Talk:Reformed Christianity

Requested move 28 March 2024

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Moved (non-admin closure) microbiologyMarcus ^{[petri dish·growths]} 20:22, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

---

Calvinism → Reformed Christianity – This article is devoted to the "major branch of Protestantism", not the narrower subjects of Calvinist theology like the five points or the personal Theology of John Calvin, the latter more often and appropriately called "Calvinism." "Reformed" is the broader name for the tradition preferred in the academy and among the churches themselves. Please see recent discussion on talk page. NGram is less helpful than usual because these terms have varied uses. Dirkwillems (talk) 19:43, 28 March 2024 (UTC)

• Support per nom. Calvinism is the theology of John Calvin, for which we already have an article. The requested change more accurately describes what is covered in the article, which is far more broad than simply Calvinism. ButlerBlog (talk) 20:08, 28 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support. Even if Calvinism is used as a synonym for Reformed, the Reformed tradition is broader than Calvinist theology. In addition, many mainline Reformed churches that were theologically Calvinist have developed in different directions in recent times.Ltwin (talk) 23:28, 29 March 2024 (UTC)
• Support per nom: my first choice is Reformed Protestantism, then Reformed tradition, then followed very closely by Reformed Christianity, but any of these are much better than Calvinism. See my arguments here: Talk:Calvinism/Archive 1#Requested move 5 December 2015. I have shifted to Reformed Protestantism just because I think it provides the most WP:PRECISION to the reader, and is pretty widely used in reliable sources. I would also note that in the RM linked above, one of the opposes to Reformed tradition was concerned about using a label that could refer to groups outside Christianity. We should also keep in mind that there are Reformed Catholics (denomination) which have little to do with Reformed Protestantism. It's also the case that in some circles "Reformed Christian" just means protestant. But I would still be happy with any of the three bolded options above. --Jfhutson (talk) 12:51, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don't find that "Reformed Protestantism" is a common phrase, even if more precise. "Reformed Christianity" is much more often used for this tradition. Examples: Worldmark Encyclopedia Britannica TGC (Au). The term "Reformed Christianity" could technically even apply to the Catholic Church after the Catholic Reformation, but nobody uses it that way. In fact, the opposite is true of the phrase "Catholic Church". Every creedal Protestant considers themselves part of the Catholic Church, but it's still appropriate to title that article with reference to the particular denomination across the Tiber.

  I don't think "Reformed tradition" is precise enough. It begs the question, "tradition of what?"

  Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I also would find any of your suggestions better than Calvinism. Dirkwillems (talk) 16:28, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  I want to add, Reformed Catholic is also a term used by Calvinists going back to William Perkins. I don't know if this sense outweighs the non-Protestant denomination. Dirkwillems (talk) 16:36, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  I think I agree about Reformed tradition, though I do see it used a lot in RSes, I've struck it out of my earlier comment. It's almost a tie to me as far as Christianity vs. Protestantism. I think academic sources prefer Protestantism over Christianity a bit (the hits for the former seem more relevant and higher quality as well as being more numerous than the latter). It's also possible popular sources are avoiding Protestantism since popular audiences might not know what it means, but surely anyone familiar with the subject (re WP:CRITERIA) will recognize it. --Jfhutson (talk) 16:51, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  I see your point. I think Christianity and Protestantism are both valid and given your observation I have no preference of one over the other. Christianity seemed preferred by the current article lead.

  Looking at foreign language wikipedias, I notice that they generally use the equivalent terms for "Reformed Protestantism" (Dutch) or "Reformed churches" (German Spanish French). Some other languages try to take you to the equivalent of "continental reformed" or "protestant reformation." I don't think churches should be on the table given the scope of this article.

  Since this proposition is unanimous so far, I'd like to leave it as is but make "or Reformed Protestantism" first in the lead, then "also called Calvinism." If you feel strongly that this should be reversed, I would support that request. Thanks. Dirkwillems (talk) 18:51, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  That's fine, let's see how the RM plays out. -- Jfhutson (talk) 19:04, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

  On Reformed Catholicism, I just redirected Reformed catholicism (which surprisingly did not exist) to Catholicity#Reformed. We'll see if that sticks (further discussion should probably go somewhere else than here). But my point above was that it could be possible that someone would think Reformed Christianity applied to the Counter-Reformation church, or Reformed Catholics (denomination), and therefore it has WP:PRECISION issues. But I think that's my weakest argument. --Jfhutson (talk) 17:35, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Afterword

Only noticed this after the discussion was closed, still my $0.02: for a person not deeply into the intricacies of Reformation, like me, "Calvinism" is a familiar term, while "Reformed Christianity" means absolutely nothing. Google Scholar, in particular, produces over 100K results for "Calvinism" and just 4.5K for "Reformed Christianity". In other words, this does not look like a good choice of terminology (both the broad public and the experts prefer "Calvinism"), and the discussion should have been kept open for longer. --Викидим (talk) 20:42, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

In this request I tried to give as much justification as possible that "Calvinism" is only used grudgingly by experts and is "a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize" per WP:CRITERIA. --JFHutson (talk) 21:44, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing to this discussion. My problem is simple: I consider myself to be that man on the Clapham omnibus for whom the encyclopedias are presumably written, and this is not an esoteric topic where one of us (fellow riders) would expect not to know the proper terminology, so the title is fully unexpected. Викидим (talk) 22:41, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

@Викидим that's what redirects are for, right? Dirkwillems (talk) 23:31, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

Who am I to argue? This is not what I've been taught about 50 years ago, so I would not have recognized. What do high school textbooks say nowadays? Викидим (talk) 01:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

@Викидим I'm not arguing, I'm just saying there's not an issue because "Calvinism" redirects here Dirkwillems (talk) 02:30, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I am definitely not arguing and not proposing to reopen the deliberations. My interest is tangential (WP:NPP, I have already market the newly redirected Calvinism as reviewed). I am genuinely trying to understand the reasons for such a drastic change that apparently dismissed 95% of scholarship. Викидим (talk) 06:11, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

King Tut is similar. I think the experience of being redirected from King Tut and Calvinism is itself educational. — JFHutson (talk) 01:16, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

School never taught us about King Tut. There lies the difference. Викидим (talk) 01:34, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I don’t see how that’s relevant. I’ve given the relevant WP policies, and I think the result is helpful to the proverbial bus-rider, who might learn that the landscape is more complicated than his HS textbook taught him. This isn’t just an academic dispute either. Many Christians consider themselves Reformed and not Calvinist, with no academic training. If that’s what experts say is correct, why would we keep the inaccurate naming?— JFHutson (talk) 02:01, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I can be persuaded that there are some Christians that are Reformed Christians, but not Calvinists - and would even accept this as an argument for splitting the article (I do not propose it!). But this type of argument is nowhere in the WP:CRITERIA. I have just checked the high school textbooks on European History, and indeed they apparently still teach students about "Calvinism", not "Reformed Christianity". So your argument about WP:CRITERIA "recognizability" fails: most of the world population learns about this stuff in the high school. If they are good students (like I was), they would demonstrate familiarity with the subject and, like me, would be puzzled with a choice of the title. AP preparation materials are also apparently aligned with the old title, not the new one. Once again, I can accept the statement that all these authors are simply unenlightened like me and need to see the light through a redirect - but at least I am in an extremely large group. Викидим (talk) 06:45, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

I don’t think the standard of being familiar with the subject is equivalent with going to high school, but reading a single reliable source on the subject (none of the ones I have cited are for academics) or being a member of a Reformed church (very few of these are experts). I do think it’s a large group that accepts the inaccurate usage, but the beauty of Wikipedia is we can follow the reliable sources preference for accuracy and use a redirect for convenience. — JFHutson (talk) 13:19, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

To avoid misunderstanding, before starting the thread, I have read the introduction to a popular, but apparently solid, book (listed below by StarryGrandma). There is a very explicit acknowledgement there that "Calvinism is very hard to define" (thus my previous suggestion to "declare the disagreement between sources"). Викидим (talk) 21:33, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

Yes, I’ve added a definition section and would appreciate your input. There is some there about differences between sources I need to work more on what groups might be called Reformed today. — JFHutson (talk) 21:51, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

• (Unrelated) Conkin "defines Reformed Christianity broadly, to encompass Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Methodists, Calvinist Baptists, and all other denominations originating in the work of reformers other than Luther" - do we agree with him? If yes, it would be nice to state this "everyone but Lutherans" principle in the lead. If we disagree, and count, say, Methodists out, or declare the disagreement between sources, it would be also nice to have in the lead - this will simplify the terminological dislocation caused to me and other less educated readers. The article later in the text appears to explicitly declare Arminians as non-Calvinists (the Reformed tradition as a branch of Protestantism is distinguished from Lutheranism and divided into two groups, Arminians and Calvinists). If this is a noncontroversial statement, can at least this statement (in some form) replace the current Reformed Christianity, also called Calvinism in the lead. Any of these changes would make understanding and acceptance of the new title so much easier for people like me. --Викидим (talk) 07:05, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

  I don’t think that’s a very common usage. I agree that the lead needs work and will think about it. — JFHutson (talk) 13:27, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

  The move discussion didn't have much input. I understand that Reformed Christianity is the theological term but Calvinism is the more general term for the non-specialist and we generally name articles that way. I suggest moving it back. Calvinism: A Very Short Introduction, a recent book for the general public, is titled Calvinism although the author uses Calvinism and reformed theology interchangeably. Or separate the theology part out into an article titled Calvinism, since this article is and has been about Reformed Christianity as a whole, not just the theology.

  If the article stays as it is, remember it is not enough just to have the old title be a redirect. Redirects to sections of Calvinism are now broken. I fixed one, but please fix Calvinist theologianCalvinist theologian, Calvinist theologyCalvinist theology, and all the other pages that show up as redirects to sections in this list. Thanks. StarryGrandma (talk) 20:09, 6 April 2024 (UTC)

  Some examples of books that are not for specialists are Introducing the Reformed Faith and The Reformed Faith, both written for laymen as introductions to the religious tradition (new members of Reformed churches). The WP:CRITERIA standard is "The title is a name or description of the subject that someone familiar with, although not necessarily an expert in, the subject area will recognize." I will admit in historical writing, it's very common to find "Calvinism" in the titles of books, but almost every one I have read has a statement basically saying that they had to call it Calvinism so that people would recognize it more easily and buy the book. (I have not read the Balserak book yet but I ordered it from the library). We don't have that problem on Wikipedia since we have redirects. I will get to fixing the redirects, but I want to focus on getting the definition right for now so I can address the very valid concerns Викидим brought up. -- JFHutson (talk) 01:54, 7 April 2024 (UTC)

  It looks like someone else has fixed the redirects; let me know if that is not the case, and thank you to whoever did it. -- JFHutson (talk) 14:42, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

  We don't have that problem on Wikipedia since we have redirects. I'm not sure this is true, per WP:CRITERIA and WP:ASTONISH. Although I am familiar with the terminology, I have lots of sympathy for Викидим and I opposed the previous RM for that very reason. Srnec (talk) 20:12, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

  Just for the record, I agree that it's not as simple that we can use expert terms because we have redirects, but I think Reformed Christianity meets CRITERIA (readers "familiar with, although not necessarily expert in, the subject area with recognize" Reformed Christianity) and that the availability of redirects on Wikipedia allows us to follow the reliable sources. ASTONISH says "We cannot control all astonishment – the point of an encyclopedia is to learn things, after all." So when the vast majority of reliable sources say "we should avoid using this term," I'm glad to oblige and let redirects do their thing. -- JFHutson (talk) 20:41, 11 April 2024 (UTC)

As another non-specialist in the Reformation, I would expect "Reformed Christianity" to refer to the variety of Christianity that resulted from it – in other words, to all of Protestantism – so this title fails WP:ASTONISH for me. Reformed Protestantism would at least indicate that this is a subset of Protestantism, and judging by this Google Ngram Viewer result is actually in more common use. Ham II (talk) 13:47, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

ASTONISH (an essay) does not mean we use what first comes to (your) mind as the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Reformed Christianity has never redirected to Protestantism or the Reformation. It redirected to Calvinism starting in 2012. Before then, it pointed to Reformed churches, which used to be an article about an even narrower topic equivalent to Continental Reformed Protestantism. -- JFHutson (talk) 18:28, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I'm not saying that Reformed Christianity should have Protestantism as its target; clearly this topic should be the target. Your comment doesn't address the WP:COMMONNAME argument suggested by the Ngram, where "Reformed Protestantism" is more prevalent than "Reformed Christianity". If Continental Reformed Protestantism is a sub-topic, what's wrong with Reformed Protestantism as a title, or would "Continental Reformed Christianity" be a preferable title for the other article? Ham II (talk) 20:14, 18 April 2024 (UTC)

I would be fine with such a change on the basis of NGram but I don't think the first objection holds weight. If Reformed Christianity seems to imply any sect that went through reformation then Reformed Protestantism implies a second, later reformation of Protestantism, which would also be false.

Worth noting, Christianity has the upper hand on Protestantism if we expand NGram backwards. Dirkwillems (talk) 00:56, 19 April 2024 (UTC)

The lead section of Baptists begins, 'Baptists form a major branch of evangelicalism'. Since 'the Reformed' is a very frequent appellation, in fact far more frequent than 'Reformed Christian' and even 'Calvinists' according to Google Ngram Viewer, I believe the lead section of this article should begin; 'The Reformed form a major branch of Protestantism / Christianity...' This would then allow for more specificity throughout the article (e.g.: Reformed theology, Reformed churches, Reformed soteriology (Calvinism)...) as in the article for Baptists. Violoncello10104 (talk) 05:38, 26 August 2024 (UTC)

Category

A discussion to rename the eponymous category too has been closed as no consensus. In some later stage, could you (people who joined the RM or edit the article) pick up this discussion again? Marcocapelle (talk) 06:16, 18 November 2024 (UTC)

@Marcocapelle: I had not seen the discussion. If it comes up again (or anything related), could someone ping the users who have participated in this related discussion per WP:APPNOTE. ButlerBlog (talk) 18:33, 30 November 2024 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: The Renaissance

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 14 January 2025 and 24 April 2025. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Joseph C. Frank (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Polarbeargirl1218, Mills1892, Reading.romduol, CJ1414.

— Assignment last updated by Mermermery (talk) 13:10, 31 March 2025 (UTC)

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn quote

The quote that was included in the criticism section by Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn does not improve the article. Let me be clear that I do not oppose the inclusion of criticisms, but they need to be something less random. This quote lacks any context, and actually in some cases is replacing "Protestants in general" with "Calvinists" simply by saying "they did thus-and-such". The quote doesn't improve the article because it is making blanket accusations ("they") without any specific context as to who the "they" actually is or represents. Additionally, some of it is more about people in general than specific theological criticisms. It is too much opinion without context to be useful. ButlerBlog (talk) 13:45, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

I agree. It's a specific opinion of one individual, not a widespread opinion. —Confession0791 ^talk 22:35, 7 July 2025 (UTC)