The Presbyterian Church Calendar

A couple of weeks ago on our podcast, Theology Lunch, we were asked the question, “Do Presbyterians follow the church calendar?” I would encourage you all to give it a listen here. In this article, I want to expand on some points made in that conversation. 

First, yes, Presbyterians do follow the church calendar as reflected in Holy Scripture, that is we meet on the first day of the week remembering it was the day the Lord Jesus rose from the dead (Matt 28:1; Mark 16:9; Luke 24:1; John 20:1; Acts 20:7; 1 Cor. 16:2; Rev. 1:10). We believe that the Lord has set apart Sunday as the day to worship him. Outside of these passages, we have no explicit command to worship God on any other day. This has been the historic position of American Presbyterians as a story from 1841 will help illustrate. In 1841, the Episcopal Bishop of New Jersey, George Washington Doane, published a booklet arguing for the use of the liturgical calendar. His neighboring Presbyterian minister, Cortlandt Van Rensselaer, wrote a response under the pseudonym, “a Presbyterian.” Rensselaer’s response took issue with the extravagance and emphasis on man-made holy days, numbering 120, compared to the biblically simple pattern of 52 Lord’s days. While his response is well worth reading, “Man’s Feasts and Fasts in God’s Church,” a chart depicting “Presbyterian Holy Days'' in the style of what would be found in the Episcopal Bishop’s Book of Common Prayer captures his argument perfectly:

Further, while the two clergymen disagreed over the observance of the church calendar, Rensselaer delivered the sermon at Doane’s funeral. It has been well documented by Morton Smith and other church historians that the shift of observing Christmas and Easter in Southern Presbyterianism was late in US history, really taking root in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Of particular historical interest, one of the strongest voices for Presbyterians observing the church calendar was Henry Van Dyke Jr who infamously and publicly gave up his pew at 1st Presbyterian of Princeton New Jersey when Gresham Machen took over as supply. Van Dyke was in favor of the modernism which Machen was opposed to and viewed as a danger to historic Christianity. 

Second, the recent emphasis on all things liturgical like the observance of Advent and Lent is a recent phenomenon in Protestant Evangelicalism. Imagine for a moment we rewound the clock to the early 1990s average Baptist church. If you went up to the pastor a few weeks leading up to Easter and asked, “When does Lent start and what do you plan to preach during those weeks?” He would probably get uncomfortable. Maybe he would think you were in the wrong church and direct you to the Catholic or Episcopalian church down the street. Postmodernity has made many feel disconnected from tradition and the past. It is not surprising then to want a connection with the ancient church. Many will be disappointed to discover though that references to the celebration of Easter and Christmas come much later than the Apostolic era. It would seem from the New Testament witness and the Early Church that the primary focus of the church calendar was the weekly gathering of the saints on the Lord’s Day. 

Third, we do have a tradition we can follow that is historic and biblical although could honestly have a more creative name - the Regulative Principle of Worship. We find this principle in our Westminster Confession of Faith 21.1, “the acceptable way of worshiping the true God is instituted by himself, and so limited by his own revealed will, that he may not be worshiped according to the imaginations and devices of men, or the suggestions of Satan, under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy Scripture.” The chapter is focused on prayer, Scripture reading, and observance of the Sabbath, “As it is the law of nature, that in general, a due proportion of time be set apart for the worship of God; so, in his Word, by a positive, moral, and perpetual commandment binding all men in all ages, he hath particularly appointed on day in seven, for a Sabbath, to be kept holy unto him” (21.7). While some in the PCA think the RPW is too restrictive, we have not officially deviated from it as a denomination. It also shows that it is not an issue of adiaphora where we can simply disagree. The most important feast day and the way we follow a church calendar is the weekly worship of God on his biblically appointed day - the Lord’s Day. 

Fourth, you can celebrate Easter and Christmas. I am not trying to give you whiplash here if I’ve convinced you that the only “holy” day Presbyterians have is Sunday. It is, but we also can recognize significant days in redemptive history that have biblical support. The Reformers called these “evangelical feasts.” The Second Helvetic Confession, Helvetic is Latin for “Swiss,” was written by Henrich Bullinger in 1562. This was a widely held confession throughout Reformed countries including Switzerland, Scotland, Hungary, Poland, and France. After the Westminster Confession and Heidelberg Catechism it is one of the most popular confessions of Reformed churches. Chapter 24 of the 2nd Helvetic Confession is on “Holy Days.” Bullinger does a lot well in this chapter. He prioritizes Lord’s Day worship, “the Lord's Day itself, ever since the apostles' time, was set aside for them and for a holy rest, a practice now rightly preserved by our Churches for the sake of worship and love.” He then recognizes biblically rooted “feasts” that Christians, within their liberty, may want to celebrate, “Moreover, if in Christian liberty the churches religiously celebrate the memory of the Lord's nativity, circumcision, passion, resurrection, and of his ascension into heaven, and the sending of the Holy Spirit upon his disciples, we approve of it highly.” He then goes on to denounce feast days made by men to celebrate men, think of the Catholic church’s practice of feast days for saints. Finally, he says that seasons like Lent, “ought not, and cannot, be imposed on the faithful.” This is because it is not widely found in the ancient church and although he does not say it explicitly in this paragraph it is not found commanded in Scripture either. I think there is wisdom and Christian liberty to celebrate Christmas and Easter as they recall events that we may find in Scripture about our Lord Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. This is why we at the Kirk still celebrate Christmas Eve, Christmas, and Easter. We often have a special sermon on those days and do not feel like we are being inconsistent on this issue. Rather, we are following both the Scriptures and our Presbyterian and Reformed tradition on the interpretation of those particular redemptive-historical events. 

Fifth, and finally, the last reason we do not celebrate church “seasons” is they often ask us to think of the Christian life as something we “do” instead of what Christ has done. Further, they cause us to think as if Christ has not already done anything. Roland Barnes, longtime Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian in Statesboro, GA, said the liturgical calendar asks believers, “to suspend their living in light of the finished work of Christ…” One of my former Pastors, Jimmy Agan, told me once that he was fine with celebrating Christmas and Easter, but he never wanted to act like they had not already happened. This is what celebrating the church “seasons'' asks of believers. There is also the “works” element of these seasons. Advent, according to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, is a time of “penance in the sense of preparing, quieting, and disciplining our hearts for the full joy of Christmas.” Lent is similarly a time of penance and works, “Lent is a 40 day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday.” They also disrupt the expository preaching of the Word. I’ve been a part of PCA churches where the sermon series through a particular book is interrupted for a 4-6 week break while we pivot to an entirely different book or topic during Advent and Lent. When the season is over, we just dive right back in as if the break had not occurred hoping everyone still remembers where we left off. 

Presbyterians enjoy a rich and full worship life as we gather every Lord’s Day to declare that Christ has come, Christ has risen, and Christ will come again! 

This article was originally published for the benefit of the members of the Kirk Presbyterian.