Abstract
Bruce Gordon's biography of Huldrych Zwingli provides a much-needed scholarly examination of the Zürich reformer's life, beliefs, practices, and legacy in a historical context. This work takes the reader well beyond the stereotypes and snippets learned in church history courses into the complex world of simultaneously emerging Swiss national identity and Reformed theology. We find here a lusty young man with extraordinary Humanistic interests and talents along with captivating rhetorical abilities and considerable organizational skills. His rise to prominence had almost as much to do with his forceful critique of landed elites who benefited monetarily from the practice of hiring out young Swiss men to fight in foreign wars as it did with deep appreciation for the erudition and reforming vision of Erasmus. An independent thinker, Zwingli came to his disrupting views around the same time as Martin Luther. Soon, the Zurich prophet began to read Luther's writings and found himself in strong agreement with most of the biblical, theological, and ecclesial views coming out of Wittenberg. As anyone familiar with the history of the Protestant Reformation knows, Zwingli did not see eye to eye with Luther on everything and certainly not with respect to the theological meaning of the sacrament of Communion. Gordon's recounting of the ill-fated meeting of the two reformers in Marburg in 1529 and its aftermath provides texture and nuance to go with the rivers of vituperative ink that flowed for decades from both camps post-Marburg. Here, too, we get a thorough treatment of the events that led up to Zwingli's death on the battlefield in full battle attire during the Second Kappel War in October of 1531. The book concludes with a description and assessment of the many contested ways in which Zwingli was remembered across the nearly five centuries since his death.
The strengths of the book are many. Mainly, Gordon's portrait brings Zwingli alive as a three-dimensional person of flesh and blood as well as the bold and unflinching prophet of the Word of God. Perhaps what struck me most was just how many themes in the Reformed tradition were originated by Zwingli (and not by John Calvin). Here are some of the key emphases that were part and parcel of Zwingli's creative theological vision: enthusiasm for the study of the Bible in the original Hebrew and Greek; grounding everything in the belief and practices of the church in the explicit teachings of Scripture (or it had to be excised from the life of the church); strong emphasis on the connection between the Lord's Supper and ethical life in church and society; gratitude as the key orientation of the Christian life; covenant as the framework for thinking about relationship between God and humanity; piety that is learned and openness to critical engagement with pagan philosophers and authors; Christ as guiding the community of faith actively in the present; differentiated unity of justification and sanctification; emphasis on joy as a key theme of the Christian life; creation as the theater of God's glory; and using the Apostles’ Creed as the organizing framework for teaching the core beliefs and practices of Christian faith. Though Calvin rarely mentioned Zwingli, Gordon makes it clear that the Genevan reformer owed a great deal to the Zürich reformer.
The biography has only a few downsides. Gordon's treatment of the history of memorialization of Zwingli was somewhat interesting but might better have been an appendix. The enduring influence of Zwingli in the beliefs and practices of the various particular branches of the Reformed tradition family of churches might have demonstrated more effectively his complicated, yet still relevant legacy than a history of biographies and monuments. A mistaken attribution to the Gospel of John instead of 1 John and one instance in which part of a sentence was repeated on two different lines were only very minor annoyances in an otherwise impressive and detailed piece of scholarship.
Gordon's biography clarified for me my reservations about Zwingli even while it helped me to appreciate him at a deeper level. First, the reformer was entirely too rational and not nearly open enough to mystery. I find this to be at the root of Zwingli's anemic theology of the Lord's Supper. Second, Gordon's work also helped me to see the dangers in marrying Protestant commitments with nationalistic agendas. Zwingli's Protestant theocratic nationalism not only led to problematic entanglements between church and civil authority; it also led to a lot of bloodshed, not to mention his own untimely death. To be sure, my two concerns about Zwingli are not new nor are they original to me, but Gordon's contextualization helped me to understand these matters in a much deeper and more nuanced way. This biography would greatly aid courses focused on the various reform movements of the 16th century. It would also aid pastors in the Reformed tradition to appreciate the origins of much that gives them meaning and purpose today. It might also help those outside of the Reformed tradition to take Zwingli on his own terms and to move beyond clichés.