So I'm not a Presbyterian anymore. That's old news. But I'm still reading a lot of the same books, and I still pay attention to the same time period of the English Reformation. And now as an Anglican, one surprising discovery is just how much of a common "family...

A series hoping to find points of continuity between the "Anglican" position on ceremonies and tradition and that of the broader Reformed churches would surely want to skip the Scottish Confession of Faith, 1560. At least, that's the common assumption. Indeed, after a...

The French Confession of 1559 was put together by men associated with the National Synod at La Rochelle. Theodore Beza was one of the leading figures there. This confession is longer and more detailed than most of the earlier Reformed confessions, perhaps indicating...

The next Reformed confession in our series on tradition is the Genevan Confession of 1536. This was written by John Calvin, but it shows an affinity with the Tetrapolitan Confession, particularly in its section on human traditions. In its 17th chapter, the Genevan...

The Lausanne Articles of 1536 were written by Guillaume Farel and Pierre Viret. They show a similar sort of theology of adiaphora as preceding Reformed confessional statements. They begin with a strong criticism of ceremonies which were not ordained by Christ, and yet...

The First Helvetic Confession of Faith was another attempted Reformed-Lutheran symbol of unity. Composed thirty years before its more famous successor, the First Helvetic was written by Heinrich Bullinger in concert with men who used to be famous: Grynaeus, Myconius,...

The Tetrapolitan Confession of 1530 represented the theology of the cities of Strasbourg, Constance, Memmingen, and Lindau. It was written chiefly by Martin Bucer. It can be thought of as an attempted Lutheran-Reformed unity confession to go along with the Augsburg...