The following is an edited extract of Silent Witnesses by Garry Williams (published by Banner of Truth in 2022).
John Calvin found two things at the heart of true religion: ‘the mode in which God is duly worshipped’ and ‘the source from which salvation is to be obtained’. The Reformed today are generally with Calvin on the second element. We have a right and high level of concern for preserving the truth of the doctrine of justification by faith alone. It is not unchallenged from within, but many are ready to rise to defend it.
Our concern for the mode of worship is less obvious. To be an authentic Reformation Christian is to be concerned with the saving doctrine of the gospel and the public worship of God. The danger of neglecting worship and attending only to doctrine is that every Lord’s day becomes an exercise in public self-contradiction: our doctrine says one thing and our public practice says another.
We need also to ask what it means to attend to public worship. It does not mean simply sticking to what we have always done. Dying in the ditch to defend the pattern that we grew up with against the slightest change is not reforming. In fact it is the opposite, just the kind of reactionary traditionalism that the Reformers were fighting against.
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