Reformation Part A - Luther, Zwingli, Calvin
The Reformation in Europe is traditionally dated from the day Martin Luther nailed 95 suggestions for discussion to some door in Wittenberg.
And for sure that was a significant date, October 31st, 1517.
Through great reformers such as Luther, Calvin and Zwingli, much truth was recovered. Centuries of dead tradition, Roman Catholic superstition and heresy were swept away; Gospel truth was restored.
Reformation Part B - Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz
But there is a good case for celebrating another date - 8 years later - as well. Tuesday 21st January 2025 will be the 500th Anniversary of Saturday 21st January 1525. And on that Saturday something profound took place: a few adults got baptised in Zurich. Here's one account of the event:
Doesn't sound like much to write home about?
Until you realise that this was the very first known/recorded proper New Testament church gathering in Europe for many centuries.
Until you realise that this gathering broke the perverse 1000 year old connection between church and state.
This one simple baptism signalled the determination of a new band of reformers called the Radical Reformers (nick-named the Anabaptists by their enemies: anabaptist means "baptise again" referring to the fact that they had already been baptised as infants). These believers wanted to form proper New Testament churches outside the control of the corrupting influence of the unbelieving state - just like the New Testament churches.
The Reformation was meant to be an attempt to restore the European Roman Catholic Church back to the Bible. ("Everyone" in Europe was a catholic in those days because State and Church were one.)
But great figures such as Luther, Zwingli and Calvin laboured under a blind spot so big it curtailed anything like the completion of their work.
All of these big name reformers used the powers of the local secular magistrates to push through their reforms, hence we call them "magisterial reformers." (Nothing to do with majesty - a common homophonic misunderstanding).
Zwingli, for example, waited until the council leaders in Zurich - who were not necessarily believers - agreed with the spiritual reforms he was urging. And only if/when these men agreed with his reforms did they pass into law. In this way the dangerous connection between church and state was continued.
Zwingli did not feel the need to act independently of the state, because in his mind the two were one: this was perhaps the biggest spiritual blindspot of this era.
Along came men like Conrad Gebel and Felix Manz in Zurich who argued that the church and state should be totally separate - just as they are in the New Testament.
And so on Saturday 21st Janaury 2025, a few Christians got baptised in a house in Zurich - and this simple act established the first known/recorded proper New Testament church that was separate from the state for centuries in Europe. (And unleashed a torrent of persecution upon them).
(At the end of this blog I list some sources if you wish to find out more about the Radical Reformers aka Anabaptists).
Reformation Part C - us, today
It is a great - but all too common - mistake to bind ourselves to Reformation A or B. To imagine that all the reformation that needs to take place has already taken place in the past. To line our bookshelves with their holy tomes and lock ourselves into the delusion of thinking we're safe, we're "Reformed."
The basic warning of Church History is that the church - however you define it, whatever tribe you find yourself in, is always drifting away from Scripture. That includes the tribe we are in.
That includes Bible-believing conservative reformed evangelicalism.
Us. You. Me.
It then remains to discern how the church today needs reforming in the light of Scripture.
To be sure the answer to that question will be as unnerving to us as Luther was to the Catholics of his day.
Here are seven reformation theses we need to sellotape to all our church doors today:
1. The end of Celebrity Christianity. That churches and church leaders should do everything in their power to pursue annonymity in this world and have an eye only to the Court of heaven in the world to come.
2. The end of number worship. That numbers, whether sales of books, congregation size, subscribers or number of hits, should no longer be used as any metric of truth or Gospel success.
3. The reintroduction of deep discipleship. That every believer and church should seek to make disciples in the same manner that the Lord Jesus and the apostles made disciples, to wit, by deep and extensive nurture of a few converts, rather than the illusion of discipling lage numbers.
4. The end of the CEO pastor. That the office, no less offensive than pope or priest, namely the CEO Pastor, should be abolished. This imposter office is the man or woman who has very little to do with individual sheep in the flock but instead acts as CEO to a sprawling entourage of underlings whom he directs from his ivory palace.
5. The end of the mega-church. That since the office of CEO pastor is to be abolished so too the babelesque churches - monuments to human pride - they preside over. The church can then return to the pattern of the New Testament - small churches scattered around and connected to one another by an Invisble Head.
6. The end of the new scholasticism. To abandon the ambition of pastors to be known for their scholastic achievements, and the practice of books and sermons to be informed more by the dictates and passing fads of the academy than for the edification of the ordinary believer.
7. A recovery of the doctrine that suffering is the mark of true greatness. That as the apostle Paul (following his Master), had a reputation for suffering, as the chief evidence of his apostleship, so today men and women ought to be judged not by their degrees or supposed ecclessiastical achievements, often purely mythical, sometimes laughable, but by the number of their scars. Count scars not stats.
I am sure that more reforms than these are needed to return the church to the New Testament. But these would make an enormous difference to the Kingdom of Christ in the world today.
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Resources on the Radical Reformation
The first step to knowing more about the Radical Reformation is to ignore, almost completely, what the Magisterial Reformers wrote about them. Virtually to a man these reformers spoke evil and slander about their fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.
And before we judge them for that sin we ought to remember, always remember, that one blind spot spawns another. If you believe that the state and the church are one, then you also will believe that the church can use the same means to get its way as the state - namely the use of force and the sword. (For this reason the statue of Zwingli in Zurich holds a sword and a Bible, and Zwingli himself died fighting in a real, not spiritual, battle). Force and hate was the order of the day in that unholy alliance called Christendom.
So step 1 is to discard the false and unreliable witness of the Magisterial Reformers.
Step 2 is to read a balanced account of the Radical Reformers and truthful biographies of their lives. Here are some examples:
Conrad Grebel: Founder of the Swiss Brethren (Harold Bender)
A History of the Anabaptists in Switzerland (Henry Burrage)
Anabaptism in Outline (edited by Walter Klassen)
Step 3 is to go back to the primary sources and read what these reformers said themselves, their writings. You could read one of their short statements of faith, here. Thankfully there has been a resurgence of interest in these writers. There is a wonderful series called Classics of The Radical Reformation, 13 volumes, by Plough Publishing House.
Volume 3 "Anabaptism in Outline: selected Primary Sources" is a great place to start if you are into primary sources.
Or you could save yourself a lot of reading and get hold of Lost Reformers, a short 40 page summary of the Anabaptists written by myself.
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