Ulrich Zwingli: The reformation in Switzerland

Ulrich Zwingli: The reformation in Switzerland While Germany struggled under the political and religious consequences of Luther's reform, the movement itself quickly spilled out of the German borders into neighboring Switzerland. • At the time, Switzerland was not so much a single country as a confederacy of thirteen city-states called cantons. • When Luther's ideas began to pour over the border, several of the cantons broke from the Catholic church and became Protestant while other cantons remained firmly Catholic.

Of the cantons that adopted Luther's new movement, the most important and powerful was the city-state of Zurich under the leadership of Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531). • Born in Wildhaus, Switzerland, on New Year's Day in 1484, Zwingli received a good education in the classics and was ordained a priest in 1506. • He served as parish priest in Glarus from 1506 to 1516.

A key event during that period aroused his patriotic fervor and perhaps began to undermine his confidence in the Roman church. One of the major industries for the Swiss then was mercenary service. • They would hire out their young men to fight in others' wars, including battles for the pope. • (You can still see the Swiss guard today policing the Vatican in their colorful uniforms). • Zwingli accompanied the Swiss troops as chaplain in September of 1515, and saw 6000 of his young countrymen slaughtered in the service of the pope at the battle of Marignan in Italy. • He returned home determined to abolish this mercenary practice of "selling blood for gold." It would cost him his parish at Glarus but helped pave the way for his call to Zurich later.

The year 1516, was decisive for Zwingli • He became a parish priest at Einsiedeln, • apparently put a sexual affair with a barber's daughter behind him • and met the great scholar Erasmus. • He immersed himself in the Greek New Testament published by Erasmus. • (He actually hand copied out of this edition all of Paul's epistles and learned them by heart.) • His preaching began to take on a decidedly evangelical tone.

Zwingli rose through the ranks of the Catholic church until he was appointed "People's Priest" in 1519 On January 1, 1519, his 35th birthday, he became pastor at the central church in Zurich. The most powerful ecclesiastical position in the city. • Here he was able to work toward the prohibition of mercenary service. • As soon as he arrived, he announced that, rather than preach from the prescribed texts of the lectionary, he was going to preach through the Gospel of Matthew. This was a bold step in that day. By this time he had bought fully into Luther's reform program and began to steadily shift the city over to the practices of the new Protest church.

The dreaded plague arrived in Zurich the same year as Zwingli. He did his best to minister to his people. More than one-fourth of the 9,000 people of the city fell victim. Zwingli caught the plague, too. In his three-month recovery, he learned life-changing lessons of dependence on God that made his trust in God's Word rock-solid.

The rituals and doctrines of the Church did not square with his reading of Scripture. He preached what he found in the Bible --even when it meant going against long-accepted church teachings. As a result, controversy spread. • A public debate was held on disputed matters of faith and doctrine by the Zurich city council. • In 1523, the city officially adopted Zwingli's central ecclesiastical reforms and became the first Protestant state outside of Germany. • From there the Protestant revolution would sweep across the map of Switzerland.

On January 29, 1523, the council issued a ruling backing Zwingli It issued a decree that he and the other pastors in the region were "to preach nothing but what can be proved by the holy gospel and the pure holy scriptures." • Reforms were implemented, • Catholic images removed, • The mass replaced with a simple service emphasizing preaching, • Communion celebrated more as a "spiritual" reception of Christ.

Despite this vote of confidence, Zwingli could expect that the Catholic loyalists would resist him, and they did. He did not expect that perhaps his greatest trials would come from within --some of his closest followers did not think he was pressing the reforms fast enough. These became known as Anabaptists. They were particularly agitated over infant baptism, which they rejected.

A public debate was called to consider the issue. The Zurich council ruled against the Anabaptists These "radicals" defied the council. They "re-baptized" themselves as adult believers. When they continued to defy the council, some of the radicals were put to death.

Zwingli brought to Luther's revolution an education steeped in northern Humanism, particularly that of Erasmus. • He was monumentally popular in Zurich for • his opposition to Swiss mercenary service in foreign wars • and his attacks on indulgences He was, in fact, as significant a player in the critique of indulgences as Luther himself

Zwingli tends to be passed over quickly in world history textbooks for several reasons The most glaring reason is the simplicity of his theology. • In comparison to Luther and Calvin, both of whom wrote volumes on every topic under the sun, Zwingli stuck to a single theme throughout his arguments and writing. • Still, this simple theology would form the background for the development of the more strict and radical forms of Protestantism and can still be heard in Christian churches around the globe. In fact, Zwingli's rather uncomplex theology could be described as the single most important shift in religious culture in the sixteenth century

Zwingli's theology and morality were based on a single principle: If the Old or New Testament did not say something explicitly and literally, then no Christian should believe or practice it. This was the basis of his critique of indulgences. In 1522, for instance, Zwingli mounted a protest against the fast at Lent, a standard Catholic practice. His argument: “The New Testament says absolutely nothing about fasting at Lent so the practice is inherently unchristian.”

There are two important shifts in Western religious experience that result from this position. • The first is the literal reading of the Old and New Testaments. • No longer would these texts be dark and mysterious, full of difficult and allegorical meanings; • instead, the texts of the Old and New Testaments became something like statute law. • The words meant what they said; any difficulty, contradiction, or obscure meaning was the fault of the reader and not the text • Because these texts had simple and literal meanings, they also became standardized . • While theologians and religious sages could debate the allegorical and figurative meanings of scriptural texts until the end of the world, the literal reading of Christian scriptures meant that it was possible to have one and only one meaning of the text.

From this profound shift in the reading of the central writings of Christianity developed one of the most strict and severe applications of these writings to social life. Not only were practices not contained in Scriptures to be shunned, but practices, beliefs, and rules that were contained in the literal meaning of the Old and New Testaments were to be adhered to absolutely and uncritically .

This became the underpinning of the social theories and organization of radical Protestant and Puritan societies And later the foundational social organization of the English colonies in America. We still live in a society dominated by this theory of social organization; You cannot walk down the street of American political discourse and not run into Zwinglian ideas of social organization based on the literal meaning of Christian scriptures.

While Zwingli ambitiously set out to build perhaps the most strict Protestant society, in religious, social, and moral terms He soon parted company with Martin Luther over major doctrinal issues. • Luther always had his heart rooted in Catholicism, particularly the Catholic intellectual tradition; • He was not willing to give up many Catholic ceremonies • And he certainly was not willing to accept Zwingli's doctrine of reading Christian scriptures with unwavering literalness.

The most important doctrinal issue they disagreed on was the nature of the Eucharist. • Luther, like the Catholics, believed that the bread and wine of the Eucharist was spiritually transformed into the body and blood of Christ • Zwingli believed that the Eucharist only symbolized the body and blood of Christ. This was no mere quibble about a plain-tasting cracker and a few dribbles of wine. At the heart of the dispute was the nature of Jesus Christ himself.

For Luther, what made the spiritual transformation of the Eucharist into the physical body and blood of Christ was the dual nature of Christ: as both God and human • Christ was both spiritual and physical, God and human being. Zwinglian Protestantism, as well as its spiritual inheritors (the majority of Protestant churches), overwhelmingly stressed the divine nature of Christ. • Jesus Christ was the divine; the Catholic insistence on the human nature of Christ was an incorrect and dangerous reading of the Christ event in history. • Therefore, any implicit suggestion in the practice of the Eucharist that Christ was human must be rejected.

Now, normally when theologians disagree, nothing much is done about it. The disagreement between Luther and Zwingli, however, was viewed as a political crisis of the highest order. • As leaders of the Protestant movement in two separate countries, Luther and Zwingli threatened any kind of political alliance between the two countries. • Philip of Hesse (1504-1567), the Landgrave of Hesse, understood the political benefits of an alliance with Switzerland, as did the Swiss. • The Protestant states in their infancy were, after all, trying to survive beneath the cloud of Catholic Europe; The leaders of these states understood their precarious position since they were surrounded on all sides by hostile countries

Luther and Zwingli met at the Colloquy of Marburg, October 1529 The reforms under Luther in Germany and Zwingli in Switzerland had many parallels, and the two agreed on most essential points of doctrine. • Philip Landgrave of Hesse brought the two of them together to meet in doctrinal discussion at Marburg. • Fifteen articles of faith were on the agenda and agreement was quickly reached on fourteen of them. But on the remaining item --the Eucharist— no concord could be reached and the trading of insults turned ugly.

Zwingli interpreted the presence of Christ in the Eucharist in a more spiritual and metaphorical way than Luther could accept. Thus a significant opportunity for expanded unity within the Protestant movement ended in division. Argument over the Lord's Supper --a sign of the oneness of God's people, rather than bringing together these two stalwart defenders of Scripture, instead drove a mean wedge between them.

Their meeting in Marburg itself represents the last point in the Reformation at which the movement could have preserved some unity. After Marburg, unification of the various Protestant movements became impossible, The new church, which Luther believed would become another, more pure universal church, fragmented into a thousand separate, quarrelling pieces within a few decades.

This tragedy from within was compounded as civil strife intensified between Catholic and Protestant areas. • Zwingli's reform movement did take hold in major urban centers of German-speaking Switzerland and eventually would find reception in Geneva, paving the way for Calvin's work there. • But Catholic resistance, particularly in rural cantons, could not be overcome. • Fighting broke out.

Zwingli joined the Zurich troops as an armed soldier against the Catholics in what is known as the second Kappell War. The same Zwingli who had worked so hard to eliminate the mercenary service and had earlier even condemned war itself now took up arms, convinced it was necessary in the service of God and the Gospel. He was killed in battle on October 11, 1531, his body hacked to pieces and disgraced by his enemies.

Wars of religion would continue in Europe for well over a century after the Reformation. All of the major power centers calling themselves Christians --Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed alike--would look to the power of the state and the sword to preserve and advance their interests.

The word Anabaptist means "re-baptizer." It is a label often assigned to all "Radical Reformers“ —a diverse group that remained outside the mainstream of the Reformation— Strictly speaking, the label Anabaptist as it is employed today more properly applies to the less -radical Radicals on the fringe of the Reformation— men such as Conrad Grebel and Menno Simons, whose movements endure today in Amish and Mennonite communities

Anabaptism in Switzerland developed from Zwingli's early supporters. • These future radicals included the Grebel circle, which gathered in the home of Andreas Castelberger for Bible study, and priests from the outlying towns of Zurich. • For different reasons the urban and rural radicals became disillusioned with Zwingli's reform. • Seeing the Bible as an alternative authority to Rome, the Grebel circle desired Zwingli to proceed rapidly to purify the city's religious establishment of such corruptions as the Mass. • When Zwingli allowed the city council to determine the speed of reformation, it seemed to the radicals the substitution of one oppressive authority for another.

The radical movement developed social as well as religious dimensions Its members joined forces with rural priests such as Simon Stumpf at Hongg and Wilhelm Reublin at Wittikon, who sought to establish self - governing Volkskirchen in the rural communities, independent of Zurich's central authority, both religious and civil. The rebaptisms which occurred first on January 21, 1525, and from which come the name Anabaptism, Originally expressed an anticlerical opposition to civil and religious authority outside of the local parish rather than a Free Church theological concept.

To understand why the Anabaptists did not cooperate with the Reformation We must understand the various elements active in the ranks of the reformers and the various groups who were roughly classed as Anabaptists by their foes.

“In 1523-24 Zwingli himself distinguished three different groups within the population. • There were people in Zurich, he said, who were Protestants out of hatred for Catholicism. • The category of “negative Protestants,” who are Protestants because they under no condition wish to be Catholic. • The second group is made up of libertinistic Protestants • who see in the Gospel nothing but an opportunity to lead a looser life. • But there is a third circle: those who “work in the Word of God,” who seek to live according to the Word of God, and to penetrate ever deeper into the Holy Scriptures. • This last group is Zwingli’s staff, “the narrow circle of his collaborators.”

In these three groups there were many motives, many ideas and many conflicting interests to serve. Many viewed the reformation movement as a political opportunity, and used it for such ends. • To unite these groups behind the reform movement • many compromises were made, • many expediencies were adopted • and a return to the faith and practices of the New Testament was found impossible. The Reformers felt that the reformation must survive and succeed by alliances, rather than a determined stand on the pure Word of God as the Anabaptists contended.

Among those who were called by their enemies Anabaptists, there were at least three parties. • The Scripturalists • Who stressed the inner word of the Spirit and gave it preeminence over the outer Word, the Scriptures. • In this respect they have many followers in both modernism and pietistic fundamentalism. • They had little interest in the restoration of the New Testament church. • The radical group • Who provided the push for the Munster rebellion were determined to establish the kingdom of God in society by force, if necessary. • By their fanaticisms and excesses they brought reproach upon the Anabaptist movement and enabled the enemies of the Anabaptist to condemn all of them.

Thirdly: The Bible Christians of the Reformation. “The Anabaptists are the Bible Christians of the Reformation. They wish to restore the Early Church at Jerusalem as a community of saints sharply separated from the world.” (Walter Kohler) • They insisted that only doctrines found in the Word of God were true doctrines • And only practices taught by the Word of God were permissible, • Consequently they rejected all doctrines modified by expediency, and all practices sanctified by custom. They refused to alter their position to conform to the political situation.

These five tenets might be identified as distinctive of this third group: • Sola Scriptura • They were sometimes more consistent than the Magisterial Reformers in their insistence on biblical authority for certain practices in matters of church polity and worship. • Separation of Church and State • They saw the church as the assembly of the redeemed, antithetical to the world and sometimes antagonistic to society as a whole. For this reason they advocated separation of church and state. • Believers' Baptism • They were the among the first to point out the lack of explicit biblical support for infant baptism. • Most of them made no issue of the mode of baptism, and practiced affusion (sprinkling), however, so they were not true baptists in the modern sense of the word.

These five tenets might be identified as distinctive of this third group: • Freedom of Conscience • Because of their' convictions about the role of the secular state, they believed that the ultimate remedy for heresy was excommunication. • They steadfastly opposed the persecution that was so characteristic of their age. • They denied that the state had a right to punish or execute anyone for religious beliefs or teachings. This was a revolutionary notion in the Reformation era. • Holiness of Life • They gave much emphasis to spiritual experience, practical righteousness, and obedience to divine standards. • They had no tolerance for those who claimed to be justified by faith while living unfaithful lives. • They pointed out that Scripture says, "Faith without works is dead" (Jas. 2:20).

Ultimately there emerged the idea of the church of the separated, persecuted, and defenseless minority. The Schleitheim Articles of 1527 consolidated this Swiss Anabaptism. Its goal was not the purification of existing Christianity, as it was for the early Zurich radicals, but rather the separation of congregations of believers from the world.

Thus at Schleitheim first emerged the idea of a "free church." These Swiss Brethren came to be known for their legalistic approach to the Bible A salvation manifesting itself in the creation of separated congregations, and baptism which symbolized that salvation and made the baptized a member of the congregation. They were the salt of the Anabaptist movement and the ancestors of the New Testament Baptists everywhere.

They insisted upon going back to what they felt were the origins of Christianity • They insisted that the roots of the faith as set forth in the New Testament alone determined the nature of the faith. • They were opposed to grafting a partially reformed Protestantism on what they saw as the apostate root of Romanism. • They wanted to go back to the New Testament church and recover it in its fidelity to the Word of God and the doctrines of the apostles. As New Testament restorationists, they were considered extremists by those • Who would seek alliances with the world, • Who were only interested in limited reforms, • Who would compromise the literal Word of God, • And who would not follow the pattern of the Word of God in the Reformation.

Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli considered Anabaptists heretics These “reformers” consented and sometimes encouraged their punishment and deaths. “The major Protestant Reformers and their associates were the bitterest foes and persecutors of the Anabaptists; and Protestant scholars and polemicists, beginning with Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, Philip Melanchton, John Calvin, and Henry Bullinger, drew and redrew a composite portrait of them as fanatics and revolutionaries.” [Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, p. 26]

From the Baptist Perspective The Reformers must share with the Roman Catholics the responsibility for the bloody persecution and death of a great host of Anabaptists. • It is true that the history of the Baptists can be traced by their bloody footprints on the sands of time; • It is also true that the hands of the Reformers are stained with the blood of many of the saints of God who dared to stand by the Word of God and oppose their sinful compromises. Perhaps the animosity between Baptist and other Christian denominations becomes historically clear

Ulrich Zwingli: The reformation in Switzerland