The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) continues to experience intense theological and ethical polarization. While we can be thankful that the inflammatory rhetoric and the angry debates of recent years did not dominate the 214th General Assembly (2002), few would conclude that the denomination has turned a corner. This year’s Assembly has given all sides time to rest and take a deep breath, but we cannot be sure what will happen when we return to the difficult issues that divide us.
Just what are these issues? Something more than ethics or polity is at stake for many of us. We worry that basic matters of theology now divide the denomination. As a church we no longer seem to believe the same things about God; we no longer seem able to confess the faith together. While the most contentious question in recent years has been the eligibility of homosexual persons for ordination to church office, deeper doctrinal issues lurk in the background.
Some church leaders point to differing understandings of biblical authority. On one side are those who accept the Scriptures as divinely inspired and therefore as authoritative in all matters of faith and life; on the other are those who approach the Bible more critically, as documents of ancient cultures that the church must reinterpret in light of contemporary knowledge and morality.
Other observers argue that the basic issue is Christology. Is Jesus the way, the truth, and the life, or simply a wise human teacher who offers us one but not necessarily the only way to God? The 214th General Assembly (2002) affirmed and commended the helpful statement of the Office of Theology and Worship, “Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ.” Yet, the Assembly’s overwhelming vote of support did not necessarily mean that the church had found its way back to a common confession of faith. “Hope in the Lord Jesus Christ” affirms both that God offers salvation through Jesus alone and that God is free to work his saving purposes beyond the church and the explicit language of faith. Some members of the Assembly acted as though they could have one half of the equation without the other. To them, the document represented a workable compromise but not necessarily a compelling resolution.
While biblical authority and Christology are of central importance, I wish to explore a third issue that lurks behind the church’s debates today: the relationship of law and grace. Since New Testament days, the church has struggled to hold law and grace together. Paul was concerned to correct those who interpreted God’s grace as an excuse to continue in the life of sin (Rom. 6:15). He was equally concerned to correct those who interpreted God’s law as a pretext for legalistic self-righteousness (Gal. 2:15-16). The tendency to oppose law and grace has sometimes led Christians to dismiss the Old Testament, and to appeal to the freedom of the Spirit apart from the guidance of the Word (grace without law). At other times, it has led Christians to engage zealously in inquisitions and crusades, and to forget Christ’s way of self-sacrificing love (law without grace).
Too many in the church today regard law and grace as alternative, competing, and even opposing visions of the church’s life. Those who call for more “law” worry that the church is drifting towards moral relativism. They believe that the church should recover its moorings in Scripture’s unchanging truths, the church’s historic standards, and church discipline. Those who call for more “grace” worry that the church has become too intolerant, hateful, and self-righteous. They believe that the church should practice a radical hospitality, openness, and inclusiveness.
Suspicion abounds. Advocates of “law” sometimes dismiss members of the “grace” camp, asserting that they are captive to a secular ideology of individualistic hedonism. Advocates of “grace” sometimes dismiss members of the “law” camp, arguing that their attention to theological and ethical standards inevitably raises the specter of an intolerant, legalistic fundamentalism.
These ways of opposing law and grace are wrong for at least two reasons. First, we rarely pose the church’s debates in terms of “standards” versus “no standards;” rather, we argue about which standards and whose standards. Even those who emphasize the priority of grace over law are quick to affirm that the gracious, loving God calls us to work for justice—and justice implies standards. When the 214th General Assembly (2002) called on Presbyterians to boycott Taco Bell, it argued that God’s gracious concern for the poor requires us to hold wealthy corporations accountable to standards of justice. God’s grace inevitably directs us towards the right ordering of human relationships.
Second, and more importantly, the rhetorical opposition of law and grace is wrong theologically. One of the key insights of our Reformed tradition has been that law and grace are two sides of the same coin. God’s law is God’s gracious claim on our lives. God’s grace frees us to live by God’s law. If overemphasizing law leads to an oppressive legalism, overemphasizing grace leads to what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called cheap grace— “grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate” (Cost of Discipleship, 45). Only as law and grace work together can we grow into deeper faithfulness before God and towards each other.
A Reformed View of the Law
What we need today is a renewed sense of a Reformed theology of law. We need to know again that in our Reformed vocabulary, “law” is not a bad, outdated word. God’s law is neither a harsh, oppressive taskmaster nor simply a collection of arbitrary rules that we can obey or ignore as we see fit. Because God’s law is always rooted in God’s grace, God’s law shows us the way of life. It helps us deepen our capacity to love God and one another, even as God has loved us. It directs us in ways of faithful discipleship, so that we might grow more fully into the image of Jesus Christ.
German Reformed theologian Michael Welker has recently written that contemporary Christian theology has too often made law and gospel (grace) an abstract opposition—leading, on the one hand, to a general disparagement of the law, and on the other, to “naïve and diffuse forms of legalism” (Toward the Future of Reformed Theology, 144). Theology has been pushed “out of the position of a competent participant in debates about powers shaping our ethos and … [has] become hopelessly dependent on moral trends” (146).
Welker argues that because Reformed theology has generally avoided these distortions, it can help us today “to understand that the freedom of the gospel cannot be played off against the law” (146). In a Reformed theology of law, “the Christological determinacy and the biblical breadth of God’s word become liberating powers and acquire ‘solid form’” (143). A Reformed theology of law brings to expression “God’s entire will and God’s revelation” (146).
The Reformed interest in law might not seem to recommend itself to the North American church. We live in a society characterized by endless litigation. We have more attorneys per capita than any other nation of the world. People are taught to stand up for their rights and to seek legal recourse when they feel wronged. Laws help bind us together as a society, but we also feel the law’s heavy hand upon us. We are all too aware that the laws of society reflect particular, limited human interests. We have every reason to be suspicious of abstract appeals to “the law.”
The heavy hand of the law also makes itself felt in the church. The Presbyterian Book of Order grows thicker by the year, yet we are less able than ever to find theological unity. We seek legislative solutions to the problems that threaten to tear us apart but discover that congregations are selective about which church laws they obey. Some church leaders worry about a legislative season; others are frustrated that church law is regularly defied with impunity. We easily become cynical about the nature and purpose of church law.
A Reformed theology of law does not simply reproduce the assumptions of a secular, pluralistic society. What matters here is God’s law, and God’s law is God’s life-giving will. God’s law is not simply a burden, not simply a necessary evil. Rather, it is a source of joy:
Psalm 1: Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. (verses 1-2, RSV)
Psalm 19: The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the decrees of the Lord are sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever; the ordinances of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold.” (verses 7-10a, NRSV)
Psalm 119: Oh, how I love thy law! It is my meditation all the day…. How sweet are thy words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth. Through thy precepts I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way. Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. (verses 97, 103-105, RSV)
Reformed theologians have joined with the Psalmist in celebrating God’s law. (The great Puritan divine Thomas Manton (1620-1677) so loved Psalm 119 that he preached on it verse by verse—and managed to get 190 sermons out of its 176 verses! [see Hughes Oliphant Old, Worship, 84]). Our confessions too are consistent in their witness:
Scots Confession: We confess and acknowledge that the law of God is most just, equal, holy, and perfect, commanding those things which, when perfectly done, can give life and bring man to eternal felicity. (Chapter XV)
Second Helvetic Confession: The law is good and holy…. We believe that the whole will of God and all necessary precepts for every sphere of life are taught in this law…. We know that in the law is delivered to us the patterns of virtues and vices. We know that the written law when explained by the Gospel is useful to the Church. (Chapter XII)
Westminster Confession of Faith: [The law] is of great use … as a rule of life …. Neither are the … uses of the law contrary to the grace of the gospel, but do sweetly comply with it: the Spirit of God subduing and enabling the will of man to do that freely and cheerfully, which the will of God, revealed in the law, requireth to be done. (Chapter XXI)
Barmen Declaration: As Jesus Christ is God’s assurance of the forgiveness of all our sins, so in the same way and with the same seriousness is he also God’s mighty claim upon our whole life…. We reject the false doctrine, as though there were areas of our life in which we would not belong to Jesus Christ. (8.14-15)
Confession of 1967: The new life finds its direction in the life of Jesus, his deeds and words…. The teaching of apostles and prophets guides men in living this life. (9.24)
God’s law directs us into right relationship with him and one another. God’s law gives us everything we need to know about living the good life that God has promised us in Jesus Christ. Moreover, God’s grace makes it possible for us to live by God’s law. When we get caught speeding, we hardly exclaim, “How I love thy law!” Society’s laws sting. But God’s grace makes God’s law sweet. If we have truly tasted God’s law, we want to attend to it. We believe that it is a Word of life not only for believers in Christ, but for all humanity as well.
Defining the Law
Just where do we find this law? What specifically does it tell us? Can it still be useful to Christians, if we are now justified by faith alone, and not by the works of the law (see Rom. 4)? Does God’s law apply to those who do not believe in God, let alone Jesus Christ? Reformed theologians have attended diligently to these questions, especially in their explications of the Ten Commandments.
Human responsibility to God’s law
Reformed theology has argued that every human being, whether Christian or not, has an inherent sense of ultimate right and wrong. We have a conscience that knows the fundamental requirements of God’s law. Every human should be able to figure out that certain kinds of actions (such as killing and stealing) undermine human relationship and community; other kinds of actions (such as respecting others’ rights) enhance our ability to live together.
A classic biblical passage for reflection on these matters has been Romans 2:14-16:
When Gentiles who do not possess the law [i.e., the law revealed to Israel], do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all. (NRSV)
Some Christian traditions—especially classic Roman Catholic theology, as summarized by Thomas Aquinas in the thirteenth century—have spoken of a natural law that every human is able to discern by his or her reason. The Westminster Standards of the seventeenth century make a similar claim. God gave a “moral law” to Adam and all humankind (Westminster Larger Catechism, question 92).
The Reformed tradition has emphasized that God has written this natural, moral law on our hearts (Westminster Confession, Chapter IV). But the Reformed tradition has also argued that sin has deeply corrupted our ability to know and to live by this law. Even when we do good, our actions are “infected by self-interest and hostility” (Confession of 1967, 9.13).
Nevertheless, the natural, moral law is of continuing value to humans, even after the fall (see Westminster Larger Catechism, questions 94-95). Even in its weakened state, it remains strong enough to remind us of our wrongdoing. We may not do the good, but we know that we ought to. Our conscience, says John Calvin, is “always convicting us of both baseness and ingratitude” (Institutes I.VI.15).
Sin can harden us, so that we become indifferent to the pleadings of our conscience. Yet, sin can never eradicate the conscience altogether. As Charles Hodge, the great Reformed theologian of the nineteenth century, wrote:
Almost every man can look back and see many instances in which an unseen hand was upon him, when a voice, not from man, has sounded in his ears, when feelings to which he was before a stranger were awakened in his breast, and when he felt the power of the world to come. The shadow of the Almighty has passed over him, and produced the conviction that God is, and that He is an avenger. (The Way of Life, 90)
The place of the Ten Commandments in defining God’s will
Because sin has greatly impaired our ability to live by a natural, moral law, we need God’s revealed law. We need an explicit statement of God’s will directly from God himself. The Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments set forth this Word of God.
The Reformed tradition has recognized several kinds of law in Scripture: the ceremonial laws of Israel (regulation of temple rituals, holy days, and the priesthood), the political laws of Israel (law codes for defining civil crimes and their punishment), and the moral law (God’s declaration of what constitutes righteous behavior). Christ has freed his followers from Israel’s ceremonial and political laws. The Christian does not first have to become a Jew, a member of the people of Israel. But the moral laws that God revealed to Israel, then confirmed in Christ, are still in effect—and not only for Jews and Christians.
The moral law revealed in Scripture corresponds to the law that God has already written on our hearts. The Scriptures clarify and confirm the dictates of the conscience. In traditional Christian theology, the Ten Commandments have been understood as a summary of this natural, moral law. As the Westminster Larger Catechism (question 98) states, “The moral law is summarily comprehended in the Ten Commandments.” The law that God gave to Moses on Mt. Sinai was not just a law for Israel, nor was it a new law over and above the natural, moral law. Rather, the Ten Commandments make explicit and give divine sanction to ways of living that we ought to know by reason but that sin has obscured.
Medieval and Reformation Christians associated the Ten Commandments not only with the natural, moral law but also with Jesus’ great commandment that we love God with all our heart, soul, and mind, and our neighbor as ourselves (Matt. 22:37-39). The first table of the Decalogue (commandments 1-4, in the Reformed numbering) tells us how to love God; the second table (commandments 5-10), how to love our neighbor (see Westminster Larger Catechism, questions 102 and 122). Thus, keeping Sabbath (from the first table) is not primarily about our need to take care of ourselves and get enough rest; rather, it is about finding our true rest in God. Similarly, stealing (from the second table) is something that we should avoid not simply out of fear of punishment, but because not stealing is also a way of loving our neighbor and acknowledging God’s adequate provision for us.
The civil use of the law
Reformed thought has argued that God’s law has three uses. The law that is written on our hearts and confirmed by God’s revealed Word should, first of all, serve to preserve and regulate human society. It has a civil use. God’s law, whether we realize it or not, is the foundation of every just social order.
Among the Gentiles whom early Christians regarded as knowing “instinctively what the law requires” (Rom. 2:14-16) were civil governors. Christians prayed for the Emperor and other civil authorities because they believed that God had instituted civil government for the good of human society (see Rom. 13:1-7). When rulers “punish those who do wrong and … praise those who do right” (1 Pet. 2:14), they make social life possible and therefore deserve our honor and obedience. Rulers help to maintain and guard a basic social order.
Medieval and Reformation Christians argued that civil law should be based on the natural, moral law. The natural, moral law tells us, “do not kill.” The civil law of each nation defines the various circumstances in which killing may occur and the factors that may be more or less mitigating of guilt (e.g., killing in self-defense is generally not punished as severely as premeditated murder). The civil laws of one land need not be identical to those of another (just as Israel’s ancient law codes need not constrain Christians today). But if it is to be just, civil law (like civil authority) must ultimately be rooted in God’s will.
Medieval and Reformation Christians typically called on rulers to enforce both tables of the commandments. In the words of the French Confession of 1559 (Chapter XXXIX), “God … has placed the sword in the hands of civil authorities to suppress sins committed against the first table of the Law as well as the second.” Similarly, the Scots Confession (Chapter XXIV) argues that magistrates “are not only appointed for civil government but also to maintain true religion and to suppress all idolatry and superstition.” The Second Helvetic Confession (Chapter XXX) adds, “Let him [the ruler] suppress stubborn heretics … who do not cease to blaspheme the majesty of God and to trouble, and even to destroy the Church of God.”
Today, in a secular, pluralistic, democratic order, we have good reason to separate church and state. We are reluctant to have the government dictate matters of religion and piety. “We reject the false doctrine, as though the State, over and beyond its special commission [to provide for justice and peace], should and could become the single and totalitarian order of human life, thus fulfilling the Church’s vocation as well” (Barmen, 8.23). Even some matters that the second table lists (such as adultery or covetousness) may not lend themselves well to civil, legal regulation. They are serious moral issues, but not necessarily civil crimes.
Nevertheless, most of us would agree that the government does have a legitimate interest in all these matters. The state need not be in the business of suppressing heretics, but it should ensure that the church and other religious organizations have a protected space in which to do their work. The state need not criminalize adultery and covetousness, but it should protect family life and promote social cooperation. As Calvin says, the state is called to maintain honesty, modesty, and “humanity…among men” (Institutes IV.XX.3).
In other respects, the Ten Commandments remain as applicable as ever. We believe that people, even in a modern, secular society, should have a conscience. They should naturally know that killing, stealing, and bearing false witness are wrong. Because people nevertheless violate these precepts, we call on the state to frame and to enforce civil laws.
These laws apply as much to Christians as to non-Christians. Despite the new life that Christians have received in Jesus Christ, we are not yet perfect morally. The civil law helps restrain our continuing tendency to sin, even as it protects us from others’ sinful behavior.
The radical demands of the law
While Reformed theology has recognized and affirmed this civil use of the law, it has also developed two other uses of God’s law that apply specifically to Christians, rather than to society as a whole: the accusing function of God’s law and the sanctifying function of God’s law. The Decalogue represents more than just a barebones, minimal legislation for civil society. It is also a summary statement of the new life in Jesus Christ.
Reformed theology has relied on three interpretive moves in order to extend the reach of the commandments beyond the realm of nature and civil life to the realm of the church and the Christian life. First, each commandment has been seen as labeling a category of behavior. “Do not kill” refers to all behaviors that diminish our neighbor’s capacity to live a good life. “Do not steal” similarly refers to anything we do to deny our neighbor what is rightfully his.
Second, with the help of the Sermon on the Mount, Reformed theologians and confessions have radicalized each of the Ten Commandments. The commandments refer not only to outward behaviors (“do not kill”; “do not commit adultery”) but also to inward thoughts and dispositions (“do not even get angry at a brother or sister”; “do not even lust in your heart”).
Third, each negative commandment implies a positive. “Do not kill” also means do everything possible to protect and enhance your neighbor’s ability to live well. “Do not bear false witness” includes the duty to promote truthful speech and to protect our neighbor’s good name.
Employing these interpretive strategies, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Larger Catechism offer long explications of each commandment and its relevance to the Christian life. These lists are not so much legal codes as suggestive trajectories. They remind us that the commandments call us to complete transformation—inner and outer, personal and social. They paint a picture of God’s kingdom. They draw us into the purity of the spiritual life.
The accusing function of God’s law
In this radicalized form, the commandments become a standard by which we continually examine ourselves and confess how far short we fall of God’s will. This accusing function of the law teaches us again and again of our need for God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ. We may not be guilty of physical murder, but none of us can say that we have ever done enough to help our neighbor live a good life. We may not steal physical goods from the neighbor, but none of us has ever done enough to ensure that other humans have the basic necessities that they need for a good life.
Martin Luther argued that people had to hear God’s accusing law before they would embrace the gospel. Only in their radicalized form could the commandments break humans of their tendency to believe that they could fulfill the law and, fulfilling it, win favor with God (“works righteousness”). Calvin agreed with Luther but emphasized that the law even in its accusing role was a manifestation of God’s grace. God accuses us in order to save us.
The sanctifying function of God’s law
In contrast to Luther, the Reformed tradition has put more emphasis on the sanctifying use of the law. The commandments help set forth the new life that we have been offered by Christ. This “third use of the law” (i.e., in addition to the civil and accusatory uses) was to Calvin its most important function.
However eagerly [the saints] may in accordance with the Spirit strive toward God’s righteousness, the listless flesh always so burdens them that they do not proceed with due readiness. The law is to the flesh like a whip to an idle and balky ass, to arouse it to work. Even for a spiritual man not yet free of the weight of the flesh the law remains a constant sting that will not let him stand still…. But the accompanying promise of grace…sweetens what is bitter. (Institutes II.VII.12)
If the accusing function of the law can make us feel small and inadequate before God’s holy will, this third use of the law can spur us to make ourselves and human society better, even if we never reach perfection in this life. The commandments teach us how to live out Christ’s claim on our lives.
Luther emphasized that the gospel sets us free from the accusing law; we now live in the freedom of the Spirit and need the law no more. Calvin emphasized that the gospel sets us free to follow the law; the law in its sanctifying role helps shape our way of life and our service to the world. The commandments make Jesus’ way of love clear and concrete. They tell us how God wishes to lead us to greater faithfulness.
How shall we love God? Have no other gods; trust in the Lord alone. Do not take the Lord’s name in vain; speak rightly of God and his mighty acts. How shall we love our neighbor? Do not kill; promote life. Do not commit adultery; practice integrity in all relationships. Do not steal; work for just distribution of goods. Each commandment sends us down a path of righteousness. We learn to love God; we learn to love like God loves.
In the liturgy that he prepared for his congregation in Strasbourg, Calvin placed the reading of the Ten Commandments not prior to the confession of sin (where they would promote self-examination and confession of sin), but after the absolution. The commandments would direct a forgiven people to their ethical responsibilities. Moreover, the members of Calvin’s congregation did not merely hear the commandments read to them; rather, they lifted up their voices together and sang the Decalogue. The law was an occasion for praise.
The Heidelberg Catechism places its explication of the Ten Commandments under the heading of “Thankfulness.” Once we have confessed our sin and received God’s pardon, the Ten Commandments tell us what we can do in joyful, thankful response.
Law and Grace Work Together
This Reformed approach to law and grace has tried to make sense of tensions within the biblical witness. Paul sometimes emphasizes the accusing function of the law (“For ‘no human being will be justified in his sight’ by deeds prescribed in the law, for through the law comes the knowledge of sin” Rom. 3:20). Other New Testament authors such as Matthew and James emphasize that Christians must do righteous works (“Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill” Matt. 6:17; and “So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead” Jam. 2:17).
Reformed Christians have joined Paul (and Luther) in opposing a works righteousness by which Christians act as though they can save themselves by moral rectitude. Grace always has priority in the Christian life. But Reformed Christians have joined Matthew and James in calling for us to live out our salvation through works of love, as directed by God’s law. Grace manifests itself in a transformed, disciplined way of life. Law and grace need not contradict each other. God’s grace has truly taken hold of us only when we begin to realign our lives in accordance with the radical demands of Jesus.
Law and grace work together. The accusing law tells us of our need for God’s forgiveness. The sanctifying law responds to God’s grace. Because we know God’s love, we wish to honor God. The law, represented by the Ten Commandments, gives content and direction to our efforts.
In the twentieth century, Karl Barth reclaimed this Reformed insight. Barth argued that God’s law is not in opposition to God’s grace but is a form of God’s grace. God’s commands set us on the way of true freedom. Bonhoeffer developed a similar approach. The experience of God’s grace sets us on a path of discipleship, in which our truest self is defined by the radical injunctions of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ commands are not oppressive legal standards but are the way of life that he has made possible for us by his death and resurrection.
In recent years, Craig Dykstra (Presbyterian minister and head of the religion division of the Lilly Endowment) has written from a Reformed perspective about growing in the life of the Christian faith. Dykstra argues that Scripture and the Christian tradition help define key practices that enable Christians to respond to God’s grace. While Dykstra does not explicitly correlate these practices with the Ten Commandments, it is clear that these practices function for him like the ethical trajectories of Calvin’s third use of the law. The Christian life is a disciplined, directed life that seeks to grow in the way of Christ.
The new Presbyterian Study Catechism is another superb resource. In the manner of classic Reformed catechisms, the Study Catechism begins with an explication of the Apostles’ Creed—what God has done for us. Only then does it discuss each of the Ten Commandments—our thankful response to God’s gracious love.
As Presbyterians seek their way into the future, we can perhaps agree that the question is not whether we need more “law” or more “grace.” God’s law is God’s grace, and God’s grace is God’s law. A church that puts law and grace into opposition is a church that understands neither law nor grace.
Even as we debate whether we should enforce church law with greater or lesser rigor, we must remember that God’s gracious law calls us to a standard higher than the Book of Order. What we must learn and what we can learn, is the way of Jesus Christ. God in Christ has acted to claim our whole self—body, soul, and spirit. Whether a matter of sexuality or economics, Christology or ecclesiology, we must yet grow into deeper knowledge and faithfulness.
The love of Christ that God has poured out into our hearts is a precious gift that we dare not waste. The love that flows so freely from God does not flow out again spontaneously from us. We must discipline it—give it shape, direct it, and deepen it. We need all the help we can get from Scripture and from the church as a community of mutual encouragement and accountability. We need a renewed theology of God’s gracious law, for the sake of reframing the debates that currently rend our denomination.
Bibliography
- Barth, Karl. “Gospel and Law,” in Community, State, and Church; also, “The Gift of Freedom: Foundation of Evangelical Ethics,” in The Humanity of God.
- Bass, Dorothy C., ed. Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People.
- Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship; also, Life Together.
- Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Book II, Chapters VII-VIII; also, John Calvin’s Sermons on the Ten Commandments, ed. Benjamin Farley.
- Dykstra, Craig. Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices.
- “Growing in the Life of Christian Faith” (a report approved by the 201st General Assembly, 1989).
- Heidelberg Catechism, pp. 86-115.
- Leith, John. Basic Christian Doctrine, pp. 210-219.
- Luther, Martin. The Freedom of a Christian.
- The Study Catechism (Presbyterian Church U.S.A.), pp. 89-119.
- Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass, eds., Practicing Theology: Beliefs and Practices in Christian Life.
- Westminster Larger Catechism, pp. 91-153.
This article first appeared in Theology Matters, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Jul/Aug 2002).
