11
October 1531 A.D. Zwingli
Dies by the Sword; the Man the Lutherans & Bishops of Italy Love to Hate
Significance of Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland?
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Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531)
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An
interesting post about Ulrich Zwingli, the Reformer at Zurich, and the stiff
antagonist to Martin Luther at the Colloquy of Marburg, 1529. Acidri offers an update on his travels
through Germany and Switzerland. There
are a few good pictures. Of interest,
Acidri gives a helpful resource on Zwingli, to wit: http://zwingliusredivivus.wordpress.com/. This alone justifies citing
Acidri’s post, that is, the academic resources on Zwingli.
We are not impressed by Zwingli, as Confessional
Anglicans. While he contended for Bible
exposition to his credit, he was a radical, “whitewashing walls,” tossing
“organs,” pressing the “Reformed” agenda, and taking a “memorialist” view of
the Table; we view him as a Proto-Puritan.
Perhaps had he lived beyond 1531 and matured more, he might have
moderated his views? Luther thought
Calvin was godly and scholarly, but he did not view Zwingli that way; he
thought Zwingli was a rough-neck (as if he wasn't). We also get no Book of Common Prayer from Zwingli. We will leave the matter
there.
A few asides.
(1) What and why should high schoolers, collegians, and lay Churchmen
know about Ulrich Zwingli? Why is he
important? Should boomers, millenials
and Gen-Xers know about him? (2) More largely, should Pastors have serious
educational objectives for Sunday Schools?
Are they trained in “education?”
I am thinking about the undergraduate and graduate degree in
“education?” Lesson plans, grade level
objectives, and grades? This includes
Catechetical memorization. I never heard
of such discussions in graduate school.
Somehow or someway, it was left to denominational centers of advertisement
for Sunday School materials. (3) What did Zwingli do and teach that was good
and right? What errors or wrongs did he
teach or do?
Let me dilate briefly on one point re: adult eduction in church schools, or,
Sunday Schools. Once upon a time, I encountered an "exceptionally
well educated Marine" during a Bible Study aboard a U.S. Navy
vessel. He was an enlisted Marine and about twenty-two years old.
He told me he was raised on materials from Ligonier Ministries. One thing
led to another. From the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I called his
Pastor. A charming discussion. The Pastor's church was about
1000ish in members, PCA as I recollect. The entire SS curriculum had
eight to ten video classes each semester for adults, requiring membership
and completion of materials to graduate. I was impressed not just with
this Pastor and church, but also one product of that church: this young United
States Marine. How and what is going on in church Sunday schools?
Zurich and Zwingli: The people’s
priest in Zurich and his contribution to the Reformation.
Posted by Acidri on May 14, 2012
I had a very interesting trip recently to Germany and Switzerland as I followed a few
of the Reformers. One of them stuck out. No he didn’t nail theses on walls but
he knew how to get his point across. I must add here that the Reformation
actually was not a one man crusade as some would want you to believe. God in
his providence harnessed events in tandem to bring about one of the greatest revivals
since Pentecost and the visible effects were actually out workings and fruits
of birth pangs that had began with people going back to reading the scriptures.
In Zürich (Switzerland) stands a statue that has braved
mischievous and militant Swiss pigeons to the hilt. It stands in the church
yard of one of the biggest cathedrals in Zürich, the Grossmünster. The statue is of the man who was called “the people’s priest”
Ulrich (Huldrych) Zwingli. Zwingli was born January 1, 1484 in Wildhaus,
Switzerland. Early scholarly gifts caused him to be sent to school, especially
at Basel, and he learned to love the classics.
When Zwingli became a priest he arrived in Zürich town
with the announcement that he would begin to preach right through the Gospel of
Matthew. This was a departure from the fragmentary reading of Scripture that
had prevailed in the medieval Church. After Matthew he preached through Acts
and then turned his attention to Paul’s epistles. There is a lot that the
contemporary church movement would learn from this simple man who led to
spiritual reform from just beginning to preach verse by verse (expository
preaching) at the Grossmünster. (Click here for
Zwingli resources online)
The Grossmünster (“great minster”) is a Romanesque-style
Protestant church in Zürich, Switzerland. It is near the banks of the Limmat
River. Construction of the present structure commenced around 1100 and it was
inaugurated around 1220. Huldrych Zwingli initiated the Swiss-German
Reformation in Switzerland from his pastoral office at the Grossmünster,
starting in 1520. Zwingli won a series of debates presided over by the
magistrate in 1523 which ultimately led local civil authorities to sanction the
severance of the church from the papacy. The reforms initiated by Zwingli and
continued by his successor, Heinrich Bullinger, account for the plain interior
of the church. The iconoclastic reformers removed the organ and religious
statuary in 1524.
Zurich is a peaceful and quiet city. As you walk by the
river side you will come across the Lindenhof. Towering above Altstadt (the old
town), Lindenhof is a pleasant park with panoramic views of the city. It is the
site of the Roman castrum of Turicum, the name of Zürich in Roman times. You
can see the peaks of the two towers of the Grossmunster almost from every
where. When at the Lindenhof they almost seem to be in touching distance. And
hey don’t forget to wink at the big clock too. Built in the 9th century, the St
Peterskirche (St. Peter’s Church) is the oldest church in
Zürich. It also boasts the largest clock face in Europe. The clock
face of St. Peterskirche is 9m (28.5 ft.) in diameter. The
minute hand alone is almost 4m (12 ft.) long! Now wait a minute….thats why time
goes veeery slooooooowly in ZZZzzzurich.
Descending down from the Lindenhof you will walk through
a couple of alleys to an almost secluded spot. It you are not looking for this
spot you are bound to miss it. It’s a plaque that hides a dark secret. Its a
plaque in memory of the Anabaptists who were drowned in the River Limmat. These
“radicals” as they are usually referred to were the rebaptisers. (I will write a more comprehensive post on them another
time). However the anabaptist’s plaque and cave (Tauferhohle) are quite good
historical markers pointing to a turbulent period in church history. (oh yes,
there is also a building that is a tribute to Conrad Grebel
though it has been turned into a cafe but the inscriptions are still intact on
the wall coloumns)
Back to Zwingli, by 1530, Zwinglian reforms had spread
through Switzerland and south Germany. But not all of Switzerland rallied to
Zwingli nevertheless his legacy lives on till today.
Zwingli’s doctrine of the Lord’s Supper differed from
Luther’s, as we saw in the Luther lesson. They attempted, but failed, to work
out their differences at the Marburg Colloquy. Zwingli rejected not only the
doctrine of transubstantiation (Christ’s body and blood replace the substance
of bread and wine), but also the Real Presence as held by Luther (Christ’s
physical body and blood are present in, with, and under the bread and wine,
which remains bread and wine).
Instead, he believed that the Lord’s Supper was a
memorial or remembrance of Christ’s death which increased the faith of
believers (“For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim
the Lord’s death until He comes,” 1 Cor 11:26). When Jesus broke the bread and
said, “This is my body,” Zwingli believed it was absurd to believe that his
body was present in the bread, since Jesus sat before them alive as he spoke
the words. Similarly, Jesus is physically now in heaven, having ascended
bodily, and while he fills the earth as God at all times, his body remains a
human body and is not omnipresent. This difference was never resolved….
[On the Anabaptists] as a movement the Anabaptists are
probably older than the Reformation, since they embody ways of looking at
Christ and the Christian life which were very present in medieval dissident
groups. They are the Protestant version of the medieval sects which were
persecuted by Rome, only now they arose in Protestant lands.
Remember that the mainstream Reformers and Rome agreed on
one thing: there is only one Church, and it is to find expression as exactly
one body in any locality. This often confuses Protestants who believe that
liberty of conscience arose full-blown from the mind of Martin Luther. Luther
indeed contended for liberty of conscience, but he meant that the individual
believer should not be under the power of Roman bishops and the Pope when
reading the Bible, which was God’s very word. But neither Luther, Zwingli, or
Calvin had any intention of there being more than one church in a local
jurisdiction. Instead, the rulers — be they Prince, Duke, or republican body —
were to be won over to the Reformation by preaching, and then the rulers (if
they were to be good Christians) should see to the reformation of the church in
their area.
At the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which won final tolerance
of Lutheranism in the Empire, the concept of cuius regio, eius religio (“whose
the region, his the religion”) was made the legal standard. Each part of the
Empire could only be one religion, either evangelical or Roman Catholic. At
least it was stated that if a person disagreed with the religion of his ruler,
he was to be allowed to emigrate to a region which practiced his own religion.
Again, there were only two legal religions, and in any one region there would
be only one.
This being true, there could be only one response to the
rising of an Anabaptist movement in a Protestant (or Catholic) region. It must
be eliminated. Some localities chose to enforce only the “mild” punishment of
banishment, but most employed some form of death penalty. Only a very few
places like Strasbourg attempted to find a more humane solution to the problem.
[Finally] Zwingli was the first example of a Swiss
reformer, and he was a Swiss German, not a Frenchman like John Calvin. There
were differences! Nevertheless, even though Calvin’s name will always be
connected to Reformed Christianity, it was Zwingli who was the archetype. He
was the first to publicly deny the Real Presence; he was the first to bring
“Puritan” influences and thorough reform of all outward ceremonies. “The
Wittenberger would allow whatever the Bible did not prohibit; Zwingli rejected
whatever the Bible did not prescribe” (Shelley, p. 250). In many ways,
Lutheranism was defined by justification by faith, which limited it, but
Reformed Christianity was defined by adherence to Scripture. The type of
Christianity that Zwingli discovered in the Bible became, although with much
variety, the faith of most Protestants. Through Zwingli and then Calvin, the
Reformed theology became the greatest branch of Protestantism, even though
fragmented into many movements. When it merged into the Moravian/Wesleyan/Great
Awakening strains, and gave up its love for the Constantinian state church, it
became modern Evangelicalism in all its strength.
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