Reformed Catholicity as a Generative Theological Vision

Michael Allen and Scott Swain’s Reformed Catholicity marked a turning point in the ongoing conversation about renewing a catholic and Reformed theological tradition, clarifying its doctrinal, ecclesial, and exegetical dimensions.

As a theological program, Reformed catholicity has shown remarkable promise. Though I contributed the Afterword to Reformed Catholicity, my own work has since developed a Reformed and catholic sensibility in directions I did not anticipate—on sacraments and church, providence and lament, and resurrection hope.^[1] More broadly, the past decade has also seen impressive historical scholarship contributing to a Reformed and catholic theological vision. This historical scholarship highlights the catholicity of Reformed thinkers from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as well as some in the modern era. As such, Reformed catholicity should not merely be a “Protestant version” of the twentieth-century Roman Catholic ressourcement movement. Rather, its impulse aligns with the Reformation’s own commitments: biblical interpretation, catechesis, discipleship, and the translation of patristic and medieval works. The Reformers consistently honored the “ancient fathers” as “chosen instruments of God,” as the First Helvetic Confession states, even as they remained deeply aware of their fallibility. Whether in the sixteenth or seventeenth century or in the “orthodox and modern” approach of Herman Bavinck at the turn of the twentieth century, this instinct has yielded significant theological fruit.

What are the implications of a Reformed and catholic sensibility for contemporary scholarship, and where might it develop further? In 2022, I published a chapter on “Reformed Catholicity” in The New Cambridge Companion to Christian Theology, exploring those questions.^[2] By inhabiting the Reformed tradition toward catholic ends, this approach challenges persistent deficits in the modern theological imagination. It also invites us to hear old voices in new and perhaps surprising ways. For example, within a theocentric framework, figures like Lemuel Haynes (1753–1833) and others in the Black ecclesial tradition exemplified Reformed catholicity in ways with profound theological and social implications. While Reformed theology, like any tradition, has at times been distorted to justify injustice, these voices serve as crucial counterpoints, illuminating trajectories that remain deeply relevant today.

For the remainder of this essay, I will not revisit the portrait of Reformed catholicity and its possibilities from my chapter but will instead focus on a pressing issue: the ecclesial fragmentation of the visible church today, including within the broader Reformed communion. While its historical, cultural, and sociological dimensions have been studied, its theological implications remain surprisingly underexplored in recent scholarship.

The issue extends beyond denominational and congregational splits to a deeper challenge. Across both denominational and nondenominational settings, whether “progressive” or “conservative,” many Christian communities within the broadly Reformed tradition are marked by pervasive alienation and mutual contempt.

This problem is not new. As Joseph Small observes, it is a “paradox…deeply embedded within the Reformed tradition. From the beginning, Reformed churches have articulated deep commitment to the unity of the whole church, working for visible forms of unity among separated churches. And yet Reformed churches have always been susceptible to internal partitions, schisms, and ongoing fragmentation.”^[3]

At the same time, these divisions take on new expressions today, which I see firsthand as a seminary professor. My students come from conservative, mainline, and nondenominational backgrounds. Yet, sadly, one of their most formative and widely shared experiences is ecclesial fracture, division, and alienation. Too often, contempt for theological opponents is mistaken for spiritual discernment. At denominational gatherings, modern variations of the Pharisee’s prayer abound: “God, I thank you that I am not like this unenlightened person or that one.” This posture, tragically, transcends denominational lines, fostering suspicion and distrust even among members of the same communion.

Today we often frame this problem in terms of polarization, a path of identity formation based on perceived threats rather than core convictions. This is valuable. But what makes the problem theological? And what does it have to do with catholicity?

Though “catholicity” is not a biblical term, it expresses a deeply biblical reality—the unity of God’s people in Christ. The New Testament repeatedly emphasizes this oneness. For example, in Ephesians 2, Christ’s death and resurrection put hostility “to death,” between Jews and Gentiles, reconciling both to God “in one body through the cross.” Unity is not merely an aspiration but a reality God has accomplished. Ephesians 4 underscores this. The unique work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit brings divided peoples into the one household of God: “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.” The reality of God’s work defines the shape of our human work—to live in his household “with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:2–3).

While these chapters from Ephesians have played a crucial role, historically, in a Reformed vision of the church, this vision of God’s work and calling for the church is so distant from the lived experience of many today that it risks being dismissed as an abstract, otherwordly reality. Myriad forces drive contempt rather than koinonia within the visible church today. This deserves careful theological and sociological analysis. What would it mean to hear and obey God’s word through passages like these in Ephesians, when we have become invested in the self-sorting of late-modern politics of identity, defining ourselves by who or what we are against, and clinging to others with shared affinity?

The concern for the visible unity of the church should not be left solely to ecumenical organizations or to traditions that embrace what Gavin Ortlund calls “institutional exclusivism”—the idea that “the real church of Christ is restricted to one visible, institutional church with its own unique hierarchical structure.”^[4] At its best, the Reformed tradition has no interest in institutional exclusivism; since its opening generations, it has been united in theological confession, while adapting to various expressions in prayer, worship, polity, and institutional structure.

At the same time, the Reformed distinction between the visible and invisible church should never justify failing to live under God’s Word. The call in Ephesians to “bear with one another in love” is not an abstract principle, but a call to life within the messy, concrete reality of the covenant community, the visible church. This is precisely why humility, gentleness, and patience are necessary.

Reformed confessions, such as the Belgic and Westminster Confessions, reflect this reality by drawing on the parable of the wheat and the tares (Matt. 13:24–30, 36–43). They insist that the church is a mixed body, where the elect and hypocrites are intertwined in ways beyond our epistemic grasp. Our age is obsessed with drawing rigid lines: “The mainline church is completely dead.” “Conservative churches don’t know the real good news.” In contrast, Westminster reminds us that even “the purest churches under heaven are subject both to mixture and error”—and that we are called to the difficult, humbling task of pursuing unity with patience and love.

Can Reformed catholicity offer a vision, not just for retrieval but for ecclesial renewal—one that resists the fractures of our time and takes seriously the imperative to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace”?

This question is both theological and existential, and it has profound implications for the witness of the church today.

Reformed theology can and should articulate a fulsome and nourishing doctrine of koinonia in Christ. But if congregations in the Reformed tradition are known by their animosity rather than humility and patience, the scarcity of their fellowship rather than their unity, then the witness of the church to the gospel is tarnished. Indeed, as John Calvin said in a letter to Thomas Cranmer, when “the members of the Church [are] severed, the church lies bleeding.”^[5] Whether or not a congregation belongs to a denomination, with patience and humility, we are called to seek a catholic and Reformed vision for renewal that resists the fashionable fractures of our time, seeking to live into the “one hope of our calling,” finding ways to “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” in our theology and practice.

^[1] See J. Todd Billings, Rejoicing in Lament: Wrestling with Incurable Cancer and Life in Christ (Brazos Press, 2015); Remembrance, Communion, and Hope: Rediscovering the Gospel at the Lord’s Table (Eerdmans, 2018); The End of the Christian Life: How Embracing Our Mortality Frees Us to Truly Live (Brazos Press, 2020).

^[2] See J. Todd Billings, “Reformed Catholicity,” in The New Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine, ed. Michael Allen (Cambridge University Press, 2022) 330-351.

^[3] Joe Small, “Traditions: Reformed,” The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies, ed. Geoffrey Wainwright and Paul McPartlan (Oxford University Press: 2021) 153-154.

^[4] Gavin Ortlund, What It Means to Be Protestant: The Case for an Always-Reforming Church, Zondervan, 21.

^[5] In speaking about the divisions among the evangelical churches, Calvin wrote “‘This other thing also is to be ranked among the chief evils of our time, viz., that the Churches are so divided, that human fellowship is scarcely now in any repute among us…Thus it is that the members of the Church being severed, the body lies bleeding.” Quoted from Small, “Reformed,” The Oxford Handbook of Ecumenical Studies, 155.