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Calvinism, also called Reformed Christianity, is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Calvin and various other Reformation-era theologians. It emphasizes the sovereignty of God and the authority of the Bible.

Calvinists broke from the Roman Catholic Church in the 16th century. Calvinists differ from Lutherans, another major branch of the Reformation, on the spiritual real presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, theories of worship, the purpose and meaning of baptism, and the use of God's law for believers, among other points.

The namesake and founder of the movement, French reformer John Calvin, embraced Protestant beliefs in the late 1520s or early 1530s, as the earliest notions of later Reformed tradition were already espoused by Huldrych Zwingli. The movement was first called "Calvinism" in the early 1550s by Lutherans who opposed it, however many in the tradition find it either a nondescript or inappropriate term and prefer the term Reformed.

The most important Reformed theologians include Calvin, Zwingli, Martin Bucer, William Farel, Heinrich Bullinger, Thomas Cranmer, Nicholas Ridley, Peter Martyr Vermigli, Theodore Beza, John Knox, and John à Lasco. In the 20th century, Abraham Kuyper, Herman Bavinck, B. B. Warfield, J. Gresham Machen, Louis Berkhof, Karl Barth, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Cornelius Van Til, R. C. Sproul, and J. I. Packer were influential. More contemporary Reformed theologians include the late Tim Keller, Desiring God Ministries founder John Piper, as well as Joel Beeke and Michael Horton. (Full article...)

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Huldrych Zwingli in an oil portrait from 1531 by Hans Asper; Kunstmuseum Winterthur.
Huldrych Zwingli (1 January 1484 – 11 October 1531) was a leader of the Reformation in Switzerland. Born during a time of rising Swiss patriotism and increasing criticism of the Swiss mercenary system, he attended the University of Vienna and the University of Basel, a scholarly centre of humanism. In 1519, Zwingli became the pastor of the Grossmünster in Zürich where he began to preach ideas on reforming the Church. The Reformation spread to other parts of the Swiss Confederation, but several cantons resisted, preferring to remain Roman Catholic. Zwingli formed an alliance of Reformed cantons which divided the Confederation along religious lines. Zwingli’s ideas came to the attention of Martin Luther and other reformers. They met at the Marburg Colloquy and although they agreed on many points of doctrine, they could not reach an accord on the doctrine of the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In 1531 Zwingli’s alliance applied an unsuccessful food blockade on the Roman Catholic cantons. The cantons responded with an attack at a moment when Zürich was badly prepared. Zwingli was killed in battle at the age of 47. His legacy lives on in the confessions, liturgy, and church orders of the Reformed churches of today.

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