Bringing Zwingli out from the shadows of Luther and Calvin

Often the readership of a biography is limited by the name recognition of its subject, and here we find Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet at a disadvantage. If you need to be reminded of who Ulrich Zwingli was—or if you never knew—don’t feel ashamed. At best, you probably learned of him as a foil to Martin Luther or precursor to John Calvin in a course long ago, the books for which you quickly off-loaded when the term finished. Perhaps you have a vague memory of debate at Marburg, a death at Kappel, or something called the Affair of the Sausages.

Zwingli’s career as a Reformer was short, and his ignominious death left little in the way of a following to establish a legacy like some of his contemporaries and followers enjoy. There are Lutherans and Calvinists but no Zwinglians (except those Lutheran seminarians accused of secretly being crypto-Calvinists for having spoken too imprecisely regarding the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist). In short, Zwingli’s legacy is not claimed by many today, however he might have shaped them.

By Bruce Gordon’s own admission, these difficulties are at the center of the challenge he accepts in taking on the task of chronicling the life of Zwingli. Rescuing Zwingli from both general obscurity and the shadows of Luther and Calvin is no trivial affair. Yet Gordon does just that, and expertly so.