Student Question--What Does "Reformed" Mean?

The word "Reformed" comes from the protestant reformation. It means we believe in the solas of the reformation and the doctrines of grace as codified in the historic reformed creeds and confessions. Among these are the Belgic Confession, the Heidelberg Catechism, the Canons of Dort, the Westminster Confession and Catechism (for our Presbyterian brothers), the London Baptist Confession (for our Reformed Baptist Brothers). The creeds and confessions are only descriptions of our understanding of Scripture and are in no way authoritative the way Scripture is.
 
What's different about Reformed Christians? We are often called Calvinists (after John Calvin, one of the reformers, who held to these doctrines). We hold to both the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man. Since these truths are difficult to reconcile (seem to contradict at times) many compromise one or the other. To compromise the responsibility of man to obey God is to become a hyper-Calvinist—a fatalist who believes God will do what he's going to do so what we do is meaningless. To compromise the sovereignty of God is to be an Arminian or Pelagian (I'm not equating these--Pelagians take it much farther) and believe that man has the ultimate power to decide his own salvation. Unfortunately, since others cannot understand how we can believe in [both] the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man, Calvinists are often accused of believing what hyper-Calvinists believe.

We'll also talk a lot more about this when we discuss the Reformed distinctives of our faith.