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  • Heinrich Bullingers europäische Kirchenpolitik
  • Rodney L. Petersen
Heinrich Bullingers europäische Kirchenpolitik. By Andreas Mühling . [ Zürcher Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte, Band 19.] ( Bern: Peter Lang. 2001. Pp. 371. $56.95 paperback.)

Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) received his call to succeed his mentor, Huldrych Zwingli, as Cathedral preacher in Zürich following the death of the latter [End Page 370] in the Battle of Kappel (1531). If Zwingli was the pioneer and first prophet of the Swiss Reformation, Bullinger gained universal renown as its consolidator. Zwingli's work and writings were soon eclipsed by the prodigious work of his apprentice and successor. In the end, Bullinger was to write more than Luther and Calvin combined. As pastor to the church in Zürich, Bullinger would become a leading confidant and counselor to religious and political leadership across Europe—soon in transition from an Age of Reform to that of Confessionalism.

Andreas Mühling's study does a hefty job in mapping out Bullinger's work and correspondence with such leadership amidst the many ambiguities of the period. His focus is on the political significance of this work as Bullinger's advice issued forth from Zürich. In the introduction to this valuable volume in the series "Zürcher Beiträge zur Reformationsgeschichte," Mühling lays out in a clear fashion and with reference to critical scholarship the growth of the contemporary critical apparatus around this pivotal reformer. Building on the nineteenth-century work of Carl Pestalozzi, the scholarship of Walter Hollweg (1956) and Joachim Staedtke (1962) becomes pivotal to four phases of Bullinger research. Critical issues related to chronology, terminology, the central value of Bullinger's Diarium, and his Letters carry us to the bulk of the book and its argument concerning Bullinger's political significance. Mühling takes us through chapters that grow out of the critical framework that he provides to the political significance and foundation of Bullinger's church politics, his relationship with the Empire and with the continuing line of European monarchs to whom Bullinger dedicated his voluminous works, from Albrecht von Brandenburg (1532) to the English bishops Grindal, Cox, and Jewel (1571).

According to Mühling, Bullinger's main interest was the condition and building up of a community reformed by the Word of God. Following the consolidation of the church in Zürich, Bullinger was able to carry this concern to the plane of European politics. Mühling draws attention to Bullinger's remarkable virtuosity and sensitivity in doing this. It was Bullinger's personal influence, theological authority, and political competence (pp. 276–277) that made this influence possible. Regarding relations with the "other" Swiss city of Reformed renown, Geneva, Bullinger's leadership and pastoral abilities led even Theodor Beza, Calvin's successor in that city, to refer to Bullinger as "mi pater" (p. 277). While Geneva may have given direction to reform in France, it was Zürich, under Bullinger, that offered support and direction not only in distant Poland, but—together with Geneva—throughout the continent through the duration of Bullinger's lifetime. Only after his death did Geneva ascend to its more solitary leadership in the European Reformed community.

As Mühling demonstrates, the strength of Bullinger's theology and church politics lay in his understanding of the "good mandate" that the church inherited so as to influence society. The Evangel, as renewed in the reforms of his day, was also a re-affirmation of the unchanging nature of God's truth, given to old Israel, now the Christian church. This is a theology shaped around the notion of covenant: God has promised to be our God. God's pledge to us is irrevocable, however [End Page 371] unfaithful we may be. Seen principally in the Second Helvetic Confession (1566), Bullinger's theology pervades his commentaries, letters, treatises, confessional statements, and—important for Mühling—his dedications of such to European royalty and the vast epistolary correspondence that accompanied it.

Covenant and its implications for society not only marked Bullinger's significance for the era in which he lived, but it is also of value for the ecumenical movement of the twentieth century according to Mühling...

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