Reformation Thought. Alister E. McGrath

class over whether to support the Duchy of Savoy or the Swiss Confederacy, represented by the city of Berne. The pro-Savoyard Mammelukes and the pro-Bernese Eiguenots were both drawn from a single social group, characterized by a range of identifiable shared economic, familial, and social interests. Similarly, Ozment’s suggestion of a universal concern for the doctrine of justification finds little support in the case of cities within or linked with the Swiss Confederacy – such as Zurich, St. Gallen, and Geneva – and overlooks the obvious hesitations concerning the doctrine on the part of many Swiss reformers.

      Nevertheless, some common features emerge from a study of the origins and development of the Reformation in major northern European cities such as Augsburg, Basle, Berne, Colmar, Constance, Erfurt, Frankfurt, Geneva, Hamburg, Lübeck, Memmingen, Ulm, and Zurich. It is helpful to explore them.

      In the first place, the Reformation in the cities appears to have been a response to some form of popular pressure for change. Nuremberg is a rare instance of a city council imposing a reformation without significant preceding popular protest or demand. Dissatisfaction among urban populations of the early sixteenth century was not necessarily purely religious in character; social, economic, and political grievances were unquestionably present, to varying extents, within the agglomerate of unrest evident at the time. City councils generally reacted in response to this popular pressure, often channeling it in directions appropriate to their own needs and purposes. This subtle manipulation of such pressure was an obvious way of co-opting and controlling a potentially dangerous popular protest movement. Existing urban regimes were often relatively unchanged by the introduction of new religious ideas and practices, which suggests that city councils were able to respond to such popular pressure without radical changes in the existing social orders.

Second, the success of the Reformation within a city was dependent upon a number of historical contingencies. To adopt the Reformation was to risk a disastrous change in political alignment, in that existing treaties or relationships – military, political, and commercial – with territories or cities which chose to remain Catholic were usually deemed to be broken as a result. A city’s trading relationships – upon which her economic existence might depend – might thus be compromised fatally. The success of the Reformation in the city of St. Gallen was partly due to the fact that the city’s linen industry was not adversely affected to any significant degree by the decision to adopt the Reformation. Equally, a city (such as Erfurt) in close proximity to a Catholic city (Mainz) and a Lutheran territory (Saxony) could risk becoming embroiled in military conflict with one or other of these interested parties, with potentially lethal results for the independence of that city.

      Third, the romantic, idealized vision of a reformer arriving in a city to preach the gospel, with an immediate ensuing decision on the part of the city to adopt the principles of the Reformation, must be abandoned as quite unrealistic. Throughout the entire process of Reformation, from the initial decision to implement a process of reform to subsequent decisions concerning the nature and the pace of reforming proposals, it was the city council who remained in control. Zwingli’s Reformation in Zurich proceeded considerably more slowly than he would have liked on account of the cautious approach adopted by the council at crucial moments. Bucer’s freedom of action in Strasbourg was similarly limited. As Calvin would discover, city councils were perfectly able to evict reformers from their precincts if they stepped out of line with publicly stated council policy or decisions.

      In practice, the relationship between city council and reformer was generally symbiotic. The reformer, by presenting a coherent vision of the Christian gospel and its implications for the religious, social, and political structures and practices of a city, was able to prevent a potentially revolutionary situation from degenerating into chaos. The constant threat of reversion to Catholicism, or subversion by radical Anabaptist movements, rendered the need for a reformer inevitable. Someone had to give religious direction to a movement which, unchecked and lacking direction, might degenerate into chaos, with momentous and unacceptable consequences for the existing power structures of the city and the individuals who controlled them.

      Equally, the reformer was someone who was under authority, one whose freedom of action was limited by political masters jealous of their authority and with a reforming agenda which generally extended beyond that of the reformer to include consolidation of their economic and social influence. The relation between reformer and city council was thus delicate, easily prone to disruption, with real power permanently in the hands of the latter.

      In the case of Geneva, a delicate relationship developed between the city’s reformers (initially Guillaume Farel assisted by Calvin, and subsequently Calvin alone) and the city council. Conscious and jealous of its hard-won authority and liberty, the city council was determined not to substitute the tyranny of a reformer for that of a Catholic bishop. In 1536, the city had just gained its independence from Savoy, and had largely retained that independence – despite the attempts of Berne to colonize the city. Geneva was in no mood to be dictated to by anyone, unless they were in a position to bring massive economic and military pressure to bear. As a result, severe restrictions were placed upon Calvin’s activities. He was someone whose options were severely limited.

The expulsion of Calvin from Geneva in 1538 demonstrates that political power remained firmly in the hands of the city council. The notion that Calvin was the “dictator of Geneva” is totally devoid of historical foundation. Nevertheless, the city council found itself unable to cope with a deteriorating religious situation in Calvin’s absence. In a remarkable act of social pragmatism and religious realism, the council recalled their reformer and allowed him to continue his work of reform. Geneva needed Calvin, just as Calvin needed Geneva.

      An important difference may be noted at this point between Lutheran and Reformed thought. Luther was the product of a small Saxon town under the thumb of the local prince, but the great Reformed thinkers Zwingli and Bucer were the product of the great free cities of Zurich and Strasbourg. For these latter, the Reformation involved the identification of “citizen” with “Christian.” Zwingli thus laid great emphasis upon the need to reform and redeem a community, whereas Luther tended to concentrate upon the need to reform and redeem the individual. Luther, through his doctrine of the “Two Kingdoms,” effectively separated religious ideas from secular life, whereas Zwingli insisted upon their mutual integration. It is therefore significant that the Reformed church gained its most secure power-bases in the cities of southern Germany and Switzerland, which were more advanced socially, culturally, and economically than the northern cities destined to become Lutheran strongholds.

      The social context of the Reformation is a fascinating subject in itself, but is noted here primarily on account of its obvious influence upon at least some of the religious ideas of the reformers. For example, there are excellent reasons for suggesting that many of Zwingli’s ideas (especially his ideas concerning the societal function of the sacraments) were directly conditioned by the political, economic, and social circumstances of Zurich. Equally, some of Calvin’s ideas about the proper structures of a Christian church seem to reflect institutions already in existence at Geneva prior to his arrival in that city.

      The urban context of many Reformation theologians and communities is also linked with the emergence of “world-affirming” spiritualities which celebrated and encouraged a positive relationship between Christianity and the secular world – a topic we shall consider in the following section.

      Sacralizing the Secular: Christianity as a World-Engaging Faith

      Recent studies have noted how most of the intellectual and spiritual leaders of medieval Christianity were monastic, isolated from many of the harsher realities of everyday life by the walls of their monasteries and convents. Although there is ample evidence that what could be considered to be “evangelical” modes of thought arose within some of the monasteries of northern Italy in response to a growing interest in the spirituality of Paul’s letters in the final decade of the fifteenth century, it is important to note that Protestantism’s early cultural habitat was the world of European cities and marketplaces, exposing its thinkers to pressures and problems that their Catholic forebears had not been required to consider. The intellectual leaders of the first phase of Protestantism – such as Martin Luther, Huldrych