Ever since the start, I’ve wanted Christ and Calendar to be a set of resources that introduce the liturgical calendar from a distinctively Evangelical and Reformed perspective. My own theological roots are in conservative evangelicalism and I’m trying to encourage the use of the BCP calendar – the liturgical calendar of the English Reformation – as a resource for Reformed Christians.

Nowhere does that calendar look dodgier to people with Reformed instincts than when it comes to the various saints’ days that crop up from time to time. If you go to an Evangelical church today, observing saints’ days probably feels less than fully Protestant. What were Cranmer and co thinking? Surely here we have to admit that the puritan critique of the Prayer Book is on the money. Saints’ days are nothing more than a leftover from the Middle Ages, aren’t they? Could they possibly be Reformed?

Well, the answer to that question depends in part on how you define ‘Reformed’. If the gold standard for measuring whether something is ‘Reformed’ is the Westminster Standards,[1] then the answer is a very simple ‘no’. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship states “There is no day commanded in scripture to be kept holy under the gospel but the Lord’s day, which is the Christian Sabbath. Festival days, vulgarly called Holy-days, having no warrant in the word of God, are not to be continued.”[2] By that standard, we must rule out not only saints’ days, but Christmas, Easter and the entire premise of this blog.

But while I have an enormous amount of time for my Presbyterian siblings, the Reformed tradition is broader than that and includes other approaches to how Scripture governs worship. For example, the Synod of Dort’s Church Order not only permitted, but actually required churches to observe Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, Ascension and the feast of the Circumcision. In fact, where Ascension and the Circumcision were not being observed, the Synod required churches to lobby the government for help in introducing them! Taking that broader view, the Church of England fits comfortably into the wider Reformed family – which is why it was invited to send a delegation to the Synod.

As far as I know, the Church of England was the only Reformed church (though not the only Protestant church) to keep saints’ days in its calendar. With All Saints’ Day coming up this Friday, I’m giving the next few days to making a case that it’s possible to construct a solidly Evangelical and Reformed rationale for keeping saints days in the calendar, at least in the form found in the Prayer Book.

Of course, at the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter whether a practice agrees with this or that strand of the Christian tradition, it matters whether it conforms to Scripture. So tomorrow, there’s a crucial question we have to answer up front – what even is a saint?

[1] The confessional material produced during the Commonwealth period which is still used by Presbyterian denominations today.

[2] Westminster Directory for Public Worship, Appendix touching days and places of publick worship

Featured image: Fra Angelico, Predella of the San Domenico Altarpiece