Protestants & Sunday Worship

1. The Reformation Period and After. The Reformers of the sixteenth century followed the Catholic practice of Sunday observance in contradiction of their claim to make the Bible their sole rule of faith and practice. Though most of them acknowledged that Sunday observance was merely an ecclesiastical institution that had no foundation in the Bible, they found it so deeply entrenched in religious custom and civil law that they preferred to leave it alone rather than attempt to return to the observance of the seventh-day Sabbath.

The Reformers held that Sunday observance was not juris divini (of divine law), but only quasi juris divini (of semidivine law); yet they objected to the Catholic claim that it had been appointed by the authority of the church (Augsburg Confession of 1536, part 2, art. 7, "Of Ecclesiastical Power"). As for Karlstadt, the sacramentarian and mystic, he was not sure ("Concerning Sunday, it is known that men have instituted it"). He did not take a positive stand on the Sabbath (see SB, No. 1374).

The Catholic dialectician, Johann Eck, taunted the Protestants with the Catholic claim that "the Church has changed the Sabbath into the Lord’s (day) by its own authority, concerning which you have no scripture" (Eck, Enchiridion [1533], fols. 4v, 5r; see SB, No. 1445). The Roman Church has often freely acknowledged making the change, and in fact, declares that the idea of Sunday sacredness is a distinctive "mark" of Catholicism that reflects on Protestants (see SB, Nos. 1436–1445, etc.).

At the Council of Trent (1545–1563) the keeping of the Lord’s day was held to be a divine commandment, but the time of observance was said to be susceptible to change. The council retained the classic argument that the first day of the week is a memorial of the resurrection of our Lord. The obligation to hear mass every Sunday is one of the "commandments of the church."

2. "Sabbath" Applied to Sunday. The theory that Sunday is the transplanted Sabbath of the fourth commandment is of Puritan origin, dating from the late sixteenth century (see SB, Nos. 1631–1635; cf. No. 1602).

The English Puritans and the Scottish Calvinists kept the "Sabbath" (Sunday) with extreme strictness. The Puritan Westminster Confession of 1647 decreed Sunday as the "Christian Sabbath" (ch. 21; now 23; see SB, No. 1602). As a consequence, in English-speaking countries there is still confusion between the terms Sabbath and Sunday.