.
Today the Dutch Reformed Mission
Church has merged with the former black
Dutch Reformed Church of Africa to form
an interracial Uniting Reformed Church
in Southern Africa, with the Belhar
Confession among its confessional
standards, and the new church has invited
the white Dutch Reformed Church to jointhem. Unification discussions continue,
but they are not easy.
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The usefulness of Calvin’s theologyin bilateral dialogues
The significance of Calvin’s theology for
today’s ecumenical movement has beenrecognized in the Reformed bilateral
dialogues. Since the 1960s the Alliance has
been engaged in bilateral dialogues with all
the world Christian bodies and also some
traditions, like the Pentecostal one, which
have no organized world bodies. Calvin would
probably be pleased at the progress already
made in Lutheran-Reformed dialogue, withfull communion now established in Europe,
North America, and some other localities,
and regular, strong cooperation between the
LWF and WARC at the world level.
Another of the long-standing dialogue
partners has been the Pontifical Council for
Promoting Christian Unity, and new
opportunities for joint Catholic-Reformedcooperation have emerged. At a special
Catholic-Reformed conference held at
Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996,
Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, then
responsible for that council for Christian
unity, spoke of challenges ahead, one of
which is broadening the circl e of the
ecumenical movement to make it more
comprehensive and inclusive. He suggested:
“...the dialogue between the World Alliance
of Reformed Churches and the Catholic
Church may have significance far beyond
the constituencies they represent.” He then
pointed to statements which had been
made by “evangelicals” outside the Alliance
and outside the mainstream of the
ecumenical movement who defend their
distance on the grounds of their Calvinist
theology. “The examples cited above suggest
that if the dialogue between the World
Alliance and the Roman Catholic Church issuccessful in helping to resolve long-standing
theological differences between us, this may
also be of service to other Christians not
presently part of the usual ecumenical
circles. This dialogue may serve as a
bridge...”11
Cardinal Cassidy’s suggestion reminds us
that there are followers of Calvin whounderstand him differently than do the
members of the Alliance. These Calvinists
are in several denominations: some
Reformed churches, some Baptist churches,
and some churches loosely described as
non-denominational. His suggestion also
underscores the serious relevance of
ongoing study of the theology of John Calvin
today both within the circle of those who
claim his influence and with our ecumenical
partners.
Other Catholics have also been calling
for a greater presence of Calvin’s voice in
ecumenical dialogue. George Tavard, writing
in 2000, finds the past Catholic-Reformed
dialogues disappointing in results, partly
because of Calvin’s absence from the
debates. He judges the unofficial dialogue
since 1937 between French-speaking Catholic, Reformed, and Lutheran pastorsknown as the Groupe des Dombes far more
penetrating and substantive, where Calvin’s
voice is detectable. Their documents often
take the form of an invitation to conversion,
a form “close to the heart of Calvin’s own
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theology.” Tavard has been teaching and
writing about Calvin.12
The Franciscan theo logian , Denni s
Tamburello, author of the book, Union withChrist: John Calvin and the Mysticism of St.
Bernard, has published a small article
entitled “Christ at the Center: The Legacy
of the Reformed Tradition.” He speaks
warmly of how he has come to appreciate
many aspects of Calvin’s thought, especially
his emphasis on the centrality of Christ, his
sacramental theology – including a doctrineof the real presence and a conviction that
the Eucharist is the bond of love connecting
the sacraments to social justice –, his
pervasive doctrine of the Holy Spirit, and
his teaching that Christians express their
gratitude to God by loving their neighbours.
He thinks Calvin’s important teaching on
the Christian’s union with Christ has not
been fully appreciated by the Reformed
tradition, and that neglect has led to
misrepresentation of Calvin’s thought and
to Reformed dogmatism. He comments on
how difficult it is to persuade those who do
not read Calvin that he is not a rigid
dogmatician but a Christian of deep
spirituality and a biblical theologian. The
old caricature of Calvin dies hard, he says.
But Tamburello believes that Calvin’s
articulation of the twofold grace of Christ in
human beings is “one of the most significant
contributions of Reformed theology to the
church.” He refers particularly to Institutes
III.16.1 as a fine balancing of justificationand sanctification.13
This teaching of Calvin is in fact one of
the Reformed contributions to an ongoing
ecumenical discussion of justification. The
World Alliance declined simply to sign the
Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification by the Catholics and Lutherans
but agreed to participate in a broader further
conversation which also includes the
Methodists. The Reformed were particularly
concerned about the connection between
justification and justice. One of the Reformed
theologians participating is Anna Case-
Winters, who comments:
The place where the issue of justicehas arisen most clearly in the recent ecumenical dialogues that I have beenprivileged to be part of is in the discussionof the Joint Declaration on the Doctrineof Justification. The Roman Catholic-L u t h e r a n - M e t h o d i s t - R e f o r m e d
conversation – a “quadrilateral”, if you will! – found the Reformed voices asking about the connection between justiceand justification. Reformed folk generallycelebrated and affirmed the doctrinalagreement achieved in the JDDJ andpressed to ask about implications. For me, the Reformed insistence on holding justification and sanctification together as a two-fold grace (Calvin’s duplex gratia )
is where connection naturally arises. It seems to me that we have carefullybalanced the matter of forgiveness of sins with that of renewal of life. The latter isnot about our works (!) but about God’s work in us as we grow day by day, moreand more into union with Christ (Institutes III.2.24).
This growth in grace, grounded in our justification, issues in transformed life –
individual and social. The matter can alsobe connected, as Gabriel Fackre does with our affirmation of God’s sovereignty
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over all of life. Thus to be justified is togrow into living justly. To me it seems alogical – even necessary – connection. Inthose same conversations Russel
Botman raised the issue of relevance.How does an agreement on justificationmake a difference? His concern was that it may not, unless we get to the matter of justice.14
United confessing in the search for
justice Many Reformed people have come
to believe that the severe problems of world
economic injustice today as the result of economic globalization, where poor nations
of the South are experiencing life-
threatening suffering, constitute for this
generation a confessional situation.
The General Council of the Alliance in
Debrecen in 1997 called for a “process of
confession” where the churches would study
this issue to see what action they must take.
Once again we recognize the struggle against
the “idols,” an insistence that no realm is
outside God’s governance, and so one
cannot argue for the absolute autonomy of
the markets. God’s call for justice includes
the economic realm, as Calvin certainly
believed. The Alliance invited the Lutheran World Federation and the World Council of
Churches to share in this process of
confession, and they, too, have taken up
the matter, becoming partners in this
ecumenical effort. The Lutheran World
Federation has recently produced its own
statement on economic justice.
The 2004 General Council of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Accra
called for the churches now to take a
confessing stance, covenanting together for
justice in the economy and for the earth,
declaring their faith and reinforcing these
same theological points around the Council’stheme, “That all may have life in fullness
(Jn 10.10).” The solidarity of the human
family and God’s special concern for the poor
and for creation are emphasized as requiring
resistance to an unjust economic order
imposed by empire. Echoes of the Barmen
and Belhar Confessions call for faithful
resistance despite the consequences. Jesusis Lord!
Reformed initiative has thus been
encouraging much wider ecumenical
participation in this work for economic
justice, as it did earlier with the concern
for the rights of non-human creation and
the programme for Justice, Peace and the
Integrity of Creation.
I will conclude by reporting with pleasure
that the Accra confessing statement is
sparking much ecumenical interest in a far
corner of the world, that is, in California
(USA). A group of about forty grass-roots
activist leaders from many Christian
traditions, Catholic and Protestant, gathered
in an inner-city Presbyterian church in Los
Angeles to discuss the Accra declaration
and decided to find a way to set up
partnerships which would allow them to
live out together the commitment to
economic justice exemplified by that
document. A Faith and Order group of a
council of churches has studied thedocument. At a seminary in northern
California, a year-long seminar led by
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Catholic theologian Rosemary Ruether will
be studying the declaration.
A short Calvinian conclusion A final word from Calvin: “Each time
we read the word one , let us be reminded
Notes
1 William J. Bouwsma, John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait (N.Y.: Oxford UniversityPress, 1988), p.47.2 Lukas Vischer has brought together several helpful quotations of Calvin’s teaching in hisbook, Pia Conspiratio: Calvin on the Unity of Christ’s Church, Geneva: John Knox International Reformed Center), 2000; Lukas Vischer, “Pia Conspiratio. Calvin’s legacy andthe divisions of Reformed churches today”, www.warc.ch/dt/erl3/12.html .3 Paul Corby Finney, ed., Seeing Beyond the Word: Visual Arts and the Calvinist Tradition(Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1999).4 L. Vischer, pp.29-30.5 André Biéler, Calvin’s Economic and Social Thought . Geneva, WCC-WARC, 2005, 545pp.(Editor’s note)6 For an extensive bibliographic survey on this topic see Odair Pedroso Mateus, The World Alliance of Reformed Churches and the Modern Ecumenical Movement – A Selected,Chronological, Annotated Bibliography , Geneva, WARC, 2005, 143pp.7 Cf. Odair Pedroso Mateus, “Towards an Alliance of Protestant Churches? The Confessionaland the Ecumenical in the WARC Constitutions (I)”, Reformed World , 55(1), March 2005,pp.55-70.8 “Theological Declaration of Barmen”, www.warc.ch/pc/20th/. (Editor’s note)9 L. Vischer, “The Ecumenical Commitment of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches,”Reformed World, vol. 38, no. 5 (1985), p.262.10 “The Belhar Confession 1982” in Preparatory Documents for the WARC Consultation inSouth Africa, Geneva: World Alliance of Reformed Churches, 1993; cf. also “Confession of Belhar”, www.vgksa.org.za/confessions or www.warc.ch/pc/20th/ (Editor’s note).11 Edward Idris Cardinal Cassidy, “Ecumenical Challenges for the Future: A CatholicPerspective,” The Princeton Seminary Bulletin, 18 (1997), pp.26-7.12 George H. Tavard, The Starting Point of Calvin’s Theology (Grand Rapids: William B.Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2000), pp.vii-viii.13 Dennis Tamburello, O.F.M., “Christ at the Center: The Legacy of the Reformed Tradition,”
The Bulletin of the Institute for Reformed Theology, 4 (2004), pp.1, 3-6.14 Letter from Anna Case-Winters to Jane Dempsey Douglass, Oct. 26, 2004.15 Commentary on Eph 4.5 in L. Vischer, Pia conspiratio, p.13.
that it is used emphatically. Christ cannot
be divided. Faith cannot be rent. There are
not various baptisms, but one which is
common to all. It cannot but be our duty tocherish holy unity which is bound by so many
ties.”15
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VOLUME 55(4), DECEMBER, 2005
The true worship of God:social and economic themes in
contemporaryReformed Confessions
Margit Ernst-Habib
The Reformed principle of confessing the faith in this time and place does not prevent contemporary Reformed confessions from sharing a common concern as to
“how the Christian faith is related to issues of social and economic relevance”,argues the German theologian Margit Ernst-Habib. She approaches these contemporary faith statements from the perspective of classical theological topics.Ernst-Habib taught Systematic Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur (USA). She published recently “A Conversation with Twentieth-Century Confessions” in Joseph Small (ed.), Conversations with the Confessions, Louisville (USA), Geneva Press, 2005.
Believers truly worship God by the righteousness
they maintain within their society.
Calvin, Commentary on Matthew 12.7
God is in a special way the God of the destitute,
the poor and the wronged.
Belhar Confession (1982)
Between these two quotes lies a gap of
more than four centuries, two continents
and contexts that could hardly be more
diverse. And yet, a common faith theme
spans this gap: the God described and
confessed here is a God who cares
particularly for those who live on the
margins of society , polit ically and
economically.
The God Calvin had encountered in the
Scriptures and experienced in his time of
persecution and exile, but also in his time
as a (more or less) powerful authority in
Geneva, was not a removed, neutral and
uncaring God, but, as he emphasized over
and over again throughout his enormous
work, a sovereign God who governs the whole
universe and the communal and private lives
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of all human beings, who brings about a
reform of the religious as well as the secular
realm.
Because of this “theo”-logy Calvindisplays a strong sense of responsibility to
the world; a sense that four centuries later
is mirrored in the Belhar Confession.
Surprisingly, to many outside and inside the
Reformed tradition for whom Calvin is
tantamount to powerful establishment and
Calvinism just a synonym for Capitalism,1
the theme of social, economic, and in recent times even of ecological justice continues
to be of particular relevance and importance
for Reformed churches, finding a significant
expression in one of the central places of
the faith and life of these churches: their
confessions and statements of faith.
One of the characteristics of churches of
the Reformed tradition throughout the
centuries has been the fact that they are
never satisfied with their inherited
confessional statements or even a collection
of statements. Indeed, the last century has
seen something like a “revival” of
confessions in many parts of the Reformed
world: there about 50 new statements
issued by churches of the Reformed tradition
from all over the world.2
These confessions differ considerably in
almost every respect. They do not share a
common set of theological doctrines, they
use various languages and styles, they
emphasize a wide range of themes, and they
come from churches with backgrounds asdiverse as one can imagine. Finding
something like a “Re-form-ed identity” or
even “tenets of the Reformed faith” in these
documents is an important and exciting, yet
almost impossible task.
The characteristic principle of confessing anew in tempore et in loco (in this time and
this place) has not kept many, if not most of
these confessing churches, though, from
sharing at least one concern: how the
Christian faith is related to issues of social
and economic relevance. Some of those
confessional statements have even been
written on the background of imminent social, political or economic problems – most
prominent among them the Theological
Declaration of Barmen (Germany, 1934) and
the already mentioned Belhar Confession
(South Africa, 1982).
These issues could be studied in a variety
of ways, yet to me it seems that one of the
most informative and intriguing ways to look
at the question at hand is to begin with the
doctrinal roots and the contexts of where
this discussion is located. Related to central
theological doctrines, those parts of the
confessions are not just incidental and
subjective “add-ons”; or, to use a classical
term, they are not adiaphora (things that
do not make a difference) that could be
understood and implemented arbitrarily, but
belong to the main corpus of the faith
Reformed Christians confess today.
Within contemporary confessional
statements, we find at least six different,
though interrelated approaches, and one
confession may actually use several of them within the same document. Roughly
generalizing, we see the confessions relate
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the discussion to christological and
trinitarian arguments; to the context of the
doctrine of sin; to Christian life and
discipleship; to ecclesiology, and to thereflection upon the “world” as the secular
realm of God’s reign. These are the main
sections of this article.
The last section will deal with three
rather specific issues, which cannot be
excluded from our considerations although
they are not based on one theological
doctrine: the whole Confession of Faith of the Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba;
b) the understanding of “God’s preferential
love”; and, finally, c) the WARC processus
confessionis and the “Accra Confession”.
The limited space of this article allows
for no more than a brief discussion with
only a few examples from the actual texts,
intending to provide the reader with starting
points for her or his own research into the
subject matter.
1.The christological context
Quite often, the discussion of social and
economic issues is incorporated into a
trinitarian context, but still bears a more
pronounced christocentric emphasis. The
confessions insist that we know what justice
and injustice are only in God who has
already liberated humankind in Christ from
all powers of injustice. The following two
statements from Korea and the United
States emphasize the Christian God as the
One who is active in the world, and whose
promise of the Reign of God has already
become real and revealed in Christ.
[Jesus] became a friend of the poor,the oppressed, the sinners, the outcastsand the estranged. He lived a life for them, and he withstood all the evil
powers of injustice and of falsehood tothe point of death. … Jesus Christ standsat the right hand of God. … He himself sets the standards for this world andeffects history.3
Jesus’ involvement in the humancondition is God’s involvement. Hiscompassion for all kinds of people is God’scompassion. His demand for justice,truth, and faithfulness is God’s demand.
His willingness to suffer rejection is God’s willingness. Jesus’ love for the very people who reject him is God’s love.4
The Broederkring of the Dutch
Reformed Church (South Africa) declared on
the background of the theological heresy of
apartheid in 1979:
We believe that God reveals Himself in his Word as the One who throughout history in his relationship to men bindsHimself to his own justice in order tomake the world a place to live in. His life-giving Word became man in Christ Jesus,through whom He breaks the power of injustice. … We believe that God gathersfor Himself in this world a new people
who consist of men and women He hasliberated from oppressive powersthrough Jesus Christ. … As God’s propertythe church must be busy standing whereGod stands viz. against injustice and withthose who are denied justice.5
The sovereignty of God, one of the major
themes of classical Reformed theology and
confessions, is no longer expressed in rather
metaphysical or ontological ways. Instead,
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God’s majesty, justice and mercy are
articulated in a context of God’s powerful
engagement in the world with a particular
focus on the life and ministry of Jesus. Where the traditional confessions kept
silent, modern ones try to describe who Jesus
Christ is, in his time and for our time. Those
descriptions call for a newly defined imitatio
Christi (imitation of Christ) of all believers:
“the decision about Jesus’ identity is a
decision about the community to which one
belongs”.6
The Brief Statement of Faith of the
Presbyterian Church (USA) from 1990 uses
explicit biblical language and metaphors to
explain who Jesus Christ is and what the
Reign of God he ushered in is like. It calls
every believer, within the PCUSA and
beyond, to spell out concretely what it
means to confess Christ to be “fully human,
fully God. Jesus proclaimed the reign of God:
preaching good news to the poor and release
to the captives, teaching by word and deed
and blessing the children, healing the sick
and binding up the brokenhearted, eating
with outcasts, forgiving sinners, and calling
all to repent and believe the gospel.”7
It becomes clear in the course of this
confession that following Christ also means
concrete social and political action – not
because of our own theological and political
agendas, but because of the revelation of
full humanity in Christ.
2.The trinitarian context
The God confessed in modern
confessions is a God who has made Godself
known as the trinitarian God through God’s
work in the world – God’s being and acting
cannot be separated. And it is the trinitarian
God who commands and equips us toactively participate in this world and all its
struggles for freedom and justice. The
Statement of Korean Christians (1973) ,
written by a group of both theologians and
laypeople who belong to a wide range of
Protestant denominations suffering in a
situation of persecution and imprisonment,
uses a trinitarian structure, and the issue of justice figures prominently in each of the
three articles.
We believe that, just as Jesus thenlived with and for the oppressed, the poor and the outcasts in Judea, so we must now live with the oppressed, the poor and the outcasts and share their fate.
(…) We believe that God, the Lord and
Judge of history, commands us to pray for the freedom of oppressed people and of those who suffer innocently for their neighbours.
We believe that the Spirit summonsus to active participation not only in therenewal of our own personality but also
in the creation of a new society and anew history. He is the Spirit of theKingdom of God who commands us tofight for social and politicaltransformation.8
It is not only the life and ministry of Jesus
which inform us about the true Christian worship and life, but the trinitarian God who
“effects not only the renewal andsanctification of individual lives but also therecreation of history and of the universe.”9
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In a similar way, a document from South
Africa confesses the trinitarian God in and
for its context. The aim of A Declaration of
Faith for the Church in South Africa 10
is “toexpress the response of that [Christian] faith
to an urgent, specific and contemporary
problem in the Church … and in our
society.”11 But even though it is specifically
written against the “ideological heresy that
insists on the separate identity of racial
groups as a supreme value and ideal”,12 it
can only be read and understood as one voice of and for the una sancta ecclesia.
We believe in the Father, … who wantsall his people to live together as brothersand sisters in one family. We believe in Jesus Christ the Son, who becamehuman, … to break down every separating barrier of race, culture or class. … He
summons both the individual andsociety, both the Church and the State,to seek justice and freedom for all andreconciliation and unity between all. … We believe in the Holy Spirit, … who givesthe church power to love and serve allpeople, to strive for justice and peace, to warn the individual and the nation of God’s judgment.13
3.The doctrine of sin
Unlike the first two approaches, the third
uses the form of a “negative” approach. In
Christ and through the power of the Holy
Spirit, we know what God does not want.
We know where we fall short of what we are
created for in the image of God; where we
have turned justice into injustice,stewardship into exploitation, unity intosegregation and domination. In short, we
know our sin, individually and communally.
Many contemporary confessions emphasize
the understanding that sin is not only an
individual rebellion against God, but that it always has a social and communal side, too,
and that liberation from sin also includes
those two sides. The Evangelical
Presbyterian Church in Chile confessed in
1983:
I believe that sin is a real force which
radically disrupts our relationship withGod; it manifests itself personally and socially ; it turns both our desires and our deeds towards egoism, destruction anddeath. … I believe in God the Son, who …rose from the dead, triumphantlyasserting the power of the God of lifeover life-negating forces of oppressionand injustice, both personal and corporate.14
The Presbyterian Church in the Republic
of Korea phrases this understanding
comparably: “Man’s evil, universal and
individual, is the origin of corruption and
depravity. It manipulates the individual, and
as a social power it permeates the whole
human community and destroys God’s
creation.”15
The Presbyterian Church in Canada
explicitly includes what liberation
theologians from Latin America and other
regions have long since claimed; that is, our
sin affects every area of created life and has
a structural or systemic component:
Because we are sinful the societies
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we live in are sinful . There are noexceptions: every system is flawed. Weare part of the evil of the world, of its violence, neglect, injustice.16
With vi vid words , these sta tements
demonstrate one common theme in
Reformed confessions: every confession of
sin is first of all a confession of our sin, the
sin of the church, and not judgment on the
sin of others. Accordingly, the Evangelical
Protestant Church of Djibouti proclaims the
mercy of God, even for those who are
responsible for the sufferings of the victims
of “political oppression, economic disasters,17
or all ideological domination”18 as well as
for the sinful individual believer: “I believe
in the mercy of God also for me: often I
denied my brothers, deaf and blind to their
sufferings, I may have even participated in
their oppression.”19
The already mentioned Brief Statement
of Faith (PCUSA) adds yet another
dimension to the confession of sin. On the
background of the global ecological crisis, it
defines the results of sin as follows: “Ignoring
God’s commandments, we … exploit neighbor
and nature, and threaten death to the planet entrusted to our care. We deserve God’s
condemnation.”20
In a more poetic style, the Creed of Hope
of the Waldensian Evangelical Church of
the River Plate (1997) describes the
ecological crises as a result of human sin,
but also their hope in a compassionate God:
I believe in a God who watches the worldtoday attentively, … who sees … the dirty water and the death of the fish, the pollution
that destroys the earth and perforates the
sky. … I believe in a God who sees all that …
and who cries about it. But I also believe in
a God … who laughs – because, despiteeverything, there is hope.21
4.The Christian life
Since God has already liberated us from
the power of sin, both individually and
communally, in the religious as well as in
the secular realm, the “Life of Love”22 can
and has to reflect this liberation, as thePresbyterian Church in the Republic of
Korea emphatically emphasizes:
The “new man” in the Spirit followsthe example of Christ in becoming thefriend of the weak and the fighter against the oppressors and their oppressive evilstructures; he sacrifices himself for the
sake of the oppressed and organizesforces who also wish to support theoppressed. Life in the Spirit means a lifededicated to sharing in the suffering andresurrection of Christ.23
In our global world and economy, the
Declaration of Faith of the Presbyterian
Church in the United States urges us to
newly define who our “neighbor” is, and how
our lives are intertwined with those living
far away from us.
We believe Christ gives us anddemands of us lives that recognize allpeople in all cultures as our neighborson this planet. Christ teaches us to go
beyond legal requirements in serving andhelping our neighbor, to treat our
neighbor’s needs as our own, to care
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passionately for the other’s good, to share what we have. It is part of our disciplineto live in simplicity, avoiding greed andluxury that threaten our neighbor’s
survival.24
Our Song of Hope , issued in 1974 by the
Reformed Church in America, describes the
new life of the believer, entitled “Our Hope
in Daily Life”.
As citizens we acknowledge the
Spirit’s work in human government for the welfare of the people, for justiceamong the poor, for mercy towards theprisoner, against inhuman oppression of humanity. … We give thanks for God’s work among governments, seeking toresolve disputes by means other than war, placing human kindness abovenational pride, replacing the curse of war with international self-control.25
In a more general way, two documents,
one from Europe and one from Latin
America, conclude their respective
statements with a call to active social and
political discipleship:
Devoted to the values of social justice,
of peace and of tolerance, Protestants,along with others, denounce the dangersof idolatry and infringement of humanrights wherever it is necessary.26
It is our responsibility to identifyourselves with all people and to servethem; to fight against those forces whichoppress human beings and bar the wayto their full realization as children of God.27
5.The mission of the churchFollowing these lines, modern Reformed
ecclesiology also displays a specific
accentuation. The church is not understood
as an entity separated from the world, but
as God’s instrument for God’s reconciling mission in and for the world and all aspects
of human life.
The Confession of 1967 is built upon the
main theme of reconciliation, which is
understood to be the “heart of the gospel in
any age”.28 In this context, the ministry of
the church is understood as the ministry of
reconciliation. The United Presbyterian
Church defines four specific social and
economic “problems and crises through
which God calls the church to act” and that
are “particularly urgent at the present
time”;29 namely, racism, peace, poverty, and
family life. Regarding the issue of poverty,
the Confession of 1967 asserts:
Because Jesus identified himself withthe needy and exploited, the cause of the world’s poor is the cause of hisdisciples. The church cannot condonepoverty, whether it is the product of unjust social structures, exploitation of the defenseless, lack of nationalresources, absence of technological
understanding, or rapid expansion of populations. … A church that isindifferent to poverty, or evadesresponsibility in economic affairs, or isopen to one social class only, or expectsgratitude for its beneficence makes amockery of reconciliation and offers noacceptable worship to God.30
It is obvious, that the ministry of reconciliation of the church cannot be
understood as some sort of church’s “agenda”
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which could easily be changed, because it isrooted in christological convictions: “The life,
death, resurrection, and promised coming
of Jesus Christ has set the pattern for thechurch’s mission. … The church follows this
pattern in the form of its life and in the
method of its action. So to live and serve is
to confess Christ as Lord.”31
This mission of the church cannot be
understood without the work of God who is
actively engaged in world and church, and
who calls and sends the church to becomepart of God’s own mission. To follow this call
of God can lead a church to become a church
under the cross, to suffer all sorts of
persecution for its confession of faith.
In the midst of a collusion of several super
powers in their own country, the
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan dared to call
upon its own members to “get rid of apsychology which is concerned only with
the preservation of its own existence and a
salvation that has to do only with the
individual”;32 and it claimed:
The church should become theservant of justice and truth; the aim of
the church’s existence is to communicatethe message of God’s love, and becauseof this the church must, in the spirit of real love, get involved in the actualitiesof modern society and through serviceseek to change the conditions of society. The world today is full of the fear of injustice and war. … The church cannot,here and now, keep silence, sitting byand watching the world sink into ruin;
besides participating in the spreading of the gospel and leading men to repent and believe in the Lord, it must express
concern for the whole nation, for society,and for the whole of mankind.33
In general, Reformed churches
emphasize that the ministry of the church
includes caring for the individual as well as
for society, and wherever one part is missing,
“the mission of the Church is defective”,34
as the Plan for Union of the Joint
Commission on Church Union in New
Zealand declared in 1971.
6.The world
Even more emphatic than the classical
confessions, contemporary texts do not
make a division between a sacred and a
secular realm, on the contrary, “…God’s
primary concern is with the world. … The
world and its history constitute the arena
of God’s concern”.35 For example, the
doctrines of reconciliation and salvationare not limited to the discussion of
personal and individual reconciliation, but
are also discussed in a communal, even
global sense; they are rightly understood
only in the perspective of God’s completion
of history.
It does not come as a surprise, then,
that modern confession can even includea whole section on “The World” as does,
for example, the Confession of the Church
of Toraja (1981). After confessing that “the
world and everything that is in it is the
good creation of God”,36 this documents
claims that
The life of mankind is out of balance,and this is especially clear in thedistinction and difference of socio-
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economic position, which has beenlegalised in the various structures of society, both traditional and modern. Thesocio-economic structures which cause
injustice need to be taken down andrenewed by the power of the Holy Spirit so that they may be in accordance withthe will of God.37
As a consequence of our sin, God’s good
creation has become a “hopeless world”.38
In this context, the traditional
understanding of the gubernatio Dei (God’s
government of the world), the trust in Jesus
Christ as “the hope of God’s world”39 has to
be confessed anew:
This world, with all the institutionsin it, which has been put into disorder bysin, is constantly loved, cared for andgoverned by God in His faithfulness. God
has liberated and renewed, and isliberating and renewing, this world in Jesus Christ, towards its fullness in thenew heaven and earth.40
The Christian God is confessed in
modern Reformed confessions as the one
“who watches the world today attentively”41
and “who is at work, especially in events
and movements that free people by thegospel and advance justice, compassion, and
peace.”42 Since “Jesus Christ is Lord over all
life, individual, social, national and
international”,43 Christian life and hope andhope for and in the world is to be understoodin this broad perspective too.
7.Three special issuesa.The Confession of Faith of the
Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba
(1977) This provocative faith document from
Cuba is the endeavour of a church to testify
to “the significance that the Gospel of Jesus
Christ has today for the Church in Cuba”,44
while the particular characteristic of it “lies
in the fact that it expresses the faith of a
Reformed Church which has consciously
embraced the goals of the socialist
revolution”.45
The Cuban confession is not only unique
in that it is, to my knowledge, the only official
statement of faith of a Reformed church ina socialist society, but also in that it explicitly
assumed that the Marxist-Leninist
revolution may lead church and society closer
to the fulfilment of God’s plans for humanity.
The Presbyterian-Reformed Church in Cuba
claimed that in doing so, “it comes
dangerously close to the radical
secularization taken on by God in Jesus
Christ, and runs the same risks that He did
of misunderstandings, sufferings and
crucifixion.46
It is impossible to summarize adequately,
in a few lines, this lengthy document and
its theological arguments with respect to
social and economic issues. A few quotes
relating to its three underlying fundamental
principles may suffice to give a first
impression of this challenging document.
The first principle, the so-called
“anthropocentripetal criterion”,47 declares
that the absolute centrality of the human
being is given in Jesus Christ: “Faith in Jesus
Christ obligates the Church to place thehuman being in the center of its interest and concern, and to consider him as a
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parameter to judge all things, especially to
evaluate its own doctrinal teaching, itsspecific ecclesiastical structures and its
particular mission as the Church.”48
The second principle, the criterion of
historical impetus, relates terms such as
“salvation” and “liberation” no longer
exclusively to individual and private
salvat ion, but a lso to the “socia l-
economical reconstruction of the human
being”:49
Salvation for Scriptures means thereconstruction of the human being as‘co-heir of all things’; that is, of thosegoods which, in faithfulness to his�