Learning to Speak Christianese, Part 2

“Now I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I delivered them to you.” ~I Corinthians 11:2

Last week we began a series of devotionals that are intended to define some of the Christian vernacular you might hear at Christ Covenant Church—what we’re calling “Christianese.” I, for one, am often guilty of using the language of the church without sufficient explanation. Last week, after introducing the series, we defined “Redemptive History.” In the midst of that description, we used the phrase “Reformed Tradition.” What exactly does it mean that we at Christ Covenant Church stand in the stream of the Reformed Tradition?

The Reformed Tradition, simply defined, is the historic, orthodox, confessional, and covenantal system of belief that emphasizes God’s sovereignty and grace in salvation, the authority of Scripture, and the place of the Church in God’s Redemptive-Historical plan. Did that help? Let me pick a few of these terms to help parse out this definition.

The Reformed Tradition is historic and orthodox. It is most commonly associated with the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century started by Martin Luther (1483–1536). Luther had begun a recovery of the biblical doctrine of salvation (among other doctrines) and started a protest against various Roman Catholic teachings and practices. To be sure, the Protestant Reformation is appropriately linked to the 16th century, but the Reformed Tradition and all it entails goes back much further than 1517 (the year Luther began his protest). The Protestant Reformation was a recovery of the teaching of the church fathers of the first five centuries after Christ. Men like Augustine of Hippo, for example, taught much of what we hold dear in the Reformed Tradition. It’s fair to think of our Reformed heritage as stretching back at least that far, but it would also be true to say that the Reformed Tradition is simply biblical, as what Luther, Augustine, and all faithful men have taught is what the Bible itself says about these matters. Therefore, we can say that the Reformed Tradition is the system of doctrine that accords with what the Bible says about God, salvation, the Church, etc. The Reformed Tradition is historic (it goes all the way back to the Bible), and it is orthodox (it teaches the truth the Bible itself teaches).

One quick caveat: there are Christians out there who don’t accept all the tenets of the Reformed Tradition. These brothers and sisters are certainly believers in Christ, but they don’t subscribe to the full scope of Reformed theology. We love these fellow believers and look forward to worshiping Christ in heaven together. Of course, one cannot be a Christian without faith in Christ, but to have a different understanding of the role of the Church in Redemptive History or the application of the sacraments is not of the essence of the Gospel (another term to define!).

Well that’s all the room we have this week. Next week we’ll seek to explain what it means to be confessional and covenantal as we continue to define this rich term, “Reformed Tradition.”

Rev. Kyle Lockhart, Pastor of Teaching & Spiritual Formation