THE RELEVANCY OF ZWINGLI IN INDONESIA TODAY
“Zwingli was not very well known in Indonesia, even though he was also a reformer. No wonder, a lot of people assumed that his doctrine was not very influential. This assumption is not entirely right. Based on the researches and writings, recently Zwingli’s doctrine has been influential not only in Swiss but also outside Swiss.” (J.L.Ch. Abineno)
THE HUMANIST AND REFORMIST SWISS YOUTH
Ulrich Zwingli was born in Wildhaus Toggenburg on January 1, 1484 from a religious couple. He was raised in the Catholic Christian surroundings, but he was also interested in science. No wonder, since his early age, he was 10 years old, he had been entering Latin school and involved in Latin language, music and dialogues. The next six years, he got to know the classic scholar, Heinrich Wolflin in the classic study center of Kolese Bern, and he studied scholastic philosophy, astronomy, and physics at Wina University with a hope that someday he would become a well known humanist. His interest was getting clear when he was 18 years old; he taught Latin language at St. Martin school. He continued his study and received Master Degree in 1506. He was then called “Master of Ulrich.”
After being anointed as a priest and dedicated himself in Glarus for a decade, he again studied Greeks in autodidact way. He was able to study the Book of the New Testament in Greeks. In his relations and career development, he had a relationship with a lot of people, including Erasmus, the Dutch humanist who lived in Basel. From Glarus (1516), he moved to Einsiedeln, and he studied the writings of the church fathers, Augustine, Ambrosius, Chrysostomos, origenes, etc. However, the next two years he was moved to Zurich as a priest and he preached based on the New Testament order.
It cannot be avoided that his background, environment, and education have formed his personality and characteristics. By being equipped and having spirituality he started to fight by, for example: fighting the Pope’s renting soldiers, selling the indulgence letter, and fighting the badness of churches. That’s why several historian concluded that in 1516 was the starting of Reformation in Switzerland, before Luther started reformation in Germany.
Switzerland was known as the place of Pope’s renting soldiers. based on Chaplain’s experience in the battle field between France-Pope Julius II and Leo X, he acknowledged how his own people sacrificed their lives for the sake of foreigners. So, he challenged the system of the renting soldiers, and he then became the outstanding figure in Switzerland.
The next six years (in 1522) he was facing bishop Constanz who sent delegation and urge to obey the rule of fasting. Being considered that it’s a wrong teaching, then bishop was using the government’s path. However, Zwingli gave biblical argumentation to defense by referring to I Corinthians 8:8; 10:25; Colossians 2:16; 1 Timothy 4:1 and Romans 14: 1-3 and 15:1, 2. While this problem was not overcome yet, he and ten priests gave a petition to Bishop to preach the Gospel that set them free. The petition was ignored by Pope’ s right or church council. They did fighting openly, and then getting married. Zwingli got married to a widow, Anna Reinhart.
He asked the City Council to hold a debate on religion based on the Bible. He published 67 Articles emphasizing that whoever believes in the Gospel will be saved (Article 15); only God Who forgives human being through Jesus Christ (Article 50); and Christ is the Only Mediator between God and human being (Article 19).
The debating in Zurich in 1523 showed his capability that the City Council showed sympathy in his teachings, and he was given freedom to preach the Gospel of Christ. Then, there were renewals , such as: priests got married, no mass and no worshiping statues, service was done in the local language, not in Latin, and celebrating the first reformation communion in April 1525.
From Zurich, reformation had developed throughout all over other cities that elicited tensions and the eruption of wars between Catholic cities and reformation cities (in 1529). The reformation groups led by Zwingli was not successful (in 1531), and he died during the war in chapel.
THINKING EXPLORATION AND THEOLOGICAL VIEW
It’s not easy to express the whole thinking and view of Zwingli in this writing because of certain limitedness, so it will only deal with the advantages in Indonesian context.
- Reconciliation. In several parts of 67 articles composed by Zwingli in 1523, it’s said that Jesus Christ, Son of God, was placed as the core of the Gospel (the second Article), that led to salvation (the third Article), because Christ was the Leader and Head of the whole human beings (the sixth Article). Christ was the Center of Zwingli’s doctrine. In other words, human being was a sinner who had to come to God the Creator, honors God’s justice because HIS divineness was based on HIS humbleness on the cross.
- The Divineness of Christ. For Zwingli, Christ who died and rose, wanted a “renewal” or a change by using the term Reformation throughout of human beings; the personal life, social life, church life and citizen life. The divineness of Christ is not only HIS suffering but also HIS work, HIS healing power, HIS miracles and HIS teaching, including HIS saving work. That’s why Christ had been the “exemplar vitae.” So, whoever belonged to Christ would become like Christ: innocent, not greedy, diligent, loyal, and brave to sacrifice. Besides talking about being the life example, Zwingli also talked about the work of the Holy Spirit inside human being. If a believer had been renewed by HIS WORD, he or she would love by the work of the Holy Spirit.
- Church and Nation. Zwingli always connected the church to the nation. On the way to Marburg, he said that a Christian was a good and loyal citizen, and a Christian city was a Christian Church. In the Exposition Fidei, he said that in Christian Church, government and prophetic functionary were equally needed, even though prophetic functionary was more important. Like human being who consists of soul and body, the church may not be separated from the government, event though the government did not deal directly with spiritual things. So, the government was under the prophetic functionary, but both of them were under the church. It’ s just like the body is under the soul, but both of them are parts of human beings. Therefore, government has to listen to the Word of God and the people who spread the WORD.
- Sacrament. “Sacrament” or “sacramentum” was a guarantee or an oath. It’s not a mystery or secret (mysterion) which was known by a lot of people at that time. God forgives sins, sacrament does not. Sacrament has a function in the church as a sign or ritual and by that someone may convince the church that he or she is Christ’s soldier. So, sacrament is the believers’ deed, the deed of confession, a sign to do something. Besides “a promise”, “a guarantee”, “a loyal oath” Sacrament also means “duty”, so whoever has sacraments, he or she has a duty to serve. By serving, someone has “a promise”; “a promise” which reminds us to be always loyal in serving.
In the sacrament of Baptism, someone confesses Christ. In the Communion someone witnesses that he or she who believes in HIM is a member of HIS church. In the sacrament of baptism someone has a symbol which to do a duty to live in the new life. In the sacrament of Communion someone places himself or herself in the dead of Christ, so that he or she participates actively joyfully and gives thanks to God.
l Baptism
According to Zwingli, the baptism of John has to be understood as follows: through baptism, someone who is baptized is sent to Christ, so that baptism is done before confession to Christ. Children belong to God, and they are baptized by the name of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so they should not be hindered to come to Christ. This opinion is cited from Mark 16:16 “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved.” The meaning of this text, according to Zwingli should not be applied to children. “Whoever” here means only someone who listens to the preaching of the saints and then repents and believes. Children are also saved and enter in God’s promise even though they have not yet listened to the Gospel and believed.
In 1525 Zwingli produced a great work on “ Baptism, Rebaptism, and Baptism for Children.” The whole work on Baptism is wrapped up in six articles: 1). There is no physical element, except God, that purifies the soul of human being. 2). Therefore, Baptism cannot clean sins. 3). Even though baptism cannot purify the soul, baptism is determined by God, and it’s considered to be compulsory. 4). Not only adults but also children belong to God. 5). Circumcision for God’s people in the Old Testament is the same as Baptism for us now days. 6). In the Bible, rebaptism is not taught. There is no example on it, so it cannot be proved. For reformation churches, the method of baptism is not a crucial issue, because the substantial thing is the meaning of the baptism method. However, in reality, a debate on the method of baptism still goes on because there are people who emphasize the baptism method as legal to baptism. Sprinkle baptism is not considered to be baptism, except by sinking method which appeared later when the time of religion was adopted to become the nation religion. These kinds of practices disturbed the ecumenical and unity of churches.
l Evening Communion
Zwingli accepted the presence of Christ during the Evening Communion in spiritual meaning. The impact of the perspective made a lot of priests in Zurich not to read the Mass. At the beginning, the City Council was neutral towards the problem, that a lot of church members in their houses celebrated the Evening Communion. Since then, the City Council substituted the Mass into the Evening Communion that was celebrated four times in a year.
The Evening Communion is firstly ekaristi (=thanksgiving). It's a joyful communion, full of thanksgiving for everything that Christ has given. Church members participate in it. They showed themselves that they were people who lived by Christ’s grants. The most important thing in the Evening Communion was not Christ Who was born but Christ Who was crucified and Who saved.
Dealing with the wine, Zwingli said that the content of “wine’ (the Evening Communion) was the new covenant in the blood of Christ. This covenant was strengthened by the dead (=blood) of Christ. While “bread” was a symbol of the body of Christ granted as a sacrifice on the cross.
The modesty in celebrating the Evening Communion is needed, because according to Zwingli the luxurious things might distract the church members to worldly riches. Therefore, it appears on almost every church assembly and ended up by having communion together. In Zurich, a theological school Carolinum was established (in 1525). Reformation ended up.
THE IMPACT OF ZWINGLI’S DOCTRINE: Reformation and The Way of Thinking
To understand Zwingli’s reformatory way of thinking, the political situation of his age at that moment has to be counted on. Zwingli and Landgraf Philips (from Hessen: in 1529) saw Reformation as a political symptom. Luther did not want to discuss theological problems by having political background. Zwingli, on the contrary, was active in politics, but his reformation contained humanist and patriotic ideas. Philips dealt reformation with the “freedom” of kings, and Zwingli dealt with the “freedom “ city.
His way of thinking eliminated the badness in the church and society which had to be saved. Scientists viewed Zwingli as still actual that the WORD had to be preached, because the WORD saved. Here, salvation was central because it’s done by Christ through HIS dead on the cross; the cross is the center of faith, church, service, preaching the WORD, and the Evening Communion.
The Renewal. The falling of human being into a sin could not be saved by human being, except by God and HIS grace. Especially for Swiss Christians , who did not suffer by wars but reformation. By having a war, people opposed God as the Prince of Peace. Only Christ who saves and teaches human beings not to be involved in evils, like wars.
This perspective made people at that time tended to blame themselves. Zwingli seemed to mix up religion and politics. Abineno said that it’s right that politic is meant for the Middle Swiss. However, never forced any body to accept the gospel preached by substituting his faith into reformatory. So, that Swiss had the right to preach the WORD freely.
The Gospel. For Zwingli, the Gospel is the Word of God. It’s shown in his work on “God’s Justice and Human Justice” launched in 1523, by also citing from Leviticus 20 about holiness; “human being has to be holy because God is holy.” As if he wanted to say, “ I am just, holy, and pious!”, so, human beings had to be just, holy, and pious! Unfortunately, nobody has done justly, and holy without flaws. This fundamental human problem has been solved by Christ Who enable human beings to see God. Whoever listens and believes will be saved.
Thus, it can be concluded that: firs, there has to be reconciliation that will fix human relation with God. Second, the reconciliation happens in Christ Jesus. Third, the most important thing in reconciliation is justice. Jesus leads human beings to freedom in all aspects of life.
The Society. The important thing that Zwingli emphasized was not on the power of the spiritual, but on God’s guidance in human life and the society. For him, the church is different from the nation, but both of them has connection like soul and body; each has its own function and responsibility. The government had to be responsible for the congregation. A Christian is a good citizen , and a Christian government is a Christian church. In fact, someone might doubt it if it’s applied to a plural society that various beliefs might show tolerance. However, based on Ezekiel 3 and 33, the church had a prophetic functionary as a “watchman,” according to Zwingli.
The Economy. For Zwingli, Christ as the King of the world, governs in the church and in the society, and in the economic sector. If human beings rule economy, why can’t the defect be eliminated or avoided? Therefore, someone who understands the Gospel might understand the words, ”earthly riches should not be assumed as your own belonging, you may just manage it. You are responsible to HIM as the real Owner.”
However, he admitted that someone might own a little right over his or her riches by working diligently. The riches should serve work, not the other way round; because human beings were created to work and dealt with humanity. All of this sector were dealing with God’s will, so human beings had to be taken out of the materialism and placed under the guidance of God’s Spirit. This effort was part of Reformation work which was going on. No wonder that he really blamed corruptors who had done tricky things and monopolize economic sector and finance that they had to be having dead penalty.
The Church, the Congregation. Church, according to Zwingli, was the local congregation as the basis of all church activities, that autonomy might take place there. People here admitted Calvin more than Zwingli. In fact, didn’t Calvin learn from Zwingli?
Zwingli was not only a thinker about the church but also a diligent priest who worked hard in the congregation. Calvin, a well known figure was more patient and ecumenical to relate with reformers’ ideas, while Zwingli tent to be firm and stable and sometimes was more ecumenical. For example, the reformatory preaching on grace, truth, and holiness, that was not only based on the Bible but also the church confessions in the early age. The most determined action in ecumenical was what the Bible said about having the confession of Christ as the Head of the church.
According to some theologians, Zwingli was the first expert in Reformed Protestant theology, because his teachings was dealing with other reformers’ teachings also. However, because of his strength in words, deeds and talents in politics made him more outstanding than his friends.
In the dispute in Zurich (in 1523), Zwingli composed 67 articles. The second article was “The core of the Gospel was that Jesus Christ, the true Son of God, had spread HIS heavenly Father’s will to us and had saved and reconciled us with God by HIS innocent and HIS dead.” The third article was ” Therefore, the only way to salvation was through Christ for all who were in the past, at present, and in the future.”
Both articles were general reformatories but relating to the work of Christ reconciliation with HIS authority and power which was considered new and typically “reformed”. It’s then developed by Calvin in Heidelber catechism , which was known as a “reformed” tradition. So, in 1520 he was placed as a servant in Zurich, then substituting “lectio selecta” to “lectio continua”, preaching about the Gospel from the first verse until the end. It’s not “Evangelia Dominicalia” which was loosely reading form weekly. This method was followed by the Protestant church, but it seemed there was a shifting tendency then.
According to Zwingli, building up the congregation was not coming up from hierarchy or functionary , but from the Word of God. Building up the congregation came from congregation, from the basis. It’s interesting to be studied deeply under the name of contextualization and adaptation, that presbyter synod was still top-down than bottom-up in building the Calvinist congregations.
His work and life background showed how Zwingli was really talented; in the church, dealt with theology and in the society dealt with dealt with politics, economy, social, etc. Bellow, several impacts on the surrounding churches go as follows:
Politics. From Toggenburg, Switzerland, a place where he was raised. At that time, it’s under the situation of the corrupted and complicated politics because of the greediness and egoism, that influence in handling various problems in politics and religions. Through prophetic critics towards the society’s behavior, greediness and oppression of certain groups, Zwingli’s reformation is still important, relevant and actual now days. This conclusion was made up based on his teaching that emphasized on “ politics freedom which was in accordance with God’s will”. So, there was always a close relationship between Christian freedom, politics freedom, and believing freedom.
Social. Zwingli placed a strong accentuation on the social responsibility of Christians. The accentuation was influenced by the purity reformatory characteristics of diligent , economical, honest and hard working. All of them are the forms of ministry to God. However, Zwingli (and Calvin) stepped ahead by saying that, “all of them should serve prosperity and happiness together, that Christ’s glory was shown.” So far, we may check each church’s programs, does prosperity become the target of ministry?
According to Zwingli, capitalism only emphasized merely on fortune, so he urged strongly to the believers in Zurich, that they “should not assume earthly riches as their belonging, because they just managed; the real owner was only God. Therefore, the responsibility had to be given to HIM.” Together with Calvin he revived Christians to be hard working, honest, and modest. He said that riches had to serve work, not the other way round. Human beings were created to work so that the work became meaningful.
To Christians in Zurich and other places, he reminded them that “work had relation with human beings (humanity), just like birds were created to fly. So, work had to be appreciated and understood that he rebuked the actions of robbing the salary and saving of the diligent and honest workers.
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[1] Presented on the Trip Study of 500 Year Anniversary of Reformation; Germany, Zurich, Sunday, August 7, 2016.
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