Beyond the Book with Dr. Eccher: “Zwingli the Pastor”

In the following Q&A, Eccher takes the time to answer a few questions about his new book:

What is the scope of the book, and who is the target audience?

This book focuses attention on Huldrych Zwingli’s efforts to reform the Zurich Church, beginning in 1519 until his untimely and gruesome death in 1531. The project is pitched toward undergraduate and graduate students interested in the complex world of the Protestant Reformation, though the prose is written in such a way as to be accessible to everyday folks in the pew.

What motivated you to write the book?

Given the dearth of work on Zwingli in the English-speaking world, my desire was to highlight the ministerial labors of an often misunderstood reformer who has regrettably been marginalized in the historiography despite the long shadow of influence that his theology still casts on various confessional traditions today, including Baptist life.

Could you give us a brief overview of Zwingli’s life? What are some of the major details we should know about his life and ministry?

Zwingli was born just three months after Martin Luther and became one of the most important religious figures of the era, often rightly credited with ushering in the Swiss Reformation. The reformer spent more than a decade as a Catholic priest in the Swiss towns of Glaurus and Einsiedeln before embracing the evangelical gospel and setting his life toward redressing what he believed were the theological and liturgical errors of Roman Catholicism.

From 1519 until his death in 1531 he was the primary preacher at Zurich (Grossmunster Church) where he was able to usher in the Reformation by establishing the very first Reformed liturgy in April of 1525. This change was largely a consequence of the reformer’s deep commitment to the transformative power of God’s word and his willingness to loose the text on the Zurich community through an expositional preaching style that was unique for the day.

What are his most significant theological contributions, and how did he relate personally and doctrinally to other sixteenth century Reformers?

Zwingli is one of the fountainheads — if not the fountainhead — of Covenantal Reformed theology. His understanding of the relationship between the Old and New Testaments was especially forged during debates with his spiritual children in the faith, those who later became the Swiss Anabaptists — figures like Balthasar Hubmaier, Conrad Grebel, and Felix Manz. Zwingli’s Reformed convictions also reveal an indebtedness to his dialogues with other Covenantal reformers, like Martin Bucer and Johannes Oecolampadius, who similarly believed the two testaments of Scripture were interwoven.

Zwingli is one of the fountainheads — if not the fountainhead — of Covenantal Reformed theology.

Zwingli also recovered the practice of expositional preaching, which had been lost during the medieval era, and he helped to shape aspects of Protestant liturgies that continue today. He also famously articulated a theological foundation for what became a memorial view of the Lord’s Supper, despite vehement protests from the Wittenberg reformers, Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon, who carried on a belief in the corporeal presence of Jesus in the elements.

Throughout his ministry, Zwingli often found himself in the middle of several contentious debates. What can we learn from him about navigating conflicts and disputes in ministry?

Though his actions serve as a cautionary tale, the debates that Zwingli took part in over things like sin, the Lord’s Supper, or God’s sovereignty stress the importance of theological triage where Christians can find agreement on essential matters of the faith even as they charitably allow for the differing beliefs of others who remain within the safe waters of orthodoxy. Moreover, in the case of the Lord’s Supper, we can see how dangerous it can be when our own theological views are shaped as reactions to views held by others, rather than informed primarily by the biblical text.

What are some issues on which you differ with Zwingli, and what advice would you offer readers as they engage with Zwingli’s life and works?

As a Baptist I lament Zwingli’s use of hegemony, especially when wed with his particular application of civil violence. Here, I find his continued implementation of the “corpus Christianum,” that is a territorial State church based on a misreading of Matthew 13, a particularly problematic aspect of his theology. It only exacerbated his willingness to support the execution of other Christians for beliefs he deemed corrosive to the Church. As you read and engage with Zwingli, consider how important it is for us to champion a Baptistic commitment to the separation of church and state, religious liberty for all people, and an underlying adherence to voluntarism, which is built on the premise that faith cannot be coerced.

What are Zwingli’s landmark works, and what primary or secondary sources would you recommend to first-time readers of Zwingli?

Zwingli’s compendium of doctrine, his “Commentary on True and False Religion,” is arguably his most foundational work, while his “On Providence,” has incited much debate over his views relating to divine sovereignty. However, my personal favorite is his “Plague Song,” a work that he wrote after he survived a near-death experience with sickness. For secondary texts I’d suggest Bruce Gordon’s newest biography “Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet” and anything by the esteemed Zwingli scholar Peter Stephens.

How does this book help readers to better serve the Church and fulfill the Great Commission?

There are several chapters that focus attention on key ecclesial reforms that Zwingli implemented at Zurich, like his use of expositional, Christocentric preaching and a revised liturgy to convey biblical truths about Jesus’s once-for-all sacrifice. However, the reformer’s recovery of a beautiful, clear picture of the gospel (based on Jesus’s unique work as the sole mediator between God and humanity) and its ethical implications through a working faith are important reminders for us today.

The reformer’s recovery of a beautiful, clear picture of the gospel and its ethical implications through a working faith are important reminders for us today.

How has writing this book shaped you spiritually?

Whether one agrees with Zwingli’s understanding of providence, his commitment to the idea has challenged me for many years now not to merely believe in God’s sovereignty as a theological concept but to have a lived theology that fleshes out that belief in vibrant practice. Here, the reformer’s willingness to allow the Bible to interpret his life experiences, rather than forcing his unique experiences to reshape the meaning of the text, shines forth. This is an especially valuable hermeneutical model for us to implement as we seek to follow the inerrant word of God in life and ministry. And as it has with me, it might also provide much comfort for Christians as the storms of life crash waves of adversity onto our lives.