The Westminster Standards—made up of The Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF), Westminster Larger Catechism (WLC), and Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC)—serve as the doctrinal standards of our church and of hundreds of other reformed churches across the world. The title Westminster speaks to its provenance. It was drafted in England; and, as we noted last week, it was specifically, at least at the outset, a document that was to clarify and expand upon the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion. But there was more to it than that both politically and theologically. Theologically the bar was set pretty high as the commissioners were charged with overseeing a “more perfect reformation of the Church.”
After the Puritans won control of the government (ca. 1652), Parliament called together 166 commissioners in 1646 with the aforementioned goal of revising and expanding the Thirty-Nine Articles. Yes, our standards … Read More »