Heidelberg Catechism Celebrates 450 Years

Faith Alive Christian Resources, the publishing ministry of the Christian Reformed Church, has published a 450th anniversary edition of the Heidelberg Catechism — perhaps the most widely known and widely used catechism to come out of the Reformation era.

Generations of CRC members are very familiar with and know by heart the famous opening question and answer of the catechism:

Q: What is your only comfort in life and death?

A: That I am not my own, but belong —
body and soul, in life and in death —
to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

The new version of the catechism does not make significant changes to the catechism, but it does work to be as accurate as possible to the original German and Latin.

This new translation differs from the old CRC version in that it is somewhat more true to the original language. “All the other translations were pretty old,” says Leonard Vander Zee, Faith Alive’s theological editor.

Vander Zee says the 450th Anniversary Edition “is a fresh and accurate translation (completed in 2011) … using the 1988 translation by the Christian Reformed Church in North America as an English-language base.”

Vander Zee says he came up with the idea of doing a translation in 2009 as he realized that the anniversary was approaching and that there were no common translations with other Reformed denominations.

“Faith Alive put together a committee with the RCA to do a new translation of all three confessions which began its work in 2009,” he says.

Besides the Heidelberg Catechism, the CRC and RCA’s confessions include the Belgic Confession and the Canons of Dort.

Initially, there was consideration to include the translations of the three confessions in Lift Up Your Hearts, the joint CRC/RCA hymnal set for publication in June.

But then Faith Alive decided to publish the confessions and creeds in a separate book, coming soon, titled Our Faith.

The CRC’s synod and the RCA’s synod approved the catechism, along with a translation of the Belgic Confessions and the Canons of Dort, at a joint meeting in 2011.

The Presbyterian Church (USA) took part in the translation process, up to a point.

It does not use the Belgic Confession or the Canons of Dort. But the anniversary edition of the Heidelberg Catechism was approved by the denomination’s General Assembly last year.

The Heidelberg Catechism was composed in the city of Heidelberg in 1563 at the request of Elector Frederick III, who ruled the province of the Palatinate from 1559-1576. Among other things, Frederick wanted a catechism that could help to bring unity to several Protestant factions in the Palatinate.

Creating a new edition for three denominations reflects the catechism’s original purpose, which was “not only to teach the faith but also to unite the various church factions in the sixteenth Century German Palatinate by means of a common translation,” writes Vander Zee in the preface to the book.

Representatives from Calvin Theological Seminary, Western Theological Seminary, Union Presbyterian Seminary and staff from the CRC and RCA worked on the translation.