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Did You Know?
What Presbyterians Believe about the Authority of Confessions in the Reformed Tradition
The Reformed tradition is unique in its understanding of the authority of its confessions. The most revealing clue to this unique understanding is the great number of confessions it has produced. Other Protestant confessional traditions have been content with only a few confessional statements written by a few people within narrow geographical or historical limits. All the Lutheran confessions, for instance, were written by a few Germans in Germany between 1529 and 1580.
Authoritative Roman Catholic teaching comes from church councils or from the Pope. But from beginning of the Reformation wherever the Reformed church spread, Reformed Christians made new confessions of their faith, first city by city then country by country. The confessions of Bern, Basel, Zurich, Geneva, and other Swiss cities were followed by one or more confessions written for Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, Hungary, and Scotland.
The great period of confession writing came to an end for two centuries after the 17th century (because under the influence of Protestant orthodoxy the Reformed churches lost sight of the reason for multiple confessions and because the liberal theology that dominated the 18th and 19th centuries was suspicious of confessional restraint). But the 20th century has seen a revival of Reformed confessional writing. Reformed churches have participated in the preparation of well over 30 new confessions that have been completed or are in process.
https://pcusa.org/sites/default/files/boc2016.pdf
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