Worship and organization

Liturgy

In the Reformation earlier liturgies were modified by using the vernacular, removing anything that implied the reenacting of sacrifice in the mass, providing for congregational confession, and emphasizing the preaching of the word. Following Erasmus’ recommendation, the singing of Psalms became characteristic of Reformed worship. While most Reformed churches today use a broad spectrum of vocal music, some hold exclusively to Psalms.

Stress on preaching reached its peak among English Puritans. Some clergy preached two hours on an Old Testament text on Sunday morning, two hours on a New Testament text in the afternoon, and devoted the evening to discussion of the day’s sermons with the congregation. Calvin held that the Eucharist should be celebrated weekly, though others believed that it was too sacred for such frequent use. Care was taken to instruct participants and to prepare them for confession. The Eucharist was served around a table.

In the 20th century attention has been given to relating worship to the social and material needs of human beings as well as to communicating the word to human hearts and minds. At the Iona Community in Scotland, for example, where worship is directed to those intending to work in economically deprived areas, and at the Taizé Community in France new forms of worship are being developed. In recent years there has been emphasis upon celebration in response to the good news of God, a greater appreciation of the arts in worship than in the past, and a concern for inclusive language.

Religious education

The requirements of Reformed life have demanded an educated clergy and an informed laity. Besides academic training for pastors, the early practice was for them to meet often and for one to interpret Scripture and for the others to engage in critical discussion. Queen Elizabeth I suppressed the custom in England, for she believed that four sermons a year were quite enough and that gatherings of pastors might be subversive.

Lay education was accomplished through preaching the word and teaching the catechism, such as Calvin’s Little Catechism, which was designed for teaching the young. Others, such as the Westminster Larger Catechism, were used to instruct pastors and teachers. More recently catechetical instruction has given way to inductive forms of education, with emphasis on the age level at which instruction takes place. There is also concern to relate the Christian faith to the daily life of the larger community.

Present organization of Reformed and Presbyterian churches

In Presbyterian churches a local congregation is ruled internally by a session moderated by the pastor and composed of laity (elders) elected from the congregation. A presbytery formed of pastors and elders representing each congregation rules over local congregations on a district level. In other Reformed churches the district association has less power and the local congregation more than in Presbyterian churches. In Hungarian Reformed churches a presiding bishop moderates the presbytery.

Beyond the district level are regional synods or conferences and national assemblies. These bodies are usually composed of an equal number of clergy and laity. Since 1875 there has been a World Alliance of Reformed Churches, which was joined in 1970 at Nairobi, Kenya, by the International Congregational Council to form the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (Presbyterian and Congregational). There are about 160 member denominations.

Although a few Reformed groups still have a special relationship to the government of their nation, there is little difference in practice between established and free Reformed churches.

Social ethics

Reformation leaders were involved in the total life of their communities. Calvin’s relation to the education, health and welfare services, refugee settlement, industry, finance, and politics of Geneva is well documented. The historian R.H. Tawney, impressed by this, has called Calvin a “Christian socialist.” The English Puritans believed that if they could reshape the political and church life of the nation, God’s blessing would come upon the land instead of war, famine, and pestilence. Concern to achieve greater social justice for humankind has been normative among Presbyterian and Reformed churches. Such concern in the past has been seen as resulting sometimes in petty rules and harsh administration, but in new forms that concern is still a living force.

Types of Reformed piety

In Zwingli, Calvin, William the Silent, and Cromwell, a classic type of Reformed piety was manifest. Those persons saw themselves as God’s instruments in redeeming human affairs, even at cost to themselves, and they had high expectations of others. Living under God’s mercy, they showed little fear of the powers of this world and were ready to make choices on a pragmatic basis.

In a less heroic mold were Reformed Christians who did not expect to change history but who encouraged the development of godliness in those about them, beginning with themselves. The increasing emphasis in the late 16th century upon the personal experience of saving faith helped the Reformed tradition to become a nursery for Pietism in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Along with a more confessional orthodoxy and a more rationalistic liberalism, such Pietism remains to the present. A new style of worldly Christianity is emerging with Christ, standing for and with the oppressed, as the model.