Written by Stephen O. Presley |
Tuesday, May 14, 2024
Zwingli the Pastor shows that pastors are as important today as they were in Zwingli’s time. The pastor has an essential role in times of crisis. As Eccher tells us, Zwingli preached powerful sermons to rally people to theological reform for the sake of gospel renewal. Some were so persuasive that his audience ascribed to him a near-prophetic quality. Pastors are the ones God calls to faithfully shepherd his people with virtuous persuasion. But Zwingli wasn’t a perfect pastor, and that’s the point.

On October 11, 1531, Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531) died on the battlefield after his Zurich battery was routed by Catholic forces at Kappel. He went into battle believing that God would sustain them—a devastating miscalculation. The accounts of his death vary dramatically. According to one report, the Catholics who found his lifeless body staged a posthumous mock trial, hurling insults at him and condemning him for various offenses. He was then beheaded, quartered, and burned, an unsanctimonious ending to one of the magisterial reformers.
Other reports give different accounts of the events—some fantastical. One suggests he lived long enough to make a dramatic defense of his views under interrogation, while another tale describes how his heart was salvaged from the ashes of his burning body, symbolizing the passion and purity of his message. Discerning truth from somewhat murky history exemplifies the challenge of recounting the complex and fascinating story not only of Zwingli’s death but also of his life.
In his book Zwingli the Pastor: A Life in Conflict, Stephen Brett Eccher includes the many “paradoxes and ironies” that make Zwingli a complex and controversial figure (2). Eccher is honest about the Swiss reformer’s successes and failures and finds lessons in them all. Zwingli’s life is often misunderstood and overshadowed by the other enormous figures of the Reformation, but alongside them, Eccher reminds us that Zwingli labored to see the same kinds of reforms that began from the milieu of Renaissance humanism.
Return to Scripture
Modern-day humanism is different from Renaissance humanism. The former is an “ideology,” while the latter was a “pedagogy.” The Renaissance humanism Zwingli soaked up aimed at personal transformation, primarily through the Scriptures and the wisdom of the tradition. His education led to deep learning of ancient literature and Scripture encouraged Zwingli to trust the Bible and to challenge contemporary assumptions about its interpretation.
According to Eccher, associate professor of Reformation Studies at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Zwingli was convinced Scripture is “literally God’s word” (21). Zwingli believed his people needed to hear God’s Word more than anything else; only Scripture would bring life and renewal. To that end, he made the radical decision, following the example church fathers such as Chrysostom, to preach through books of the Bible (lectio continua), rather than sticking to the standard lectionary readings.
“This decision was a stunning revelation to those present,” Eccher writes, “and was the first formal liturgical change ushered in by Protestantism” (59). At times, especially early in his preaching career, he preached on themes or topics that addressed cultural issues, but eventually, he gravitated toward “an evangelical gospel message,” the kind of message that stirred the hearts and lives of the people under his pastoral care (12).
Zwingli’s humanist education enhanced his preaching with good rhetorical and oratory practices so that a “winsome use of words characterized his preaching” (24). He combined rhetoric with his practical experiences, such as his time on the battlefield, which helped him connect with his audience.
Eccher identifies two key themes that colored Zwingli’s biblical interpretation and subsequently shaped his preaching: clarity and certainty. The former stressed the “Spirit’s determinate power to illuminate,” while the latter implied the “power of Scripture” (37). He combined these points with a Christocentric focus and with what Zwingli called “the Rule of Faith and Love” (45). “Initially surfacing in Zwingli around 1524,” Eccher writes, “this rule established charitas (‘love’) as an axiomatic grid of interpretation that helped to embody the practice of neighbor love in a diverse era” (45).
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Written by Forrest L. Marion |
Saturday, May 25, 2024
Bishop Barron has produced a short, superb message entitled, “Loss of a Sabbath Consciousness.” In it, he notes the loss since about the 1960s of “a more religious rhythm” to American life, even in secular society – a trend, by the way, to which the National Football League has been a heavy, perhaps the heaviest, contributor. But now, “Sunday seems a lot like any other day.”

On May 11, Kansas City Chiefs’ placekicker Harrison Butker achieved a media splash with his conservative remarks in the commencement address at Benedictine College. The small, conservative Catholic school in Atchison, Kansas, has pursued intentionally a path of higher learning where traditional Catholic teachings are upheld and celebrated. In short, Butker spoke of today’s poor leadership in and out of the Church, and of “degenerate cultural values” – in the media but also, sadly, far beyond. He pointed toward a better way offered by the traditional teachings and values of the Church.
Whether justified or not, Butker’s speech has been controversial. He has been criticized for several statements particularly concerning women, including reference to Taylor Swift, most of which a generation or two ago were simply expressions of accepted norms within Catholic (as well evangelical) circles, if not the culture overall. Discussion of his more controversial remarks is for others to pursue, however.
My point here is narrower. But first, Butker’s address reminds one of another commencement speech, by the famous Russian dissident and author, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, who in 1978 spoke at Harvard University. A half-century ago Solzhenitsyn declared: “A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage. . . .”
Whatever one thinks of certain comments he made at Benedictine College, Butker spoke with civic courage. He spoke boldly, clearly, intelligently, and – to many, though not all – winsomely. In 2020s America, that itself is no small accomplishment, especially the courage piece. Bravo for the lesson on civic courage – it’s much needed.
But there is another angle, which went unmentioned at Benedictine, or since then as best I can discern. One of the Super Bowl winning kicker’s statements, affirming “how an ordered, Christ-centered existence is the recipe for success,” is noteworthy.
In his address, Butker mentioned His Excellency Bishop Robert Barron, a friend of Benedictine College and, in 2022, a recipient of an honorary doctorate from the school. The acclaimed author, speaker, and theologian as well as the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Ministries, Bishop Barron is described as “one of the Church’s best messengers.” Butker might have done well to consider the connection between ordered, Christ-centeredness and the Sabbath – which is, arguably, among the foremost ordering institutions in the Scripture.
Bishop Barron has produced a short, superb message entitled, “Loss of a Sabbath Consciousness.” In it, he notes the loss since about the 1960s of “a more religious rhythm” to American life, even in secular society – a trend, by the way, to which the National Football League has been a heavy, perhaps the heaviest, contributor. But now, “Sunday seems a lot like any other day.” Barron continues:
From a biblical perspective, the loss of a Sabbath consciousness is nothing short of disastrous. One of the Ten Commandments, one of the most sacred commands in the Old Testament, tells us to keep holy the Sabbath. But more to it, Sabbath observance is a leitmotif that runs right through the Bible, Old Testament and New.
The Bishop of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester (Minnesota) goes on, interweaving the thoughts of Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel to suggest the Sabbath is a day of equality and that although “society puts all sorts of different stratifications on us, who’s up, who’s down. . . . on the Sabbath day . . . we realize that those distinctions really don’t amount to all that much.” Moreover, two successive popes, and John Paul II and Benedict XVI, “. . . placed a great stress on the recovery of this day.” Barron says, “. . . what a tragedy when we contribute ourselves to the secularization of the Sabbath. . . . Moses did not give us the ten suggestions. Keep holy the Sabbath is a commandment.”
Barron’s remarks, by the way, are at this point almost indistinguishable from the views historically of Presbyterians, Baptists, Episcopalians, and Methodists. Nearly two centuries ago one of the foremost organizations of its kind, the Virginia Society for Promoting the Observance of the Christian Sabbath – in which the four (above) mainline Protestant churches were well represented – stated, “So intimately connected is the Sabbath with all that is holy and transforming in the Gospel, that the manner in which it is observed, is a pretty accurate criterion of the state of religion in any community, family, or individual.” Later, the Virginia Society declared, “The truth is, the man, whose example is against the holy observance of the day, not only violates the law of God, by which he is to be judged, but does what he can to rob his neighbor of all the rich blessings which flow from the Sabbath.”[1]
The Sabbath-conscious observer of Benedictine College’s recent commencement might wonder: what were they thinking when they invited a speaker to promote traditional Christian values at their school, but whose very reason for being a public figure is inseparably linked to the Sabbath’s violation on an ongoing basis?
As suggested above, in football terms Harrison Butker’s courageous address was tantamount to, oh, about four field goals. But, more so for Benedictine than for Butker, the decision to invite him was a missed PAT in terms of the Sabbath – which like the typical point-after-touchdown, is barely considered.
Forrest L. Marion is a ruling elder in the First Presbyterian Church (PCA), Crossville, Tennessee.
[1] “Second Annual Report Of the Managers of the Virginia Society, for Promoting the Observance of the Christian Sabbath,” Southern Religious Telegraph, Apr. 13, 1832; “Virginia Society for Promoting the Observance of the Christian Sabbath,” Southern Religious Telegraph, Apr. 11, 1834 (quoted in Forrest L. Marion, “Sabbath Keeping as ‘Social Justice,’” Aquila Report, Sep. 3, 2017).
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None of this is to defend the cruelties associated with slavery. It is simply to say that Brown’s response was the wrong one, and that we should neither approve it nor celebrate him. Brown was celebrated for his militancy, and he seems to have regarded such militancy as the proper fruit of the Christian faith.

In 1860 a newspaper called The Christian Watchman and Reflector published a series of letters from Charles Spurgeon, in one of which he denied rumors that the American publishers of his works excised material that might be offensive to slaveholders. Highly perturbed at the suggestion, Spurgeon said, amongst other things, that “any slaveholder who should show himself in our neighborhood would get a mark which he would carry to his grave, if it did not carry him there.” He finished the letter in view by saying that “John Brown is immortal in the memories of the good in England, and in my heart he lives.” Here we have a minister of the gospel with a high reputation and wide influence expressing his opinion with such fervor as to descend into talk of his neighbors possibly murdering foreign citizens and praising an insurrectionist.
This is of interest because the statement in view is cited as proof that many evangelicals condemned slavery at the same time that many southern Protestants were defending it. It is certainly proof of that sober truth, though there are plenty of other sources that make the same point that lack the regrettable character of Mr. Spurgeon’s statement here. To be sure, he did not say that he would approve such lawless violence, much less that he would participate; and it is conceivable that Victorian era Englishmen were not quite as prone to waylaying foreigners as Mr. Spurgeon suggests. It could be that he was so caught up in a fit of high dudgeon that he wrote more boldly than was warranted, and that the talk of lawless violence was idle banter.
Whatever the case, it was not in accord with the duty of his office to speak in such a manner, and it is a point of curiosity that contemporary critics of 1800s southern evangelical attitudes about slavery so readily latch upon examples such as this. Such critics are quick to point at the perceived hypocrisy of claiming Christ while at the same time defending a civil institution that oppressed its participants and was often attended by great physical cruelty. And so in finding grounds to condemn the violence and hypocrisy of slaveholding they . . . . latch upon examples of evangelicals mentioning violence approvingly.
This is a strange method, surely, and it goes far to undermine the critics’ own moral authority. Why, pray tell, do we consider slavery wrong? Is it not because it does violence to the dignity of its unwilling participants, holding them in bondage and subjecting them, in many cases, to harsh punishments for flight or disobedience? Is it not because of the chain and the lash, the separation of families and the prohibition of literacy, and because of all the other things that denied equal protection and rights under the law and reduced slaves to being a permanent under caste? Is it not because the whole institution denied them their rights as human beings whose nature is no different from that of people of other classes and ethnicities? Why then would it be any less evil to do similar things to other people, including slaveholders or people who are citizens or public officials of places where slavery was legal? Mistreatment is wrong regardless of who does it or why, and our Lord forbids vengeance (Lev. 19:18; Deut. 32:35; Rom. 12:19; Heb. 10:30) and prohibits former victims of oppression oppressing others in turn (Ex. 22:21; comp. Deut. 23:7).
It is here that John Brown enters the question. Many people in his day regarded him as a hero with few equals, and after his death he was hailed as a martyr and prophet, Henry David Thoreau saying that he had become “an angel of light” and a popular camp tune saying that he was “John the Baptist of the Christ we are to see.” That enthusiasm has not dimmed, it seems, for Christianity Today has published an article urging the glad acceptance of Brown as an evangelical hero.
John Brown was hanged for treason and murder for leading the seizure of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia) as part of a scheme to forcibly abolish slavery in the southern states. Brown’s plan was to use his action to incite slaves in the surrounding areas to flee their masters and join his forces, after which they would march southward, collecting men and materiel as they went. Ostensibly his forces would fight only in self-defense if accosted.
That last bit makes for a large claim to swallow when we remember that Brown had already attained national notoriety for organizing private militants in the Bleeding Kansas crisis earlier in the 1850s. Brown had presided over the Pottawatomie Massacre, in which five men had been hacked to death in what can only be considered cold-blooded murder. The other facts are also against interpreting his plan and actions as a scheme of fomenting an armed-but-purely-defensive insurrection, such as that two of the five men his band killed at Harpers Ferry were unarmed. One was the mayor, the other a free black man who was the first victim and who was shot in the back. If these killings were against Brown’s intentions, as has been suggested, they nonetheless suggest that he had poor control over his force that he had trained for his occupation of the arsenal; and it is hard to imagine that he would have had any better control over the multitudes of strangers whom he expected to rally to his standard.
It is likely that arming large numbers of escaped slaves, whatever Brown’s ostensible intention, would have led to aggression and even the wanton taking of vengeance on their part. Virginia’s earlier slave revolt 28 years before (Nat Turner’s) had been attended by the killing of civilians, including women and children. It is simply not human nature for spontaneous mobs to act only in self-defense and to eschew all criminal and vengeful tendencies. And notwithstanding that Brown attempted to give legitimacy to his efforts by establishing a ‘provisional government’ replete with offices and constitution, what Brown actually attempted, whether he realized it or not, was to foment an enormous mob, probably the largest in the history of the country. Had he succeeded he would have been culpable for any excesses that such a mob committed, but as it was he gained very little support.
There is another fault with such an argument, which is that it is generally a principle of law that one cannot provoke resistance by threats or assault and then use force to repel the violence that ensues: the initial provocation makes one the aggressor, so that every subsequent action is a furtherance of the aggression and cannot be justified as defensive. Brown was the aggressor in the Harpers Ferry affair, for he started it by seizing the arsenal, and then continued it by taking hostages and preventing the lawful authorities from repossessing it or rescuing them. When it was then claimed that his subsequent fighting with state and federal forces was in self-defense (as his defense attempted at his trial), the claim is null – and more than a little brazen and absurd.
One cannot break into someone’s house and take him captive, and then say that he acted in self-defense by firing at the police when they surrounded the house. All notion of self-defense goes out the window when one first commences his criminal venture. And yet that is essentially what Brown did, except that he acted not merely against a single private individual and domicile, but against an entire commonwealth and its populace.
I have no desire to impugn the faith or integrity of those who have lionized Brown through the decades. Indeed, anyone who would allow that Spurgeon remark above to dissuade him from reading Spurgeon appreciatively would be doing himself an enormous disservice, for flights of indignation notwithstanding, Spurgeon was greatly used by God and is well worth reading. Remarks like that above are drowned out by the enormous quantities of edifying material he produced: it is as a flake of chaff in an ocean of grace.
But I do think that such people, be they past or present, are sorely mistaken on this point. There is nothing in the New Testament that justifies fomenting armed rebellion. Romans 13 says, “Let every person be subject to the governing authorities” and “whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment.” Granting the institution of southern slavery was evil, it does not follow that it should have been countered by violent force. “Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all” (Rom. 12:17). Evil must be opposed righteously; and fomenting rebellion that was likely to lead to widespread bloodshed cannot be deemed righteous. It is in direct contradiction of the commands to “live peaceably with all” and “overcome evil with good” (12:18, 21).
And in the outcome of Brown’s misadventure at Harpers Ferry we see the wisdom of our Lord’s instructions on this point. Brown’s insurrection failed utterly. He gained only a handful of supporters among the local slave population; succeeded in getting himself, many of his men, and several citizens killed; and further aggravated the already tense relations between North and South, ultimately playing an important role in provoking secession and the subsequent war that killed more than 620,000 men.
Over against all this we must remember that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, and that he did not come to establish it by means of force (Jn. 18:36). When someone mentioned an example of Pilate’s cruelty toward the Jews (including sacrilegious murder), Christ declined to cry aloud for temporal justice and instead urged his hearers to take heed for their souls and repent while they had time (Lk. 13:1-3). His way is not the way of social revolution, but of patient long-suffering (Matt. 5:39) and of repaying evil with good (Lk. 6:28; Rom. 12:14, 20; 1 Pet. 3:9). Those who, like Brown, attempt to find in Christ’s message a justification for armed revolution contradict the essence of that message, and many of its particulars (2 Tim. 2:24; Tit. 3:1-2; Heb. 12:14; Jas. 3:17).
None of this is to defend the cruelties associated with slavery. It is simply to say that Brown’s response was the wrong one, and that we should neither approve it nor celebrate him. Brown was celebrated for his militancy, and he seems to have regarded such militancy as the proper fruit of the Christian faith. In his speech at his conviction he appealed to Scripture as justifying his actions:
Court acknowledges, too, as I suppose, the validity of the law of God. I see a book kissed, which I suppose to be the Bible, or at least the New Testament, which teaches me that all things whatsoever I would that men should do to me, I should do even so to them. It teaches me further to remember them that are in bonds as bound with them. I endeavored to act up to that instruction.
When someone celebrates Brown he is therefore celebrating a man who contradicted the teaching of Scripture under the guise of fulfilling it. Against this, consider these words and ponder whether John Brown’s behavior accords with them: “Whoever says he abides in him [Christ] ought to walk in the same way in which he walked” (1 Jn. 2:6). Christ walked in the way of works of mercy and witness, and his death redeemed the souls of many. Brown walked in the way of the sword and came to the end which Christ predicted of those who do so (Matt. 26:52), and his death brought not peace but division and strife and a war that consumed multitudes. It is no part of our faith to honor such a man, and the scriptural data abundantly point the other way.
Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks (Simpsonville), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 
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