Church Matters: Retrieving the Great Tradition

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Chur ch Mat ter s : Ret r i ev i ng the Great Trad i t i on

3. Gradually introduced reform, at first with RCC approval

4. In 1522 produced his first Reformation writings, with the Zurich Reformation nearly complete by 1525; he was committed to a wholly united, evangelical Switzerland

5. Zwinglian cantons threatened (at least in principle) RCC cantons and war broke out; Zwingli was killed on the battlefield in 1531.

6. Wrote critically important texts which fueled Reformation

a. The Clarity and Certainty of God’s Word , 1522: his treatise on the final authority of Scripture

b. Baptism, Rebaptism, and the Baptism of Infants , 1525: his defense of infant baptism, but not that baptism bestows new birth and forgiveness

c. Confession of Faith , 1530: The Lord’s Supper is a thanksgiving memorial looking back to Calvary, and Christ is present in the meal in the form of the believers gathered to remember his death.

D. The Reformed Tradition: John Calvin

1. Born in 1509 in Noyon (northern France); a humanist and scholar who admired Erasmus and Humanism; he died in Geneva in 1564.

2. Converted 1532 shortly after producing a work of Humanist scholarship (a commentary on Seneca’s Clemency ) which bombed!