Historical Perspectives on the Reformed View of the Arts in Worship

Of all the theologians and church leaders who are cited as being opposed to the use of visual arts in worship, Protestant Reformer John Calvin is perhaps the most famous. The following article describes the cultural context in which Calvin worked and the specific nature of his views on the visual arts in worship, suggesting that Calvin was more concerned with confronting idolatry than with opposing the visual arts in worship.

Liturgy is a muscular word, an image derived in part from its intrinsic visual quality. The worshiping community gathers around the Table, pulpit, and baptismal font. Water is sprinkled; bread is broken and wine poured; hands are folded and knees are bent; collection plates are passed. Because of the visual nature of liturgy, the church from its very beginning perceived the opportunity to teach and edify itself by producing works of art that would enrich these various aspects of its liturgy. More importantly, there was little distinction, if any at all, between art for life and art for worship, as the church understood that the spiritual was discerned through the material.

But during the sixteenth century, distrust of symbols began to take root in the European church. The Protesters rejected many forms of liturgical art. Leaders of the Reformed tradition, in rethinking the role and use of symbols and iconography, forged so strong an understanding of the arts that it is reflected in almost every Reformed church building to this day. In one of the most astonishing transitions in the history of the church, the church reversed its role from artistic proponent to artistic opponent, all in a time span of less than a generation. John Calvin was one leader responsible for this fundamental shift.

Calvin in Context

In the sixteenth century, Christian belief emphasized God’s immanence. God was believed to be always close to earth working miracles and protecting Christians through venerated relics. The great domes of the basilicas were held in place by large, over-proportioned columns, not because the domes required such heavy pillars to support them, but because the dome, representing the orb of the universe, was being tied down close to the earth and the church. Europe pulsated with expectations of the miraculous. Medieval Catholicism held that the actual body and blood of Christ could be found in the consecrated host. The practice of obtaining and housing icons and relics became big business, for the power of God was thought to be in and around the pieces of bone, wood, canvas, or fabric.

This is the world into which John Calvin was born and a world he would, in turn, shape and change. In particular, Calvin redefined the understanding of God’s presence in the world. For Calvin and the other Reformers, the medieval church limited access to God’s grace to ways that were too one-sidedly “visual” in their orientation. The Reformers, instead, asserted a transcendent understanding of the presence of God. In this awareness, God ruled from Heaven, though his power permeated the world. The centerpiece of Calvin’s theology is not so much humankind grasping for concepts of God, but a gracious God revealing himself to humankind. As such, basing his reasoning in part on John 4:24 and the second commandment, Calvin asserted that true worship of God does not happen through the aid of worldly trappings, but only through the Spirit of God.

The second matter that characterized the world of the sixteenth century was the rise of humanism. The rise of biblical scholarship urged a re-emphasis on the Bible as the standard for worship instead of tradition. The printing press aided literacy and learning. Rhetoric led to the exaltation of the spoken word, encouraging a revival in preaching. For the learned Reformed leaders, these verbal, scholastic expressions came to be invested with greater authority and value in worship than its visual aspects (Philip W. Butin, “Constructive Iconoclasm: Trinitarian Concern in Reformed Worship,” Studia Liturgica 9:2 [1989]: 133-139).

At the root of this theological paradigm shift was a revived interest in Neoplatonism. This phenomenon was an expression of the Renaissance at the time of the Reformation. In the manner of Neoplatonism, Lefèvre, Calvin, and other Reformers seem to have favored the spiritual over the material as a more vital contribution to Reformed worship.

Yet, the Reformed are not primarily antimaterial or antiaesthetic. Rather, as Carlos Eire points out in his recent and thorough treatise on the subject, Reformed iconoclasm was primarily an attempt to avoid all idolatry (Carlos M. N. Eire, War Against the Idols [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986]). Reformed aesthetics, therefore, stems from a broad, theologically motivated concern to avoid all forms of idolatry in worship. Admittedly, it was formed largely as a reactionary defense, in response to various criticisms of perceived liturgical abuses. Calvin argues for simple, direct (i.e., nonvisual) communication with the Deity.

Calvin’s Biblical Understanding of Aesthetics

As Calvin forged his aesthetic theology, he was prone to reference two key Scripture texts. First, Calvin’s theology emphasized the role of the law, as summarized in the Decalogue. In particular, the first and second commandments were persuasive in warranting the expulsion of anything considered idolatrous. A second text, John 4:24, was also prominent. In John 4:24, Jesus, as exegeted by the Reformers, was calling for true worship is worship “in spirit and in truth.” A Reformed liturgic—shaped by the writings of Zwingli, Bucer, and Calvin—is influenced by these two texts. These texts are the basis of the ongoing Reformed concern to avoid idolatry, while also contributing to an essentially positive thrust that promoted the idea of “true worship.” This may be illustrated through a discussion of John Calvin’s development of what constitutes “true worship” and a right understanding of Reformed aesthetics.

Although Calvin never explicitly writes about aesthetic theory per se, his approach can be discerned from his writing on liturgical art and icons, particularly from his various warnings about worshiping relics (John Calvin, An Admonition, Showing the Advantages Which Christendom Might Derive From an Inventory of Relics, in Selected Works of John Calvin: Tracts and Letters, vol. 1, ed. Henry Beveridge and Jules Bonnet [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1983]). In addition, some of his commentaries and sermons provide us with his thought about beauty and the arts.

To understand Calvin’s view of aesthetics, it is necessary to pull together his reflections upon the nature of art and the nature of worship; it is these two areas that Calvin does explicitly address, often in tandem. Understanding Calvin’s view of aesthetics grows out of studying Calvin’s theological reflection upon nature, human nature, and the function of art.

Art is dependent upon beauty, says Calvin, and beauty comes only from God. In fact, Calvin often interchanges the words art and beauty. Beauty, as expressed through the arts, is related to God and his existence as Creator. Calvin believes that God’s beauty is transcendent but that it can be perceived in the created physical world and in the moral order. In describing God as the author of physical and moral creation, Calvin clarifies how God is able to be known as the Trinity. God, the Father, created the heavens and earth; he is the consummate artist since he formed the world and everything in it. These creative acts of God, the paradigm artist, are exhaustive and complete (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1:5 [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959], 59). Jesus Christ, the second person of the Trinity, came to earth and exhibited a perfect spiritual beauty. His spiritual presence, self-sacrifice, and love exemplify the lovely. The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, exhibits moral beauty, placing in the hearts of people such virtues as love, justice, goodness, wisdom, and compassion.

In addition to seeing God’s beauty as revealed by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Calvin also believes that humankind, in both the physical and spiritual sense, is beautiful. We are the chief creatures of God’s creation. We are made in God’s image: awesome, mysterious, complex, and beautiful. These attributes are vestiges of the imago dei (the image of God) and testify to heavenly grace, even though they are sullied by sin.

True Worship and Aesthetics

Calvin’s understanding of art had implications for the use of art in worship. His view of liturgical art involves an understanding of the worshipers and the effect of beauty upon them. Visual imagery was thought to be too powerful a force, especially in the relic-packed Catholic churches of Calvin’s time, to be used successfully in worship. As beholders of art are sinful and have a natural inclination toward idolatry, the majesty of God was to be guarded against any idolatrous confusion with images used to worship or represent him, the very issue addressed so directly in the second commandment. Thus, in order to resist the temptation to idolize and worship the works of creatures rather than the creator, Calvin railed against the use of many art forms in worship (Calvin, Inventory, 290).

Calvin was more interested in worshiping in “spirit and in truth” (John 4:24); that is, worshiping the Creator directly without relying on the works of his creatures. To this end, Calvin’s worship environments were purged. Altars were removed and plain tables were brought in. The pulpit—representing the preaching of the Word—took central place; the centrality of the Word was represented architecturally by placing the pulpit in the middle of the chancel. Baptismal fonts were brought to the front of the sanctuary, forming a triangle with a pulpit and table. Organ cases were closed (at least during the worship service proper) and relics and icons were removed. All these actions brought the central acts of worship before the congregation in a clear, simplified way (James White, Protestant Worship: Traditions in Transition [Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 1989], 65-66). The result was a re-formed Reformed worship service that simplified the visual and accentuated the verbal.

Later Calvinist Manifestations

Later expressions of Calvinism continued to glean the implications of its original concern to avoid idolatry in worship. The Puritans, for one example, were heavily influenced by the Calvinistic aesthetic. More recently, Dutch Calvinist thinkers such as Abraham Kuyper and Herman Dooyeweerd sought to refocus the problem of idolatry by warning against the idolatrous potential of misdirected worldviews. Another Dutchman, Gerardus van der Leeuw, though he takes Calvinism down a different path, nevertheless expresses again the role of Christ as the unique expression of God, who alone is worthy of ultimate loyalty. Karl Barth focused the problem of idolatry on idols of culture, race, and state. Reformed churches, in short, following the model cast by John Calvin, have always intentionally attempted to counteract anything that would replace Christ as the central focus of the church or worship. This can especially be seen in recent attempts to counteract nationalism, militarism, racism, and sexism.

Yet it cannot be denied that the Reformed concern to avoid all forms of idolatry has come with a cost: a cost many perceive to be the loss of imaginative and artistic expressions in worship. In a grand irony, many see the perceived lack of creativity to be unrepresentative of the Creator God—the God so many Calvinists are attempting to worship in a non-idolatrous way. And, though confessionally Trinitarian, many see Reformed worship as predominantly the worship of God the Father, with little emphasis on God as revealed in Jesus Christ or as revealed in the mysterious nature of the Spirit.

Fortunately, this understanding of Calvinism and the practice of it are changing. The ecumenically oriented liturgical movement has facilitated an openness to new expressions from the broader streams of Christian worship, albeit sometimes slavishly uncritical and eclectic in its borrowing.

Calvin’s concerns remain valid for today. Reformed worshipers agree that they must not, in the rampant liturgical renewal, confuse an image with its reality, or a symbol with the reality symbolized. A distinction must be maintained, the Reformed insist, between symbol and adornment. Symbol is necessary; adornment should be used judiciously, if at all. We must not develop an autonomous taste for the sensuous or romantic. Nor can we delight only in the forms we have produced, unable or unwilling to discern the enabling grace of God in and through the forms. Likewise, the iconoclastic urge must continually be tempered so that the connection between the mystery of God and the beauty in creation and in our creativity is maintained.

Thus, the chief contribution of the Reformed tradition is to insist that all imagination and art is a servant to the word of God. The Reformed liturgist is one who asks, “How can every action, color, banner, anthem, sermon point away from itself to God?” And the Reformed Christian is one who sings with the English hymn writer William Cowper, “ … the dearest idol I have known, whatever that idol be, help me to tear it from thy throne and worship only thee.”

A Reformed Theology of Worship

Reformed worship focuses on the majesty of God’s transcendence and the frailty and sinfulness of humans. Reformed worship captures, proclaims, and enacts the gospel.

Two somewhat contradictory images might be used to introduce the theology of Reformed worship: the majestic vision and call of Isaiah in the temple (Isa. 6:1–8), and the depiction of the high-pulpited Congregational church in Melville’s Moby Dick. Disparate as these images might seem at first glance, both, like the depictions of the worship of the redeemed in the book of Revelation, assume the majesty and the transcendence of God, even in the white simplicity of a New England church. The historic trail of Reformed and Presbyterian worship has always emphasized God’s majesty and power and the frailty of humanity in approaching him.

Central to Calvin and his followers was the proclamation of the Word. The Word declared through Scripture and even more than for Luther stood at the center of worship. God was transcendent, all-powerful: viz., the Westminster Shorter Catechism: “God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.” This is why early Reformed worship, both in Geneva and in Scotland, always had near its beginning a general confession or penitential psalm, to demarcate who the worshiper was, relative to God. This Calvinistic (and Augustinian) sense of the sovereignty of God is the “ground bass” of this worship, and although the awe of Isaiah might be present, it swiftly yields to a search for the divine will expounded in the Word and submits in human obedience to the Word’s commission.

As in the book of Revelation, the Word is Jesus Christ, but Reformed worship (partly in reaction to elements of the medieval Mass perceived by Protestants as fanciful) eschewed the pageantry of the Revelation worship scenes, though the Christ was still the center and the source of its word. Church historians speak of the passion of people of the Reformation for sermons, and such was indeed the case. Worship is not to be “creative art,” pace much of modern Protestant and Catholic experimentation. To use the metaphor of Dr. D. H. Hislop (Our Heritage in Public Worship, Edinburgh, 1935), Reformed worship contains more of the “downward” motif than the “upward,” although the Reformed insistence, from Calvin on, for sung psalms and hymns encourages the latter. The “upward” was held in check so that the focus would not be on the worshiper and on his or her feelings, but on him who is worshiped and on His Word to the worshiper.

The classic Reformers, which would include Calvin, Bucer, Oecolampedius, Beza, Farel, Zwingli, and Knox, all sought a weekly celebration of the Lord’s Supper, which they viewed as an apostolic custom, as part of regular Sunday morning service. It was expected that Communion would be received in both kinds by all repentant worshipers on each occasion of celebration. This would have radically increased the frequency of individual Communion from the prevailing pre-Reformation custom, in which individuals might commune once a year or even less often. Calvin was thwarted in his hopes, however, by the governing laity in his church, who supported the quarterly observance of the Lord’s Supper. Similar compromises seem to have been made by other Reformers as well. (When the sacrament was not celebrated, the service ended where the prayer of consecration would have occurred, with a concluding hymn and benediction.) In Reformed churches a common loaf was used, broken for their own portions by the worshipers, and a common cup was passed. Many congregations gathered around tables for the reception of the elements, maintaining the aspect of a covenant meal rather than a sacrifice. These Reformers generally used a set prayer of consecration in the Lord’s Supper and most assumed some form of the Real Presence in the sacrament. Calvin clearly emphasized Jesus’ presence through his Word, made apparent at the words of institution, “This is my body … ; this is my blood.… ” Zwingli, on the other hand, saw the Real Presence more in the memory of the gathered community.

The Reformers used prayer books of varying degrees of complexity. The prayers of the invocation at the beginning of the service and the great prayer of intercession, further along, would be from a prayer-book; but a time, usually after the sermon, was allotted for free prayer by the minister. John Knox’s Book of Common Order for Scot’s kirk was largely modeled on Calvin’s Genevan Form of Prayers, but also showed some awareness of the Anglican Book of Common Prayer.

Significant differences began to develop by the 17th century between the English-speaking churches of the Reformed family and the Continental ones. The Puritan Revolution in England and Scotland, culminating in the Westminster Assembly (1643) during Cromwell’s rule, saw the more liturgical Scots’ kirk making common cause with the Puritan party among Anglicans and even some English Congregationalists. The Anglican Puritans were skeptical of liturgy and the English Congregationalists were hostile towards it, but the Scots were political enough to compromise in liturgical matters. This led to a significant decline in both liturgy and liturgical theology in Scottish Presbyterianism and its later American forms, as well as in American colonial Puritanism. In a similar fashion, the five “evangelical holidays” observed until then fairly uniformly in the various Reformed churches (Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, and Pentecost) were neglected or proscribed in the Puritan era in England, Scotland, and America. In contrast, descendants of Continental Reformed churches in North America stayed closer to their Calvinistic roots, although some of their more evangelical offshoots tended to adopt Puritan anti-liturgical practices.

Advent and Lent were generally discouraged by the Reformers as being non-Biblical. Their penitential slant appeared too close to a doctrine of salvation by works and the possibility of pre-Reformation abuses to which such a theology had given rise. Similarly, saints’ days and prayers to saints were eliminated by the Reformers, but the church was encouraged in sermons to remember with thanks and emulation the faithful witnesses and teachers across the centuries of church history.

Early Reformed worship encouraged the historic three lessons (Old Testament, Epistle, and Gospel), usually with several sung psalms. While some lectionaries were used, a more primary emphasis gradually became reading and preaching through a complete book at a time (or three books concurrently, as above). Since the preacher might want to spend longer on one passage than another, the result was the decline of set lectionaries, allowing greater expository freedom to the individual minister. Scripture was all inspired by God, of course, but little time was generally spent on the more arcane or tribal portions of books like Leviticus and Numbers. The progression through one or more books of the Bible would be interrupted for church holidays or other occasional major events in the life of the community.

With the reduction in the observance of feasts and seasons came a richer observance of the Lord’s Day as a weekly celebration of the Resurrection. No other major Christian tradition can compare with the richness of the use of Sunday by the Reformed, Presbyterian, and Puritan traditions which would have decried our modern Sabbath excursions to shopping malls, professional sporting events, and weekend resorts.

Dr. Hughes Oliphant Old, leading contemporary Presbyterian worship scholar, in his superb review of Reformed worship (Worship That is Reformed According to Scripture [Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1984]), cites five essentials of this worship: it is according to Scripture; it is in the name of Christ; it is the work of the Holy Spirit; the fruits of the Spirit in holiness and love flow from it, not vice versa; and it edifies or builds up the church.

The Reformed understanding of baptism redeveloped the biblical and Augustinian sense of covenant. Baptism is not the final step in sanctification, completing a longer period of catechumenate, as happened at various times in church history and as the Anabaptists wished to restore. Such would put the emphasis on man’s holiness, approaching a works salvation, rather than emphasizing God’s grace through his covenant in Jesus Christ. Instead, baptism was the initiation into God’s covenant family, the church, the body of Christ on earth. Growth in holiness following baptism was expected, from the grace of this covenant relationship with Christ. For infants, this would mean later catechetical instruction and public confession of faith prior to welcome to the Lord’s Supper, usually near the age of twelve. All the Reformers developed thorough and theologically incisive catechisms for this purpose. Baptism as a covenant of the family of Christ was always to be done in a service of public worship. It was a continuation of the Old Testament covenant of circumcision. The Holy Spirit was truly given in the baptism, which was seen as a sign and symbol of something present, not something absent. No other anointing, use of oils, etc., was to be included, for nothing more was needed save the biblical pouring of the water of baptism with the use of the biblical Trinitarian formula.

Similarly, the Lord’s Supper was seen as a covenant meal, with antecedent covenant meals noted in both Old and New Testaments. The Lord was indeed present with his people in the Supper, but his presence was not narrowly localized in the bread and the wine. Again, the Supper was a covenant sign of his presence, not merely a memory of something or someone absent. It was to be celebrated, however, as simply and directly as Jesus himself did with his disciples. This lessened the sense of mystery of the medieval Mass and the Orthodox liturgies, but it strengthened the sense of the power and presence of the Word known through the Scriptures. The eucharistic motif and the praise motif were found in the sung psalms (or sometimes hymns), and in the great prayer of intercession, where the whole history of salvation—Creation, Fall, Incarnation, and redemption—was remembered. “Holy mysteries” would not, however, be an apt phrase for the Reformed Lord’s Supper.

Only baptism and the Lord’s Supper were considered sacraments in the Augustinian sense, but the propriety of some other seven sacraments was recognized, and these were retained as ordinances of the church.

One final note can be added concerning trends of the late 20th century, particularly in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Perhaps as a result of the ecumenical movement, perhaps as a search for more beauty and mystery and drama in worship, this denomination has sought to recover or redeem some pre-Reformation practices. These are reflected in theological or practical suggestions or enablements in the “Directory for Worship,” adopted in 1989 as part of that church’s constitution. There are now six new official but voluntary worship resource books on baptism, the service for the Lord’s Day (Eucharist), marriage, funeral services, daily prayer, and special services. Some of the suggested variations from past Reformed tradition include anointing with oil at baptism and confirmation for the sick, the renunciation of evil in the baptismal service, and certain other phraseological or liturgical actions which most of the early leaders of the Reformed tradition had rejected. At the same time, the increasing success of special interest groups in the denomination has forced other changes in areas such as language, worship, psalmody, hymnody, and even Scripture to achieve “politically correct” ends, so much so that the 1990 Presbyterian Hymnal has been called “the p.c. P.C. (USA) Hymnal.” It is too early to say whether the use of liturgy to achieve politically correct thinking (whether in language or other matters) will succeed or will increase mainstream alienation. Whatever one’s political persuasion, however, it is clear that this change in the Presbyterian and Reformed understanding of worship turns it into humanity’s tool to achieve humanistic goals and is far distant from the high Reformation concept of worship infused by the Word from the mouth of God.

Reformed Worship in the Reformation Era

Calvin argued that only practices explicitly taught in Scripture could be used in worship. For this reason, churches influenced by Calvin have been less inclined to restore pre-Reformation practices of worship perceived as unbiblical or “Catholic.”

The Reformed tradition has several roots: Zurich, Basel, Strassburg, and Geneva. In some ways, it preserved more than its share of the penitential strain of late medieval piety. In other respects, however, it moved beyond the forms in which Lutheranism and Anglicanism were content to continue. In time it was largely seduced by the Puritan tradition (in Great Britain) and the frontier tradition (in America).

Ulrich Zwingli (1484–1531) began his reformation of Zurich heavily influenced by humanistic studies and a thorough biblicism. He was anxious to return worship to its biblical roots and eager to make it more spiritual, reflecting the gap he saw between the physical and the spiritual. Although a fine musician, he rejected music in worship as distracting one from spiritual worship. Iconoclasm in Zurich purified or devastated the churches, according to one’s viewpoint. Zwingli retained the four Sundays or festivals when his people were accustomed to receiving communion or the Eucharist, a preaching service being held on the other Sundays. These four occasions saw a drastically simplified rite that focused on the transubstantiation of the people, not the elements.

Martin Bucer in Strassburg and John Oecolampadius (1482–1531) in Basel began experimenting with vernacular services. At Strassburg, this included daily prayer services and a Sunday service derived from the Mass. Bucer’s influence was spread further by a visiting preacher out of a job, John Calvin (1509–1564). While serving temporarily a French-speaking congregation in Strassburg, Calvin adapted the German rite Bucer was using. Calvin brought this rite to Geneva, and from 1542 on it became the model for much of the Reformed tradition. Although deriving its structure from the Mass via Bucer, it had moved to highlight the penitential aspects of worship and was highly didactic and moralistic. Relief from this somber mood was wrought by encouraging the congregation to sing metrical paraphrases of the psalms, which they did with fervor. Such devotion to psalmody (and the exclusion of hymnody) marked Reformed worship for several centuries and still does in some churches.

Calvin’s low esteem for human nature was balanced by a high view of God’s Word and of the sacraments. (Although almost all Protestants considered baptism and the Eucharist as sacraments, Luther was willing to include penance, Calvin possibly ordination, and Zinzendorf marriage.) Calvin’s doctrine of eucharistic feeding on Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit, although certainly not without problems, was the most sophisticated Reformation eucharistic doctrine but was largely lost by his heirs.

John Knox (c. 1505–1572) transmitted this tradition to Scotland as others brought it to France, the Netherlands, and the Germanic countries. Knox’s liturgy, renamed the Book of Common Order, flourished in Scotland for eighty years after 1564. Only then did the Scots yield to the Puritan effort to achieve national unity in worship through the Westminster Directory of 1645. This moved away from set forms to more permissive patterns, yet the Directory remained vaguely normative in later editions in America. On the American frontier, the newly emerging frontier patterns of worship tended to engulf the Reformed tradition.

A pattern of recovery slowly eventuated in America. Charles W. Baird (1828–1887) led the way in 1855 with a title many thought oxymoronic, Presbyterian Liturgies. German Reformed Christians experienced a recovery of both theology and liturgy in the so-called Mercersburg movement. Eventually, an American service book, the Book of Common Worship, followed in 1906, as did service books in the Kirk of Scotland. In recent years, Presbyterians have followed closely in the same post-Vatican II ecumenical mainstream as other traditions of the right and center, signified by the publication of their Supplemental Liturgical Resources.

Warfield, Benjamin Breckinridge (B.B.)

Benjamin Breckinridge (B. B.) Warfield (1851-1921) was a noted Presbyterian theologian, writer, and educator. He was born in Kentucky and studied at Princeton College and the University of Leipzig. Ordained in 1879 he served briefly as a pastor in Baltimore before becoming professor of New Testament literature at Princeton Theological Seminary, a position he held for much of his life. His writings as editor of the Presbyterian and Reformed Review and in books like The Plan of Salvation presented a conservative view of Bible scholarship, Christian living, and theology that remains influential among Reformed believers.

Knox, John

John Knox (c. 1514-1572) was born in Haddington, Scotland and educated at the University of Glasgow. He was originally a Roman Catholic priest. In 1543 he converted to Protestantism due, primarily, to the preaching of the reformer George Wishart. Although Wishart was eventually executed for heresy, Knox continued preaching until his capture by the French in 1547 when they attacked Saint Andrews. He was forced to labor in a French galley for almost two years until Edward VI, the king of England, secured his release. He moved to England and became the royal chaplain in 1551. When Catholic Queen Mary took the throne in 1553 he fled to Frankfurt and later to Geneva. Here he met Calvin and began studying his doctrines. He preached widely throughout Europe for a number of years until his return to Scotland in 1559. He denounced the Catholic Church and Scotland’s Catholic regent, Mary of Guise. He supported the Protestant revolt against the regency, a hopeless cause until England’s Elizabeth I, who had succeeded her half-sister Mary, agreed to support them. After the death of Mary of Guise, the Protestants took control of the Scottish government and Knox’s Confession of Faith was adopted by the Parliament. Control was lost briefly upon the return of yet another Catholic Mary, Mary Stuart, who reigned from 1560 to 1567. She had Knox arrested for treason, although he was later acquitted. He spent his remaining years after Mary’s death preaching and writing. He was the father of the Scottish Reformation and the architect of various branches of the Presbyterian and Reformed churches that exist today.