National Synod Research Articles

Bishop or Presbyter? French Reformed Ecclesiology in 1559

Unlike semi-reformed Anglicanism’s retention of episcopacy, the French Reformed Church swiftly adopted presbyterian order in 1559. While the Anglican settlement held an attraction for some pastors of the Eglise Réformée, their appeal to Calvin’s authority had little justification. Recognising the thrust of Calvin’s biblical insights, the first French National Synod saw the significance of a fully reformed ecclesiology for a consistent expression of evangelical soteriology. In rejecting episcopacy, they rejected the concept of a sacrificing priest in favour of a preaching pastor. Thus the Anglican via media possessed potential for ensuring that recent debates over the ordination of women would hinge on medieval theories of priesthood rather than a fully reformed concept of ministerial order.

Die Gereformeerde kerke in Suid-Afrika in ekumeniese konteks

The Gereformcerde Kerke in Suid-Afrika (GKSA) have developed a certain pattern in their ecumenical relations over the years. Ecclesiastical unity with various churches has been maintained and this unity has been defined as correspondence. As a result of missionary work a General Synod consisting of four National Synods which were based on ethnicity was established in 1964. The GKSA was also deeply involved in the formation of the Reformed Ecumenical Synod in 1946 but this relation was suspended in 1946. Close contact and dialogue were also exercised with the other Dutch Reformed churches.

REFORMED CHURCH OF FRANCE, National Synod

The Ecumenical ReviewVolume 43, Issue 4 p. 480-481 REFORMED CHURCH OF FRANCE, National Synod First published: October 1991 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1758-6623.1991.tb02745.xAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat No abstract is available for this article. Volume43, Issue4October 1991Pages 480-481 RelatedInformation

’n Toets vir Gereformeerde Ekumene

While there is a universal interest for ecumenical involvement, the Reformed Churches in South Africa (GKSA) suspended relations with the Reformed Ecumenical Council, the only ecumenical movement in which the GKSA has ever been involved. Criticism has been directed at the GKSA for isolating itself and for not being concerned in the relevant problematics of the day. This article indicates what the official relations of the GKSA are, how the GKSA approaches the ecumenical calling in the present situation, what problems exist in this regard, and with what test the GKSA is confronted. In order to do this an attempt is made in this article to determine what the norms for ecumenicity according to the Scriptures are. This approach will be undertaken by examining the central revelation-historical lines which occur in the Old Testament and extend to the New Testament, and by outlining the resulting data about the character and the organisation of the church. It will be demonstrated that the church is essentially concerned with the proclamation of the word and the embodiment of the requirements of the Word: not with impersonal, organisational, technical or other structures but with the personal relation with God, the Creator, Ruler and Saviour of mankind as embodied in his (covenant) people. This is a relation with God in Christ and with the neighbour, in an existential, local context and in universal perspective The test for the GKSA will be whether justice is done to the universal character as well as the confessional character and the personal character of its calling. This threefold relation will especially become clear in the GKSA's handling o f the ecclesiastical set-up in the relation with the other National Synods, from the local level up to the synodical level, because it is especially on the level of these National Synods that a lack in the personal relations or the character of these relations is apparent.

De Irenische Perkins-Vertaling Van De Arminiaan Everard Booth (1577-1610) 1

AbstractBooth's Translation of an Irenical Perkins-Book In 1604 the Utrecht minister Everard Booth (1577-1610) published a translation of William Perkins' 'A Reformed Catholike'. Because of this translation, biographical dictionaries and other literature say that he must have agreed more or less with the predestinarian views of Franciscus Gomarus. In the conflict between Franciscus Gomarus and Jacobus Arminius, Perkins played an important part. He owes this to Arminius, who wrote a book against him and utterly disliked his ideas on predestination, the certainty of faith and final perseverance. The problem is that Booth attended the Conventus Praeparatorius (1607), a meeting meant for the preparation of a national synod. Here he agreed with Arminius on the question of whether the Belgic confession ought to be revised or not. In 1610, the year of his death, Booth's position raises even less doubt. He proved himself to be an Arminian. So his translation of Perkins might point to a change in his outlook or to a moderate stand. However, there is a better solution to the riddle of how a potential Arminian could like Perkins. Perkins' 'A Reformed Catholike' (1597) is an item in the syllabus of irenical writings, released by the French diplomat Jean Hotman in 1607 and extended later on. Utrecht was a former cathedral city which still had a high percentage of Roman Catholic inhabitants. Presumably Booth's attention was drawn to 'A Reformed Catholike' because of its irenical character. He may have considered the book as a means to bring his Catholic fellow citizens to other thoughts. In the same year, 1604, a second Dutchman, Vincent Meusevoet, translated 'A Reformed Catholike' too. He published it together with a translation of a highly polemical book written by Perkins, 'A Warning against the Idolatrie of the Last Times'. Booth did not do things in this way. Incidentally, he took a Latin edition of Perkins' book as his source, not the original English work, as Meusevoet did. 'A Reformed Catholike' is, indeed an irenical treatise. Perkins started his chapters with a discourse on the issues agreed on among Catholics and Protestants. Especially illustrative is the sixteenth chapter dealing with the faith. In the first part of this chapter, devoted to the common elements, he discussed his favourite theme for bruised consciences, namely that a small portion of faith, a faith as a grain of mustard seed, is sufficient in the eyes of God for salvation. So Roman Catholics who desired to believe could assume that they would be children of God, according to Perkins. As a matter of course, nobody was entitled to be satisfied with a small sparkle of faith: man had to aim at an increasing faith. Yet the 'infolded faith' really had a great importance according to Perkins. He showed himself open to the Roman Catholics on a central point in his theological thinking. Booth must have felt attracted to thoughts like those mentioned in 'A Reformed Catholike'. He was an irenical theologian. In the Dutch predestinarian conflict, the irenicists often turned out to be Arminians later on. Notwithstanding his English example Booth's irenical feelings placed him alongside the Arminians with their less unquestioning ideas. One indication of Booth's gifts as an irenicist is what became of the Utrecht Reformed community after his arrival (1602). For many years it had been in a state of turmoil. There were many people who steadfastly refused to go to church in Utrecht. They blamed the Consistory because it danced to the piping of the magistrate. After his arrival the situation improved. During his ministry (1602-1610) the Utrecht church enjoyed a period of peace. This may be mainly due to his influence. Booth was a pupil of the Leiden professor Franciscus Junius, the author of the 'Eirenicum de Pace Ecclesiae Catholicae'. Junius tried to mediate between the religious parties in Utrecht from 1593 onwards. Everard Booth followed in his footsteps.

National synods, kingship as office, and royal anointing: an early medieval syndrome

Professor Gabriel Le Bras, a great pioneer in the field of historical sociology, has spoken of the early medieval Church in a bizarre but effective metaphor as ‘a dismembered body striving to reunite itself’. The essential task of the hierarchy within each national Church was one of coordination—by means of law, doctrine, and the standardization of worship. In the fragmented world of the barbarian kingdoms, the distinctive feature of each episcopate was its ideology of cohesion, the more ardently propounded when social crisis was particularly acute, as in the seventh-century Visigothic kingdom, or the war-torn West Francia of the 830s and 840s. This ideology was, moreover, often intimately associated with movements of monastic reform. Its influence penetrated down into the rural base of society through episcopal visitations, preaching, and provincial councils. To trace all the elements in these complex processes of interaction and change would encompass that much-needed sociology of the early medieval Church which Max Weber did not live to write and no scholar has yet produced. In this paper, as its title implies, my very limited objective is to isolate and examine certain recurrent phenomena and to point to some hitherto unnoticed connections.

The Nature and Structure of the Confessing Church in Germany Under Hitler

Xhe first months of the Hitler regime in 1933 resulted in a Concordat with the Vatican and the enactment of a church constitution for a German Evangelical Church. Both the Catholic and Protestant Churches were thus given a new basis for their relations with the state. Within the Protestant Church a group known as the German Christians made rapid headway. They were enthusiastic supporters of the new Nazi order with its theories and ideas, notably the racial concept. But differences over the election of a Reich Bishop soon brought into the open a conflict between the German Christians and other church groups and leaders. By the time the new national synod met on 27 September 1933 to formalize the election of Hitler's confidant, Bishop Muller, an opposition group had appeared. These opposition leaders formed a Pastors' Emergency League whose purpose it was to aid fellow pastors in distress, from dues assessed on its members.1 Martin Niemoller became the leading

Ordination of a Pastor

The Liturgical Commissions of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession, the French Evangelical Lutheran Church, the Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine and of the French Reformed Church have together worked out this Liturgy. These four Commissions met together for the first time in 1960 in order to compile one form for presentation to the National gatherings of each of the Churches represented, and on a second occasion to alter the text in the light of the modifications there suggested. The National Synod at Valence (in 1961), when acquainted with the proposal, “approved both the principle expressed and the various parts”. It provided the Liturgical Commission with a certain number of modifications of which note was taken, by agreement with the other Commissions involved, in arriving at the commonly agreed text which is now published. The Synod particularly emphasised this point: “Without wishing to insist from the outset on the nature and number of the officiants, the Synod does think it best that the laying-on-of-hands should be performed by two of them at least

Calvinism and Democracy: Some Political Implications of Debates on French Reformed Church Government, 1562-1572.

THE idea that Calvinism provided an important source of political democracy was long a popular one in this country. Careful studies of Calvin's own political ideas exploded a part of that theory several decades ago.' There remained in some quarters the belief that the Calvinist introduction into church government of some popular participation helps to explain the rise of democratic civil government. Recent studies have cast doubt even on this argument from analogy.2 There were periods in the early history of the Calvinist movement, however, when the argument from analogy was taken seriously. They deserve further study. One such period was the decade I562-I572, beginning shortly before Calvin's death in I564, extending until the St. Bartholomew's massacres in 1572. During this decade, the Reformed church that Calvin had founded in France was rocked by a bitter running quarrel that assumed significant proportions. One faction within that church argued that Christian church government should be highly decentralized, with local congregations assuming virtual autonomy and with laymen playing a significant role in their leadership. In short, they wanted what we might call congregationalism. Another faction insisted on strengthening the centralizing institutions in Reformed church government, particularly the provincial and national synods, and the peculiarly powerful Geneva mother church, with ordained

National Synods

National Synods