Tag Archives: europe

November 28, 2025

Was Winston Churchill a Warmonger?? (And Other Lunacy in the “New Media”)

By Clarke Morledge

From the Christianity Along the Rhine blog series…

Lunatic conspiracy-like theories tend to run amuck at the most confusing times in the oddest places. You can spot these typically in the hands of self-promoting journalists and other thought leaders in the age of the “new media,” who have a misguided or otherwise inadequate grasp on human history.

Take for example statements made by popular conservative news commentator Candace Owens about the early Christian movement:

“And those Jews became Christians. Full stop. There is no hyphenated faith. You are either a Christian or you are a Jew. Christ fulfilled the law.”

Candace Owen apparently believes that the earliest Christ followers left their Judaism behind to follow Jesus. Such statements have given rise to a kind of “replacement theology,” which has infected Christian thinking in various quarters for centuries. Now, “replacement theology” can mean different things to different people, which does get confusing. But in this context, it suggests that God has somehow forgotten the Jews, and “replaced” the Jews with Christianity.

Has Ms. Owens never met a “messianic Jew?” A “messianic Jew” is a Jewish person who has become a Christian, believing that having faith in Jesus fulfills what Judaism is all about. The growth of messianic Judaism, particularly in the last generation or so, where thousands of Jews have come to know Jesus as their true Messiah, is one of the most remarkable stories of Christian missions in our day. In other words, contrary to what Ms. Owens thinks, you can be both a Jew and a Christian, and the trend is growing.

So, where do people get such bizarre ideas? Apparently, Ms. Owens has never learned that nearly all of Jesus’ earliest disciples were Jewish, and they never forsook their Jewish heritage. Even after the Apostle Paul became a Christian, he still acknowledged that he was both “a Hebrew of Hebrews“ (Philippians 3:4-5) and “I am a Jewish man” (Acts 21:39). If you read the text carefully, you will notice that Paul is speaking in the present tense, and not the past tense. Do we need a reminder that Jesus himself was Jewish?

Back in September, 2024, another popular conservative news commentator took a step in a similar direction. Tucker Carlson has been a television journalist, who after leaving the Fox television network, became perhaps the first Western journalist to score an in-person interview with Russian President Vladmir Putin, after the Ukraine-Russian war began in February, 2022. Since then, Mr. Carlson has been on an interesting journey, essentially re-discovering Christianity, as evidenced by several interviews he has given, which is very encouraging. Carlson’s interview with campus evangelist Cliff Knectle stands out as a positive example of engaging journalism, allowing a Christian evangelist to discuss the Gospel at length without being misconstrued.

That being said, Mr. Carlson crossed a line when he interviewed an American historian, Darryl Cooper, a man who Carlson describes as “may be the best and most honest popular historian in the United States.” In that interview, Cooper makes the claim that during World War 2 era, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a “warmonger” who was itching for a fight with Adolph Hitler, suggesting that Churchill became the “chief villain” of World War 2, making the war into something more than just the invasion of Poland. Sadly, Carlson did very little to challenge Cooper’s claims.

NOTE: This was all a year before THAT interview Tucker Carlson had with Nick Fuentes in October, 2025….. (And I need not go down the road of more recent conspiracy theories propagated by Ms. Owens, well documented by others …. which gets more and more bizarre by the day, wild claims which possess no evidence)…. But Tucker Carlson’s promotion of revisionist history by Darryl Cooper is the most troubling to me, partly because of the popular reach Tucker Carlson has, particularly among evangelical Christians.

It is troubling as Christians are often blamed for a good amount of antisemitism, needless antipathy towards ethnic Jews, which I have argued stems from a failure to interpret Scripture responsibly. So, when public figures who consider themselves as Christians, play into certain anti-Judaic falsehoods, whether intentionally or not, it nevertheless harms Christian witness.

Where do people get such nonsense?

Why do such voices get so many clicks on social media platforms?

Well, I decided to find out for myself.

One of the most highly respected biographies of Winston Churchill is by British historian Andrew Roberts, who responded to the Darryl Cooper interview by Tucker Carlson. Roberts’ articulate and evidence-based response from 2024 has been so stinging (and a follow-up piece just a year later, criticizing even the Heritage Foundation), that I knew I had to get a copy of Churchill: Walking With Destiny.  On Audible, the audiobook is a whopping 50 hours long. But in my estimation, it was worth it!

Churchill: Walking With Destiny, by the highly respected British historian, Andrew Roberts, dispels the false narratives being propagated in some supposedly Christian circles in our day. Read Roberts’ book to get the real truth about Winston Churchill.

 

Winston Churchill: Villain or Hero of the Second World War?

This past fall, in October, 2025, my wife and I were in Europe. After taking a cruise down the Rhine River, we visited the Luxembourg American Cemetery, where about 5,000 American war dead are buried, many of them who died in the Battle of the Bulge, in the ferociously cold winter of 1944-1945.  As I walked around the cemetery, and spotted the grave of General George Patton, the U.S. Army leader who relieved the tired and surrounded troops of Bastogne, during that terrible battle, I wondered why so many young American men lost their lives in an effort to defeat Nazi Germany.

According to Darryl Cooper, Tucker Carlson’s most highly revered historian, much of the American involvement in the war was prompted by the “warmonger” rhetoric of Winston Churchill.  This “warmonger” description of Churchill suggests that perhaps Adolph Hitler was not quite as bad as commonly believed, and that Churchill had become rather unhinged in his opposition to the Nazis. Is this claim really true? For if Darryl Cooper is correct about Winston Churchill, then it casts a lot of doubt regarding the moral reasoning which led to the deaths of so many Americans buried in Luxembourg.

Winston Churchill was a most complex and interesting figure, the son of another famous British politician. Winston Churchill idolized his father, though his parents often placed their own ambitions above spending time with their son. When his father, Randolph, died an early death, Winston Churchill knew that he was filled with ambition to exceed the political aspirations of his father. He even expected that he would become prime minister of the United Kingdom, some time in the future.

Churchill believed that his path of national leadership would be through a combination of military service and journalism. In some cases, he was able to serve in the military without pay, while receiving pay as a journalist. He served as a war correspondent in Cuba. He also served in the army in one of the last British cavalry clashes in Sudan. In South Africa, he was captured and imprisoned, but somehow managed to escape confinement. His imprisonment and escape from prison made Churchill a war hero.

Churchill’s military and journalism career took him far across the global British empire. While in the British army in India, Churchill began to read widely, influenced greatly by the writings of Edward Gibbon and Charles Darwin. Particularly due to Gibbon’s skeptical influence, Churchill, who had been raised a nominal Anglican, expressed doubts about the truth claims of Christianity. But as Roberts portrays him, Churchill was an agnostic, who embraced a kind of “cultural Christianity,” acknowledging the virtues of Christianity’s influence in British culture without believing the metaphysical truth-claims associated with the faith.

He finally made his way into Parliament in 1901, and eventually became First Lord of the Admiralty in 1911, overseeing the British Navy. It was during the “Great War” that Winston Churchill’s reputation suffered the most, when he was blamed for much of the failure of the Gallipoli campaign, an attempt by allied forces to try to knock the Ottoman Empire out of the war. Churchill sought to revive his reputation after that by saying that the campaign was mismanaged by other military leaders, when he advocated for a Naval attack on the Dardanelles, with insufficient Army support to back up Churchill’s efforts, thus leading to the quagmire, and ultimate failure of the campaign.

Churchill continued on in the military, and served in the trenches on the continent during the Great War, after Gallipoli, avoiding death on several occasions. Even after the war, Churchill continued to serve in public office, but was eventually forced out of office in 1929. Many historians called this period, where Churchill was in many ways a government outsider, his “wilderness years.” In the run up to World War 2, Churchill became a voice sounding the alarm about Hitler, but now largely as a journalist and popular historian.

Sir Winston Churchill. Fiery debater. He had a reputation for respecting his opponent. Yet he never gave up on his belief that Nazi Germany was bent on perpetuating evil. In the end, history proved Churchill to be right. Is it possible for the evangelical apologist to have Churchill’s fortitude AND respectfulness when it comes to defending the Christian faith?

 

The Churchill “Warmonger” Thesis Challenged

As with any conspiracy or conspiracy-like theory, there is a grain of truth about Darryl Cooper’s fantastic claim that Churchill was a “warmonger.” The British Isles had suffered greatly during the “Great War,” and afterwards the economy was extremely sluggish. There was not much stomach for military conflict at the time, but Churchill did advocate for an accelerated development of the Royal Air Force, predicting that Hitler would eventually become a menace to Europe. Historian Andrew Roberts notes that many during the 1930’s considered Churchill to be a “warmonger,” stirring up trouble where none existed. Simply put, very few people considered Hitler to be the type of evil person, who in our day and age is now considered to be the very personification of evil.

Churchill opposed the appeasement policy of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, who proclaimed “peace in our time.’ When Chamberlain helped to broker a peace deal with Hilter with the 1938 Munich Agreement, allowing Hilter to occupy the Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia, with no consultation with the Czechs, Churchill was appalled. For Hilter merely broke the agreement and occupied the rest of Czechoslovakia in less than a year later.

It is true that Hilter called Churchill a “warmonger,” in view of Churchill’s reaction to Nazi German aggression. But it is completely false to claim that Churchill was somehow itching for a fight with Hitler, as though Churchill was the instigator, a point which Andrew Roberts makes clear in his biography of Churchill. 

As war grew closer, so did Churchill’s popularity increase. Churchill’s predictions about Hitler’s aggression proved true over and over again. Churchill’s urging for beefing up the military was in reaction to Hitler’s provocations, not the other way around. As Hitler’s army invaded Belgium and made its way towards France, Churchill was selected to be Prime Minister, believing that the whole of his life thus far was preparation for this dire moment in Britain’s history.

Many still distrusted Churchill, recalling the failure of the Gallipoli campaign during the “Great War” a few decades earlier. As war with Germany became inevitable, before Churchill became prime minister, he made some major mistakes in trying to coordinate efforts to stop the Nazi takeover of Norway. But as Andrew Roberts describes the next few years, Churchill learned from his mistakes. Churchill’s skill as a an orator helped to unite the British people to resist the Nazi movement, as the island of Great Britain eventually became subject to withering attack by Hitler’s Luftwaffe.

As Andrew Roberts reveals in an interview, Cooper’s thesis that Churchill was the “chief villain” of World War 2 is simply “reheated, old David Irving stuff from twenty years ago.” David Irving has been known as a holocaust denier voice in the U.K., publicly claiming that the gas chambers at Auschwitz never existed. This need not imply Cooper as being a holocaust denier himself, but it does not better his case. Cooper’s thesis that Churchill was the “chief villain” falls flat when one realizes that Hilter’s blitzkrieg against the West happened before Churchill was selected as prime minister of Great Britain. Do journalists like Tucker Carlson need to be platforming such views as merely offering a different perspective having equal footing with many others?

Though admittedly not an historic orthodox Christian, Winston Churchill was nevertheless a lonely voice who saw the anti-Christian motivations behind Hitler, and who called out the evil nature of the Nazi regime. Churchill had his quirks, and like many of his day, uttered some frankly racist statements. He opposed national sovereignty for India, which has left him with many critics still today in India. He was slow to support the effort giving women the right to vote, only being persuaded to accept the cause after marrying Clementine, who fully supported female suffrage. Churchill made many mistakes, even somewhat silly ones, at one point suggesting that a curtain supported by balloons might be launched above the border of England, carrying explosives, as a deterrent against Hitler’s luftwaffe.

Churchill: Walking With Destiny is not hagiographic. Roberts does not shy away from telling about Churchill’s shortcomings. In many ways, Churchill had a lot of the same negative qualities that people despise so much about the U.S. President Donald Trump. Yet Churchill was also a great communicator, very witty, and brilliant, with an ability to connect with the British people during a time of great national and world crisis, which ultimately helped to stem the tide against Hitler’s aggressions.

One of my favorite lines from Churchill is this: “Stop interrupting me while I’m interrupting you.”

Churchill was a British patriot, who at times was blinded by his own nationalism, xenophobia, and other faults. Nevertheless, he spoke out against Hitler for years, when relatively few in Britain in the early and mid-1930s would do so. Churchill’s study of history convinced him that Adolph Hitler was up to no good and could not be trusted. Years before the Nazi implementation of “The Final Solution,” Churchill knew that Hitler’s antisemitism was a serious problem. Thankfully, people began to eventually listen to Churchill, and Hitler was finally challenged and his Nazi regime was stopped. As the British prime minister, Churchill took an active role in countering the anti-Jewish objectives of the Nazis. Churchill was perhaps the most influential person on the planet to persuade the Americans take the fight against Hitler. Winston Churchill was the right man for the right job at the right time.

One standout irony of Churchill’s life was in how self-prophetic it was.  At age 16 or 17, Winston Churchill came to believe that one day, “I shall save London and England from disaster.”  Many decades later, that prophecy would come true.

Unlike so many voices from the “new media” of YouTube and TikTok, studied and reputable historians, like Andrew Roberts, can help to dispel the nonsense. Grab a copy of Churchill: Walking With Destiny, and learn for yourself, just like I did.

We live in an age when credible authorities for discerning the truth are being distrusted by social media algorithms. As a Christian, we should be wary of these unfortunate trends, and look instead towards God’s standard for truth: beginning with the Holy Scriptures, under the Lordship of Jesus Christ.

Walking along the many rows in the Luxembourg American Cemetery was an incredibly sobering experience, realizing just how many American soldiers died for the cause of freedom and the defeat of the Nazi regime. My photo taken in October, 2025.

 

George S. Patton’s grave at the Luxembourg American Cemetery. My photo taken in October, 2025.

 

Be Careful What You Click!

I go back to the lunatic storylines promoted by figures like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. With the demise of the monopolies of traditional news organizations has come the “new media” of podcasts, which claim to get at the “real truth” being obscured or hidden by “mainstream media.” Much of this democratization of the newer media driven by advances in information technology has been fruitful. The stranglehold which legacy news organizations have had over the flow of information has been broken by the “new media.” Yet while trying to hold “mainstream media” accountable, these new forms of news media have their own accountability problems.

As Konstantin Kisin, co-host of the Trigonometry podcast, says in the following video, “what you reward with your clicks is what you create more of in the world. That is not a responsibility to be taken lightly.” Our consumption of media does not simply try to tell us the truth about our world, it also reveals a lot about ourselves. This is a good measure of wisdom to think through before you flip on the television or turn on your favorite YouTube channel:

As a double-bonus, the folks at the Trigonometry podcast have a two-hour interview with Andrew Roberts, about the book Churchill: Walking With Destiny . Following that, the historian dynamic duo of Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook on The Rest is History Podcast tackle the kind of rubbish revisionism being pedaled in certain corners of the “new media,” with another installment of their history of Nazism series, this time focused on Britain’s and France’s entry into the war against Germany, following Hitter’s invasion of Poland. Both are well worth the time. Enjoy!!

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November 14, 2025

Zwingli in Zurich: Part Two (A Parallel to Charlie Kirk??)

By Clarke Morledge

From the Christianity Along the Rhine blog series…

Zwingli was in a tight spot. With radical Anabaptists on the one side and Roman Catholic papist defenders on the other, Zwingli saw himself as a defender of true reformation. He rejected what he perceived to be the excesses of Rome, while pushing back against the dangerous foolishness perpetrated by the Anabaptists, like his former friends, Konrad Grebel and Felix Manz. In his mind, his way was a moderate path between two extremes. It was with this posture that Zwingli hoped to form an alliance with his contemporary Reformer from Germany, the former Augustinian monk, Martin Luther. But such a dream was not to be realized.

Following the first part of a two-part “travel blog” series, we now look a bit more at the story of Huldrych Zwingli of Zurich, and what led towards his tragic end.

Zwingli’s statue in Zurich, with the Grossmünster Church where he preached, in the background, towering above on the right. My photo from October, 2025.

 

Clashing Visions of Reform: The Swiss Huldrych Zwingli and German Martin Luther

The Swiss Zwingli and the German Luther operated independently, while both were originally drawn into reformed thinking through the work of Desiderius Erasmus. Erasmus had published a new authoritative Greek New Testament. Both Zwingli and Luther devoured Erasmus’ writings, springing them into action, hoping to reform the Roman church. Both men reasoned that an appeal to Scripture, and Scripture alone, would guarantee the right path to genuine reform. But it soon became apparent that the two preachers would not be able to agree. There was no “we agree to disagree” sentiment at this stage of Protestantism, particularly on serious matters like the Lord’s Supper.

Yet some of the disagreements were relatively minor. According to Bruce Gordon, author of Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet, there was to be no singing in Zurich’s churches, unlike what was taking place in Luther’s Wittenberg. Zwingli’s singing-free worship was based on his appeal to Amos 5:23:

“Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen.”  ‘What would the rustic Amos say in our day,’ asked Zwingli, ‘if he saw and heard the horrors that were being performed and the mass priests mumbling at the altar…Indeed, he would cry out so that the whole world could not bear his words.” (Cited by Gordon, p. 140).

Even more moderate Reformed churches sympathetic to Zurich, with contemporary colleagues like Martin Bucer in Strasbourg and Johannes Oecolampadius in Basel, would not go as far as Zwingli and ban all singing. Yet contrary to common opinion, Zwingli did not hate the arts. He was a fine musician himself, and he  “had a deep conviction that music had a power over the soul like no other force” (Gordon, p. 140). Zwingli’s own music was composed for house gatherings, not congregational worship settings (Gordon, p. 141). Luther, on the hand, composed music for corporate worship, hymns which have endured to this day.

Luther’s engagement with Erasmus eventually turned sour, just as Zwingli’s relationship with Erasmus did, but over a different issue. Luther disputed Erasmus over the doctrine of election, articulated in Luther’s Bondage of the Will, leading Luther to have a strong view of predestination. Like Luther, Zwingli believed that “according to God’s pleasure and will, hidden from all humans, the election of some and not others was decreed before the moment of creation. Predestination therefore preceded faith, as only those whom God chose would come to believe” (Gordon, p. 158). However, Zwingli was not as strident as Luther, and from what can be gathered from his writings did not clash with Erasmus on election. Instead, Zwingli put an emphasis on divine providence.

“[Zwingli] was repeatedly optimistic: God is good and benevolent, inviting humanity into his revelation. Men and women can have absolute assurance in divine providence, which orders all things for the good and without doubt. God is absolutely provident or is not God” (Gordon, p. 180).

So, Zwingli and Luther had their differences. But could those differences be worked out?

Zwingli rarely left Zurich, mostly out of concern for his safety, as he was a wanted man in traditional Roman Catholic circles. But Zwingli wanted to find out if he and Luther could find common ground, in order to further the advance of genuine reform against what both saw as a corrupt papacy. Zwingli was hopeful that he and Luther would be able to get along well. Both parties agreed to travel at the invitation of Philip of Hesse in Marburg, in order to have a dialogue. However, both men were already aware of what the other thought about the Lord’s Supper, and the two differed substantially.

The story goes that Zwingli removed the organ from the Grossmünster Church, taking music out of the church, only to eventually return the organ years later. Ironically, Zwingli was a rather accomplished musician himself, writing songs for private use, but who believed that medieval church practices had warped the use of singing in worship.

 

Zwingli and Luther at the Marburg Colloquy

When the two arrived at Marburg, along with other reformed thinkers, it soon became apparent that things were not going to go well. Zwingli had been cautiously optimistic that both he and Luther were saying pretty much the same thing, and that some kind of agreement could be worked out. Luther, on the other hand, had prejudged Zwingli to be a fanatic, showing no real desire for anything which suggested compromise, primarily on the Lord’s Supper.

Both Zwingli and Luther rejected the medieval doctrine of transubstantiation, but little common ground was found with respect to anything else regarding the Lord’s Supper. For Luther, Jesus’ own words “this is my body,” as in Luke 22:19, as Paul’s same language in 1 Corinthians 11:23–25, was to be taken at face value. This was no mere symbolism for Luther. “Christ had meant what he said” (Gordon, p. 175). Christ was and is indeed physically present in the sacred meal.

Zwingli appealed to John 6:63, “The flesh profits nothing,” to make the more symbolic argument:

“At heart was an unshakeable conviction that Christ could not be physically present in the bread and wine of the meal….after his resurrection the Son ascended to the right hand of the Father, as the creeds of the Church declared….The meal, Zwingli believed, was a memorial to Christ’s passion and resurrection, to the salvation of the faithful….For centuries, Christian theologians had rejected the Passover as having no place in the Church. For Zwingli, it was the key to understanding Christ’s meal” (Gordon, p. 170-171).

Luther dismissed Zwingli’s response as depending on a form of human reason that could not demonstrate any article of faith. To say that Christ could not be in the world, because he sat at the right hand of the Father was utterly false (Gordon, p,. 175). Luther’s rejection of Zwingli was harsh, describing the Swiss preacher as “perverted” and “lost to Christ“:

“I testify on my part that I regard Zwingli as un-Christian, with all his teachings, for he holds and teaches no part of the Christian faith rightly. He is seven times worse than when he was a papist” (Cited by Gordon, p. 176).

An impasse was reached. While other theological matters were largely agreed upon, the controversy over the Lord’s Supper could not be resolved. A statement was drafted that both Zwingli and Luther could agree that Christ is present at the Lord’s Supper, but that was only a tenuous matter that could not be held together for long.  Full reconciliation was lost. Zwingli broke down in tears, wishing that both men could still find some common bond of friendship. Luther, on the other hand, could not see Zwingli as a fellow brother in Christ. Zwingli had willfully denied the teaching of Scripture, crossing a line for Luther in the mind of the preacher from Wittenberg (Gordon, p. 179-180).

The gap between Zwingli and Luther only widened after the Colloquy of Marburg.  Zwingli had a more humanist background than Luther, believing that in some cases even pagans could be saved. In an effort to win over the King of France to the Zurich cause, Zwingli had listed the King of France, as well as pious pagans of history like Socrates and Cato, as being among God’s elect.  Luther was scandalized by Zwingli’s willingness to believe that such “idolaters” were among the saved (Gordon, p. 238-239). Like his one-time mentor, Erasmus, Zwingli was enamored by the classical world, believing that the greatest thinkers of the Greco-Roman past, prior to the emergence of New Testament Christianity, were essentially in alignment with Christian values and mindset.

With hopes for reconciliation with Luther dashed at Marburg in 1528, Zwingli continued out on his own in his opposition to the papacy. Yet Zwingli had grown more strident in his resolve against his Protestant critics. In particular, his patience with the Anabaptists had run out. Just two years earlier in 1527, his former friend, Felix Manz, was publicly drowned in Zurich by city officials after being re-baptized. Zwingli made no effort to intercede on behalf of his old friend.

Shortly before his death, Manz wrote a letter with a stinging critique of Zwingli:

“Unfortunately, we find many people these days who exult in the gospel and teach, speak and preach much about it, yet are full of hatred and envy. They do not have the love of God in them, and their deceptions are known to everyone. For as we have experienced in these last days, there are those who have come to us in sheep’s clothing, yet are ravaging wolves who hate the pious ones of this world and thwart their way of life and the true fold. This is what the false prophets and hypocrites of this world do” (Cited in Gordon, p. 191-192).

To the Anabaptists, Zwingli embodied the worst form of self-righteous bigotry one could imagine. Zwingli’s concern was just the opposite.

 

A female abbey was founded in Zurich in 853. But in the early 16th century, preaching from Zwingli ended up encouraging the abbess to dissolve the abbey, and the property became the Fraumünster Church.

 

Zwingli Against the Anabaptists

Zwingli’s response was just as caustic, casting the Anabaptists as having the spirit of antichrist, by citing 1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they were not of us” (Gordon, p. 192, wrongly cites this as being from the Gospel of John). Behind all of Zwingli’s polemic against the Anabaptist desire for a pure church was Zwingli’s maturing view of the church visible and invisible, somewhat like what we find in various forms of Christian Nationalism today.

Zwingli viewed Anabaptism as a cancer which was hindering the true reformation movement, a cancer which must be eradicated. The spread of the Gospel was paramount, but it required the existence of a state sponsored church where non-believers and believers freely existed. There was no room for Roman Catholics and Anabaptists to practice their understandings of Christianity in Zwingli’s Zurich. Monasteries and nunneries were shut down in Zurich, whose inhabitants were encouraged to get married or otherwise leave the city. Catholics lost their seats on the city council.

Yet his Anabaptist critics faired no much better. Civil authorities in Zurich persecuted Anabaptists wherever they were found, with Zwingli’s blessing. The concept of religious freedom, so central to modern democratic visions of state/church relations, was completely foreign to Zwingli’s thinking.

In the year following the colloquy of Marburg, 1529, the emperor Charles V held a meeting with the Protestants in Augsburg, in hopes of trying to heal the breaches ruptured by the Protestant movement. Charles was terribly concerned that a breakdown in Europe would weaken the defence against the Turks who were on the doorstep of Vienna.  Charles was hoping for a united Christendom to face the menace of the Turks, but instead the German Protestants gave him the Augsburg Confession. Charles rejected the Augsburg Confession, which became the defining confession of Lutheranism. But then there was Zwingli.

Zwingli submitted his own “Account of the Faith” for the Diet of Augsburg, where he took on all opponents, not just the Roman Catholics. For those who held to purgatory, they had no Christ. His views regarding the sacraments remained unchanged. Yet even friends of Zwingli, like Martin Bucer, were appalled by the intransigence of the tone in which Zwingli wrote. The Lutherans there realized that Zwingli had simply dug in his heels against them. Whatever agreement had been reached at Marburg, however fragile it was, had been broken by Zwingli. The Anabaptists were treated even far worse. Zwingli along with his Zurich city-state had become increasingly isolated (Gordon, p. 226-231).

Zwingli’s theology of how the state and church relate to one another was not entirely unique.  During the medieval era in Western Europe, it was practically assumed that to be a European was to be Christian and to be a Christian was to be European, even with the presence of groups like the Jews which upset such a neat formula. Yet what made a number of Zwingli’s friends increasingly wary of the Zurich Reformer was Zwingli’s willingness to use force in order to defend his understanding of the church visible and invisible.

Even in the summer prior to Zwingli’s meeting with Luther in Marburg in 1529, hostilities between various Swiss city-states had broken out between Protestant and Catholic alliances, the First Kappel War. A peace was reached at the end of the conflict, but Zwingli believed the terms of the conflict to be an impediment to the spread of the Gospel.

Zwingli’s house: The marker above the door in English reads: “From this house he left on October 11, 1531 with the Zurich army to Kappel, where he died for his faith.”

 

The Death of Zwingli

Zwingli’s translation of the entire Bible into German began to be printed in 1529, even though the Swiss dialect could not compete with the influence of Luther’s Bible which came out a few years later (Gordon, p. 243). Zwingli fully believed that the cause of the Gospel was at stake, but it would take a military alliance among the Protestants to push back against Catholic resistance to Zwingli’s proposed reforms. But such an alliance seemed remote, as other Swiss Protestants hoped instead for peace and stability.

Failure of the Swiss Protestants to effectively unite emboldened the Swiss Catholic city-states to strike against Zwingli’s Zurich. By October, 1531, war had become inevitable. What began as a theological crisis with high hopes for reform some fifteen years or so earlier devolved into open military warfare. The city of Zurich sent troops out to meet the Catholic war party, and Zwingli donned armor as well and joined the Zurich military effort. When the defeated Zurichers returned later from the battle of the Second Kappel War, Zwingli’s wife Anna learned that she had lost son, her brother, her brother-in-law, and ultimately her husband, Huldrych Zwingli.

Zurich was ordered to pay reparations to the Catholic war effort, and while Zwingli’s reforms were not completely rolled back, Zwingli himself was blamed for the calamity inflicted upon Zurich. The people in the rural areas under Zurich’s influence were particularly incensed. They drafted a resolution forbidding any clergyman from meddling in civic and secular affairs, a clear rebuke against Zwingli’s memory (Gordon, p. 251-252).

Zwingli’s friends, like Martin Bucer in Strasbourg, lamented Zwingli’s death. Nevertheless, even Bucer in a letter to another reformer wrote about his disappointment with Zwingli’s proclivity towards war:

“I feared for Zwingli. The gospel triumphs through the cross. One deceives oneself when one expects the salvation of Israel through external means with impetuosity, and triumph through weapons . . . It greatly unsettles me that our Zwingli not only recommended the war but did so incorrectly, as it appears to have been the case, and if we are rightly informed” (Cited by Gordon, p. 258).

Luther’s response in Wittenberg to Zwingli’s death was not at all conciliatory. He was convinced that Zwingli died in sin and great blasphemy, as he wrote in his Table Talk:

“I wish from my heart Zwingli could be saved, but I fear the contrary; for Christ has said that those who deny him shall be damned. God’s judgment is sure and certain, and we may safely pronounce it against all the ungodly, unless God reserve unto himself a peculiar privilege and dispensation. Even so, David from his heart wished that his son Absalom might be saved, when he said: ‘Absalom my son, Absalom my son’; yet he certainly believed that he was damned, and bewailed him, not only that he died corporally, but was also lost everlastingly; for he knew that he had died in rebellion, in incest, and that he had hunted his father out of the kingdom” (Cited by Gordon, p. 259).

Luther would not have been able to succeed in the reformation of the church without the assistance of the power of the state, that much is true. However, Luther was much more cautious in linking together the church and the state than was Zwingli. Unlike Zwingli, Luther championed a theory of two powers, a spiritual kingdom associated with the church, being exercised through faith and the Gospel, and a temporal kingdom governed by the state, being exercised through efforts to maintain order and restrain sin. For Luther, the church should not exercise secular power and the state should not interfere with matters of conscience, a type of distinction which Zwingli would not recognize.

Zwingli’s capable successor in Zurich, Heinrich Bullinger, was a friend of Zwingli, but wisely chose not to respond to Luther. Even when John Calvin eventually came along to Geneva, Calvin barely mentioned the name of Zwingli in his writings. Calvin sought to find common ground among Protestants without appealing to Zwingli’s controversial legacy.

 

Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet, by Bruce Gordon. I highly recommend this biography of the Swiss reformer of Zurich

 

Reflections on Zwingli, Particularly with Respect to Baptism and Church/State Relations

Bruce Gordon ends his book, Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet, with a look at how biographers have remembered Zwingli over the centuries, and he even offers a review of a fairly recent movie about Zwingli’s life, one that I can highly recommend (in German, but you can find a version with English subtitles).

For me, Zwingli is in many ways a hero, a champion for preaching the Gospel, and an ardent supporter of verse-by-verse exposition of the Bible. He shocked his hearers when he set aside the standard medieval lectionary for preaching from certain texts of Scripture, and instead started with Matthew, chapter one, and worked his way verse-by-verse through the New Testament during his weekly Sunday sermons.

Zwingli did the right thing here. He did not skip over parts of the Bible that were uncomfortable. If the text mentioned something in his verse-by-verse analysis, he would address it straight from the pulpit. Today, many pastors stay away from verse-by-verse expository preaching, and stick to purely topical approaches to Scripture. Technically, there is nothing wrong with topic-oriented preaching, and topic-oriented preaching can offer a good change of pace. But the problem is that topic-oriented preaching often forces the preacher to skip over things in the text of Scripture that do not nicely fit in with the topic being focused upon. Zwingli, on the other hand, faced what was presented to him in his Bible head-on, with no skipping the hard stuff. Preaching from the text verse-by-verse leaves you with no other alternative. That, in and of itself, helped to spark the Reformation in his church in Zurich, creating the Protestant movement among the Swiss.

Yet Zwingli was a complex hero, with some serious rough edges. Zwingli remains a controversial and contradictory figure. I still puzzle over his views of the Lord’s Supper, preferring John Calvin’s third-way approach through the impasse between Zwingli and Luther. Luther overreached in his criticisms of Zwingli, but Zwingli could be just as stubborn.

Defenders of Zwingli say that the Zurich preacher was not a mere memorialist when it comes to the Lord’s Supper, and was willing to at least acknowledge the spiritual presence of Christ in the sacrament. Perhaps he was. But it is difficult to reconcile this with the tendency in certain Protestant circles, following Zwingli, to downplay the role of the Lord’s Supper in Christian worship, contrary to the historic emphasis on weekly celebration of the eucharist which has united the church for many, many centuries.

In my view, Erasmus was correct to be wary of Zwingli’s insistence on his own understanding of the perspicuity of Scripture.  Scripture is indeed clear on the central articles of Christian faith. But Zwingli was naive to think that every Bible-believing person should simply be able to draw the exact same conclusions regarding the teaching of Scripture, which were in perfect alignment with Zwingli’s own interpretations of Scripture.

There is certainly a genuine interpretation of each and every passage of Scripture, based on the original intentions of the author, but every interpreter of the Bible must acknowledge their own fallibility when it comes to handling the text of the Bible. The Scriptures are indeed without error, but our human interpretations of the text are still prone to error, so each of us should approach the Bible with a sense of exegetical humility.  If Zwingli had himself this kind of exegetical humility, it might have led him to live a much longer life and avoid the stain of controversy which still tarnishes his otherwise influential legacy to this very day.

Zwingli’s contradictions make him a fascinating figure to study. In many ways, I concur with much (though not all) of Zwingli’s understanding of baptism. Infant baptism does not save, but it does act as a New Testament parallel to the Old Testament understanding of circumcision.

Defenders of “credobaptism;” that is, “believer’s baptism,” who are critics of “paedobaptism;” that is, infant baptism, will often cite Colossians 2:12 in support of their view:

“….having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead” (ESV).

As the argument goes, “baptism” is linked to the concept of having “faith,” therefore, baptism assumes that a candidate for baptism has exercised some form of believing faith, something which infants can not do.  While there is substantial weight to this argument, it often ignores the verse prior to it which adds some important context, directly leading into verse 12:

“In him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ,….” (Colossians 2:11 ESV).

Paul is clearly linking the Jewish practice of circumcision with baptism in this passage. The Old Testament quite clearly shows that Jewish male infants were circumcised, so any opponent to paedobaptism must somehow wrestle with this, in how Paul is associating circumcision with baptism. But advocates of credobaptism have a good point to make in saying that we have no clear, undisputed New Testament example of infants being baptized.

I have good friends of mine who are pastors, who in good conscience, simply could not perform an infant baptism. I totally get that. In other words, different Christians standing in good faith hold to different positions regarding baptism.

Given the difficulty of resolving the debate over infant baptism, Zwingli’s unrelenting opposition to “believer’s baptism” comes off as most extreme. Zwingli’s efforts to stamp out the Anabaptists, standing aside as the state sought to violently punish these Anabaptists, was going way too far. Linking the power of the state with the enforcement of a contentious Christian doctrine clearly reveals the dangers of a Christian Nationalism, a lesson that Christians should be reminded of today.

Baptism is not a hill I am going to die on, and it should not have been for Zwingli either. Zwingli probably had the best of intentions. Perhaps Zwingli viewed the Anabaptists as a promoting a kind of “slippery slope” to spiritual anarchy, of some sort. Yet sadly, Zwingli weaponized baptism as a violent tool of the state, ultimately and utterly missing its Scriptural purpose.

The very nature of politics assumes that it is appropriate to use force to impose laws on people. Yet if people are not persuaded in their hearts and minds that a particular law is just, they will rise up in opposition to it. This is the very problem which Zwingli ran into, and which has since tarnished his otherwise remarkable legacy.

Far from squashing the belief in “believer’s baptism,” the opposite took place. The original Anabaptist impulse, which Zwingli tried to use the heavy-hand of the state to squelch, ended up unleashing a movement whereby “believer’s baptism” has become a very dominant feature of evangelical thought and practice in the 21st century.

—————————————————-

 

Charlie Kirk, outspoken Christian and political activist, in his last moments before being shot by an assassin.  In my view, both Kirk and Zwingli had a lot in common.

 

Addendum: Is Zwingli A 16th Century Parallel to Charlie Kirk??

Zwingli’s fervent preaching of the Gospel, combined with his willingness to cozy up closely to the powers of the state, and even take up arms, should provide for us a cautionary tale. Within a month or so before our trip to Europe, walking the streets where Zwingli walked in Zurich, the Christian evangelist and conservative political activist, Charlie Kirk, was killed by an assassin. Videos of the shooting circulated for weeks on social media. The memorial service for Kirk held in Arizona featured speeches by both the American president and vice-president, with some 90,000 in attendance, while millions online viewed the service.  The event was partly a Christian revival meeting, but also had the unmistakable tone of a political rally.

After my time in Zurich, upon reflection I think that Zwingli would have been right at home with Charlie Kirk’s blend of Christian revival and political conservatism. Zwingli, as a preacher, refused to stay in his lane, and combined his evangelical calling with political activism. Defenders of Zwingli celebrated his preaching of the Gospel. Zwingli’s message stirred up revival in a Switzerland living under centuries of medieval distortions of Christian faith.  But his opposition to other sincere Christians who differed with him bred resentment from others.

A one-for-one correspondence between Zwingli and Charlie Kirk would be a misleading claim, as the circumstances of their respective deaths differ dramatically, and they lived in different cultural contexts. Nevertheless, the parallels between the two are striking. Both Zwingli and Kirk died as relatively young men. Both were evangelists. Both were strident in their beliefs, outspoken with their views, and were excellent communicators, organizers, and debaters. Both were known for their courage. Both lived with death threats issued against them. Both had close friends in high places. Both were fervent patriots. Both were misunderstood by many of their contemporaries.

Yet Zwingli’s wedding together of church and state proved to be an embarrassment for the great Reformer. Most people who think about the Reformation of the 16th century today immediately consider the names of John Calvin and Martin Luther. But Zwingli, who was just as influential, if not more so, has been a more controversial figure to grasp. Some 500 years later, Zwingli still remains relatively unknown.

Though separated by the centuries, the deaths of both Zwingli in the 16th century and Charlie Kirk in the 21st century have been tragic, even senseless losses.

The death of Charlie Kirk in September, 2025 ripped a hole in the American psyche. In many ways, the death of Huldrych Zwingli did the same thing for 16th century Europeans. It is extremely concerning when supposed Christians in response to Charlie Kirk’s death are acting out in ways that express violent rhetoric, as Christian apologist Jon McCray reported shortly after Kirk’s death:

I do wonder how many champions of Charlie Kirk today think about the complicated memory of Huldrych Zwingli, and what can be learned from the Protestant reformer of Zurich.

Some might think that my comments reflect a kind of wishy-washy, fake “third wayism,” which in some quarters gets a lot of harsh criticism today. If you want a helpful clarification as to what I am getting at, then take a few extra minutes and watch the following video by Christian apologist Gavin Ortlund, who makes a defense of the late Tim Keller, whose legacy has come under fire recently in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death. Even if you come to the conclusion that a “third way” approach offered by a Tim Keller or Gavin Ortlund is inherently bad, at least make the step of acting in good faith and not misrepresent what a Tim Keller or Gavin Ortlund is saying:

Which is better: To be winsome and persuasive, or confrontational and combative?  I favor the former over the latter.

Christians should be involved in the political process. But when Christians tend to elevate political concerns in such a way that the clear proclamation of the Gospel tends to get overshadowed and crowded out, great harm can be done. We can learn from church history, to avoid some of the terrible mistakes made in the past, a lesson we should not ignore. The story of Zwingli serves as a sobering example for us today.

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October 31, 2025

Zwingli in Zurich: Part One (God’s Armed Prophet)

By Clarke Morledge

From the Christianity Along the Rhine blog series…

On this Happy Reformation Day, we ask: Who was Huldrych Zwingli?

Huldrych Zwingli is not as well known as the two leading lights of the 16th century Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and John Calvin. But among the Swiss, Zwingli was the most influential of the Reformers … until he was killed in battle at age 47.

But if he was such an important historical figure, why do so few Christians know anything about Zwingli?

I think I know why: The irony of Zwingli’s death was that he was caught between his pride of the Swiss people and his hatred of the mercenary movement, whereby various European powers would offer pensions to Swiss men to go off and fight their wars. In the end, a combination of his Swiss pride and theology of the church overtook his rejection of military service, and he died at the end of the sword, all while preaching the Gospel. He was Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet, the title of a fascinating biography of the Swiss Reformer by Yale historian Bruce Gordon.

 

Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet, by Bruce Gordon, is the most recent biography of the great Swiss Reformer of Zurich.

 

A Visit to Zurich, Switzerland

My wife and I took a trip to Europe in 2025, spending a few days in Zurich, Switzerland, where I got to explore the city where this relatively unfamiliar giant of the Protestant Reformation preached his sermons, lambasted by both the Roman papacy and fellow Reformer Martin Luther. This is the first of two “travel blog” posts covering the often forgotten Huldrych Zwingli.

The church where Zwingli preached in the 16th century, the Grossmünster, still stands in the center of the city of Zurich. After taking a boat cruise on Lake Zurich, which feeds the Limmat River, I walked up the road just a block or so alongside the Limmat. There I found a statue of the Reformer, with both a Bible and a sword in hand, sculpted by the Austrian artist Heinrich Natter, and dedicated in 1885.

Many historians do not know quite what to do with Zwingli. The idea of a pacifist-leaning preacher, who ironically was killed in battle, proved to be just one of the many contradictions of Zwingli, sidelining his historical memory among the Protestant Reformers. He upheld the authority of Scripture, and Scripture alone, but when confronted by more radical reformers that infant baptism was not explicitly taught in Scripture, Zwingli felt compelled to support efforts by the civil magistrates to have such radical reformers put to death. Zwingli was known to be a proficient musician, and yet he banned singing in worship in his Zurich church. In his earlier years, he had a spiritual conversion experience all while engaging in multiple premarital sexual relationships as a priest, and being rather unrepentant about it.

As a result of such embarrassments, it is hard to find the bulk of Zwingli’s written works translated into English. Not so with Luther and Calvin, whose books are translated widely and are still read today. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine how the Protestant Reformation would have taken off as it did without the intellectual talents of Zwingli driving it along.

Unveiled in 1885, a statue of Zwingli stands in front of the Wasserkirche, or “Water Church,” in Zurich. The Reformer has both a Bible and a sword in his hands. I had the opportunity to explore the old city of Zwingli’s Zurich in October, 2025.

 

Zwingli’s Early Years

While Martin Luther taught in Wittenberg, Germany, Zwingli became the “people’s priest” in Zurich, Switzerland. Both Luther and Zwingli had become enamoured with Desiderius Erasmus’ Greek New Testament, marking a drastic change in each man’s outlook on the Bible at nearly the same time. But in many ways, Zwingli was ahead of Luther. Zwingli married Anna a year before Luther married Katie. Zwingli’s Swiss German translation of the Bible preceded Luther’s German translation by several years.

Born in a Swiss alpine village in 1484, Zwingli excelled as a student, going off to school at age 10 in Basel, and then attending university in Vienna at age 14, before returning to Basel to finish his college education. At age 22, he became a priest in the Swiss community of Glarus.

It was in Glarus that Zwingli experienced the cultural dilemma of the Swiss people. Though Zwingli had a fairly modest and financially stable upbringing, most Swiss had difficulties making ends meet. As a result, many took up military service for hire, as representatives of the papacy in Italy and their opponents in France would seek out Swiss men to serve as mercenaries, offering them pensions, though only half would live long enough to return home. It was the most practical way a Swiss man could provide for himself and his family, by effectively selling themselves for a period of time as a slave to fight wars for other people. As a priest, Zwingli accompanied his people into battle, and he became disillusioned with the whole mercenary system.

After returning from one military disaster, Zwingli went to Basel to meet Desiderius Erasmus, to learn more from the man who gave the Western world a new authoritative Greek New Testament. Zwingli’s meeting with Erasmus set the trajectory for the rest of his life. Later that year, Zwingli moved to a Benedictine Abbey in Einsiedeln. It was during these few years when he experienced spiritual upheaval.

On the one side was the reform of  Zwingli’s own spirituality, inspired by Erasmus’ work on the Greek New Testament. On the other side, Zwingli was caught up by the tensions of trying to live a celibate life as required of all medieval Catholic priests. However, it was commonly accepted that while priests were expected not to marry, they nevertheless had discreet sexual relations along the side. This was true for Zwingli as well.  While in Einsiedeln, Zwingli got a woman pregnant, and was known to have fathered at least one illegitimate child. Nevertheless, God was starting to take a hold of Zwingli’s life while in Einsiedeln. Zwingli’s years in Einsiedeln prompted him to make a bold change in his life. That change led him to Zurich, Switzerland.

The pulpit from where Zwingli preached, at the main city church of Zurich, the Grossmünster.

 

Zwingli Goes to Zurich: The “People’s Priest”

The opportunity came for Zwingli to become the “people’s priest” at the Zurich church, Grossmünster in 1518. His election to the position was almost derailed by rumours of his sexual past. Furthermore, he had only been preaching for several months before the plague swept through Zurich, and nearly killing Zwingli himself. Zwingli survived, viewing his recovery from the plague as a sign of God’s blessing.

Zwingli’s preaching took up reformation themes. He rejected the intercessory powers of Mary and the saints, denied the existence of purgatory, and assured his parishioners that their unbaptized babies were not damned.

Zwingli was not afraid of challenging other preachers. During one sermon delivered by a Franciscan monk regarding the veneration of the saints, Zwingli himself shouted down the speaker, “Brother, you are in error!” Zwingli’s strategy was to force a public debate with detractors, with hopes of enlisting support from the Zurich city magistrates. The strategy worked.

But his most controversial preaching was in objecting to the Swiss mercenary practice, and the obtaining of pensions for such service, as offered through outside entities, including the papacy. Though once a loyal servant of the papacy, Zwingli had slowly been transformed into an irritant in the eyes of Rome.

By 1522, he even secretly married a young widow, who already had several children, Anna Reinhart, a woman who had assisted Zwingli to recover from the plague. Zwingli no longer could abide by the celibacy requirement for priests established by Rome.

Notable public controversy ensued when that year he met with a group of friends, where the others in the group ate a meal of sausages, in violation of the rules of the Lenten fast. Zwingli did not partake, but it was evident that he was the primary instigator. His pursuit of reforms even caused trouble with his friendly correspondence with his mentor Erasmus.

Zwingli wrote to Erasmus believing in the perspicuity (or clarity) of the Scriptures.  Erasmus in turn regretted the radical nature of Zwingli’s thought. Erasmus had urged for reform, too, but he still thought that no one could read the Scriptures on their own without assistance from the magisterial teaching authority of the church to properly guide the reader. Their differences led to a falling out for their friendship.

Erasmus had good grounds for being wary of Zwingli’s radical leanings as signs of instability. In 1520, Zwingli believed at first that the tithe was not sanctioned by the Bible, and could be abolished.  But when more radical reformers took him up on rejecting tithing, Zwingli shifted and commended that civil magistrates could collect tithes, just as long as the civil powers did not exploit the people  (Gordon, p. 96-98). A similar situation developed when Zwingli urged that ornate artistry be removed from the churches, as such imagery violated the second of the Ten Commandments.  But when more radical reformers took Zwingli’s teaching to the next level and destroyed altars, such that the wood could be sold to assist the poor, Zwingli rejected such iconoclastic activities as threatening the stability of the social order (Gordon, p. 102).

Desiderius Erasmus, the humanist who gave the Western world the first authoritative Greek New Testament in the 16th century, remained a Roman Catholic his whole life. Erasmus believed that Zwingli’s reforms had gone too radical, and broke his friendship with Zwingli. Nevertheless, when Erasmus died, he was buried in the city cathedral of Basel, Germany, a Protestant church, a remarkable gesture suggesting that Protestants and Roman Catholics are not as far apart as is commonly believed. … After two days in Zurich, my wife and I traveled to Basel, where I saw Erasmus’ grave here.

 

The Church Visible and the Church Invisible

Part of Zwingli’s shifting views on tithing and iconoclasm were a result of his developing views on the nature of the church. Zwingli believed in the church visible and the church invisible. The church visible was made up of people who attended church and participated in a Christian society. The church invisible were those genuine believers and followers of Jesus living among the church visible. Zwingli’s theory of how the state related to the church depended on this visible/invisible distinction. The more radical reformers, inspired by Zwingli, such as the Anabaptist leaders Konrad Grebel and Felix Manz, rejected infant baptism as being not taught in Scripture in their view, and urged true believers to take on adult baptism. These Anabaptists were rejecting their infant baptisms as valid, much to the consternation of Zwingli who saw the Anabaptist movement as a threat to his understanding of the visible church.

Zwingli saw the church as a parallel to the ancient Israelites. Just as circumcision was the primary identity marker for Old Testament Jews, so was baptism the primary identity marker for Christians. The Jews were God’s old covenant people, whereas the church was God’s new covenant people. For Zwingli, baptism was  “a covenantal sign that does not in itself or as an act impart or even strengthen faith. Zwingli rejected what he saw as the pernicious Anabaptist argument that baptism was a pledge to live a sinless life, a position he claimed was a new form of legalism to bind the conscience. It would make God a liar, as such lives were not possible. ” (Gordon, p. 126-127).

Zwingli acknowledged that the New Testament nowhere explicitly mentions that infants were to be baptized. However, to use that as an argument against infant baptism was no different than saying that women could be denied the Lord’s Supper, since there were evidently no women present when Jesus celebrated the Last Supper with his male disciples (Gordon, p. 127)

“Baptism is the rite of initiation into the covenant of Christ, as circumcision was for the Israelites. Circumcision did not bring faith: it was a covenantal sign that those who trust in God will raise their children to know and love God. Instruction follows initiation, so children are baptized and then are taught the faith. Baptism cannot save, but it is a sign or pledge of the covenant God has made with humanity. It was instituted by Christ for all” (Gordon, p. 127).

On the other side, Zwingli continued to receive serious pushback from the Roman Catholic papal authorities, who viewed Zwingli as much of a dangerous rebel as were the Anabaptists. Zwingli got on the theological radar of Johann Eck, one of Martin Luther’s fiercest theological opponents. For Eck, Zwingli was infected with the same mind virus as Luther.  Eck cited Paul’s letter to Titus in reference to Zwingli:  ‘After a first and second admonition, have nothing more to do with anyone who causes divisions, since you know that such a person is perverted and sinful, being self-condemned’ (Titus 3:10–11; Gordon, p. 123).

Zwingli’s outspoken views eventually would lead to a crisis, which ended poorly with him and his family. In the next part of this two part look at Zwingli’s life, we will consider the last few years of the Protestant reformer of Zurich.

In the meantime, enjoy this video interview with the author of Zwingli: God’s Armed Prophet , Bruce Gordon, as he talks about his book:

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October 24, 2025

Christianity Along the Rhine: A Travel Blog Series

By Clarke Morledge

My wife and I just got back last week from a 12-day trip to Europe, and I am excited to blog about it.

The main focus of the trip was a week-long Viking river cruise along the Rhine and Moselle Rivers, starting in Basel, Switzerland and ending up in Trier, Germany. The river cruise was bookended with a two-night stay in Zurich, Switzerland on the leading end, with a two-night stay in Paris, France on the final end. For a church history enthusiast like myself, it was an amazing experience.

Veracity blogger above the Rhine River, in Basel, Switzerland.  October, 2025.

 

Over the next few months, and into the New Year, I will be periodically releasing blog installments covering different elements from our tour along the Rhine River, with highlights both before and after (SEE INDEX OF INDIVIDUAL BLOG POSTS BELOW!).  As usual, I got some book reading done before and during the trip, and I will be narrating those book reviews as I share some photos of the experience.  The land we traveled through during our trip is incredibly rich with church history (and history in general).

This is not the first time I have put together a travel blog series on Veracity. I got inspired to do this from some of the trips our Veracity blog founder, John Paine, took several times to Canada (in Toronto) and England (to see Codex Sinaiticus at the British Museum in London) a few years ago.  Thanks, John.  I am blaming you for all of these blog posts!!  😉

The newly restored Notre Dame Cathedral, in Paris, France. The fire in 2019 did a lot of damage, but the structure of building remained sound.  The restoration effort was impressive, as the inside of Notre Dame is much brighter than before. Centuries of candle smoke had darkened the Cathedral, but now it is a most glorious sight!!

 

Back in 2018, my wife and I spent 2 1/2 weeks in Rome, Italy, which still stands out to me as the best trip of all. I could have spent a whole month there and not seen everything. We had saved up for years to make this trip, and it was fantastic. It was a lot of fun to meet up in Rome for a full day with our friends Marie Knapp, and her (now) late husband Troy Knapp.

In October 2022, we took another river cruise, but this time down the Danube River, from Regensburg, Germany to Budapest, Hungary.  This was part of a full three-week tour of six European countries, to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary. We were able to spend a few days earlier in Munich, and then after the Danube, a few extra days in Prague, followed by a few other days in Italy/Sicily.

For Christmas 2023, we were invited by our friends, Shannon and Andrew Bodine, to visit in Brussels, Belgium. After seeing the Christmas markets and Waterloo battlefield, we got on a train to cross the English Channel to make our way to Cambridge, England, where we met up with other friends, Jon and Meredith Thompson, who just happened to be in Cambridge for a few weeks while we were in the area. Pretty cool!

This recent trip along the Rhine River was special, and particularly enjoyable, as during the last two prior trips I got sick, which was not terribly fun. But this time, no Covid and no flu!! Yeah! …. The only downside to this recent trip was that there was constant activity, and not a lot of downtime. I need a vacation from my vacation!

Marksburg Castle, above the Rhine River, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The castle first dates back to the early 12th century, but had been damaged some over the years, most recently by American artillery during World War II.

 

I have to say that Viking has figured out how to do river cruises. They have had ads all over the PBS television network for decades, and we got to see for ourselves the famous section along the Rhine where all of the castles are featured in those ads.

The food was fantastic. We had excellent tour guides, even though the walking element on all of those cobblestone streets was very challenging for my wife. Going through the river locks appealed to my nerdy engineering side. I highly recommend doing something like this if you have the chance.

The first couple of blog posts in this series will be about the 16th-century Protestant Reformer, Huldrych Zwingli, of Zurich, Switzerland, who has become largely forgotten among Christians today, despite his enormous impact on Christian theology. I will keep a running tab and index of blog posts updated here at the bottom of this post, as reference.

Enjoy!

 

A cable car ride over the Rhine River, with our Viking longship below. Koblenz, Germany.

 

Heidelberg, Germany. Looking up towards the castle.

 

The town of Cochem, Germany, along the Moselle River.

Here is a reference list to previous travel blog post series, along with a list of posts to the current series…..

First, from Rome…………

 

Next, from Christianity along the Danube, with some time in southern Germany, along the Alps, and over to Prague, as well…….

 

Before our recent trip down the Rhine River, over Christmas of 2023, we went to Belgium and Cambridge, England….

Coming soon….. Christianity Along the Rhine…..

…. more posts to come!!

 

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May 20, 2023

Sicily: From the Greek Classical World to Christendom

By Clarke Morledge

One final blog post about our trip to Europe last year, 2022. The adventure to Europe ended with an exciting finish: It was a whirlwind trip. Just three nights in Sicily, to visit with friends, and tour the best of Sicily. I even got to travel up a good part of Mount Etna, one of the world’s most active volcanoes (but visibility was poor due to rain that day).

Sicily has an incredibly grand and ancient history. Coming from my hometown of Williamsburg, Virginia, which prides itself in its rich colonial history going back 400 years, Williamsburg does not even begin to compare with a recorded history going back to the Sicilian and Punic wars.

I had started to listen to Robin Lane Fox’s The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian, while visiting Sicily. Fox’s immense survey of the history of the Greco-Roman world, finishing up with the reign of Emperor Hadrian, just as Christianity was emerging as a world changing movement in the early second century, clocks in at just under 24 hours as an audiobook. Though he is a secular British historian, whose rather aloof interest in the Christian faith is apparent, Fox is nevertheless a captivating story-teller, though the decadence and violence of the classical world that he chronicles made me yearn for more of the Christian story (I have Fox’s book on Saint Augustine queued up on my “to-be-read” list, but that is a long ways off from now!)

Having a book by a world-class historian at the ready makes for a more enjoyable visit to faraway places. The names of great places in Sicily were sprinkled throughout The Classical World, and I got a chance to see the highlights, and envision a bit of that remarkable ancient world. Take Agrigento for example. In southwest Sicily, the old city of Agrigento sits above an expansive historical park, the Valley of the Temples. On one end of the park stands the Temple of the Discouri.

Temple of the Dioscuri. Valley of the Temples Archaeological Park. Agrigento, Sicily, Italy. The city of Agrigento itself is up the hill in the background.

In the middle of the park stands the Temple of Concordia. These were the great houses of worship to the “gods,” much of this dating back half a millennium before Jesus (around 500 BCE), and established mostly by the Greeks. By the time Christianity spread and conquered the Roman Empire nearly a millennium later, these great buildings were converted to use as churches. A photographic history of “Early Christian Agrigento” is a good resource on the web, showing where and how Christians in the early history of the church buried their dead.

The transformation of the Greco-Roman world into a Christian society, less than 500 years after the birth of Jesus, is simply a fascinating thing to consider. In many ways, contemporary secular culture is drifting back to the advocated virtues and religious pluralism of the Greco-Roman classical world. It makes me wonder: How was it that a movement of ragtag Jewish peasants, following a singular figure, whom his followers believed had been risen from the dead, end up completely overcoming such a rich classical culture, with a new story that has since spread far and wide across planet earth, the world’s largest spiritual movement of all time, representing some one-third of the 21st century world population?

It is an astounding thought to ponder.

Temple of Concordia. Valley of the Temples. Agrigento, Sicily, Italy.

Another highlight for me was the city of Syracuse, specifically the island of Ortigia, one of the most incredibly beautiful places I saw while in Europe. While much of the classical ruins still lie beneath the city, awaiting archaeological investigation, the Baroque architecture of much of the town is impressive, even when walking around at night! …. Plus, the food was simply fantastic!!

Cathedral of Syracuse, on the island of Ortigia. One of Sicily’s many gorgeous churches.

 

These are last of my photos I plan on posting on Veracity about the trip my wife and I took to Europe in 2022…. while I was in Sicily towards the end of the adventure, she was off in Venice with a friend…where unfortunately, the food was NOT as good!…. Oh, and about Mount Etna….. While in Sicily, I never got to see the top of the volcano, due to the rain and cloud cover. But on the flight out, I managed to be sitting on left side of the plane, which gave me a breathtaking view of the legendary volcano, at its very top. Enjoy!

 

APPENDIX:

Found a fun link here on Twitter. A museum in Hamburg animates Caesar Augustus singing “California Dreaming.” Augustus visited Sicily in 22 BCE.

Nachts im Museum: der römische Kaiser Augustus in der Ausstellung im Bucerius Kunst Forum in Hamburg.

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