Yet, it is back to the words - or rather The Word - that David takes us to find the depths of a Reformed spirituality and he spells it out in four chapter headings :-

A Speaking God and a Listening People: we expect God to speak to us, through the bible; through the preacher; in prayer and so we expect those through whom God will speak to prepare and study and speak in a language we understand. And all of us must listen for we “are a people created to listen to the One who spoke creation into being” (p61) 

A Choosing God and a Chosen People: concepts of election and predestination are to be found in the Bible and so however uncomfortable it may be for the post-modern mind we have wrestled with hows and the whys and the consequences. Election brings “a sense of calling to live a godly life for the sake of the Kingdom” and is “a liberation from spiritual striving” (p90-1). The chapter finishes with an analysis of Watts’ When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, as a meditation on the spirituality of election - love so amazing, so divine/demands my life, my soul, my all.

A Holy God and a Worldly People: no idol or image can depict the holiness of God, yet we are called to an imaginative engagement with scripture; all space is sacred, there is no distinction between public space and sacred space; we are called into the world and to engage with politics, ethics, issues of justice and culture. In van Gogh’s Starry Night the village church does not lack light because God is missing (as some have argued) but because the people (who are the church) are out in the world - “However tortuous his spiritual journey,however black his depression, van Gogh’s mind was steeped in Reformed culture, and Reformed spirituality is worldly - the starry night is precisely where the Reformed would expect to encounter God” (p127-8)

A Loving God and a Catholic People: The true church is wherever the  Word is truly preached and the sacraments properly administered; which makes boundaries hard to draw; in the 16th Century monasticism was discarded in the 20th Century three Reformed communities at Iona, Taize and Grandchamp have introduced a new catholic form of monasticism that has enriched the whole church. “God is there before us, a generous giver of lavish grace. The unity of the Church lies in that grace, which is why the Reformed seek to be a catholic people.” (p155)

In Christianity's Dangerous Idea: The Protestant Revolution a history from the sixteenth century to the twenty-first, Alistair McGrath tackles an even bigger subject - the way in which the obligation of every person to interpret and re-interpret the Bible through the eyes of their own experience, culture and times has shaped the world in which we live - this is the 'dangerous idea' at the heart of Protestantism.

He begins with the various 16th Century movements that became known as Protestantism, the ways in which their biblical interpretations led them in different or similar directions, takes us into 19th Century global expansion particularly in the United States. He then explores the way in which the movement has been manifested through believes, belonging, structure, shaping of Western culture and in Arts and Sciences - through it all it can be seen that the dangerous idea has given people permission to both believe and disbelieve, to find God in scientific research and conclude that we are deluded; it helped to create the conditions for capitalism, colonialism and the tools to fight the injustices that emerged; it allows us to question and explore and imagine and experience and re-interpret and adapt and question and....

He sees the new Reformation being led by Pentecostalism - which has taken us beyond the age of Reason and into an age of experiencing God beyond the written word - where the Holy Spirit is expected to be part of the re-interpretative process. (I certainly had not realised the extent to which the pre-20th Century church believed that the Holy Spirit was no longer active). McGrath believes that the future will be pentecostal, de-centralised and unpredictable! He concludes "Protestantism possesses a unique and innate capacity for innovation, renewal, and reform based on its own internal resources. The future of Protestantism lies precisely in Protestantism being what Protestantism actually is."

Both of these books have reminded me of the great heritage of the tradition in which my faith has been nurtured and grown and developed. Amongst all the angst about decline, the wailing of the doom-mongers that Christianity is dead, I am encouraged that we are being reformed - and in being reformed we must let God be God and allow the new future to emerge ...