Dr Paul Allen

Heinrich Bullinger (1504-1575) (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Heinrich Bullinger (1504–1575) is regarded as the most influential second-generation Reformer. As the heir to Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, Switzerland , he consolidated and continued the Swiss Reformation that his predecessor had started. Philip Schaff writes that Bullinger was "a man of firm faith, courage, moderation, patience, and endurance . . . [who was] providentially equipped" to preserve and advance the truth in a difficult time in history (Philip Schaff,  History of the Christian Church, Vol. VIII: Modern Christianity: The Swiss Reformation  [1910; repr., Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1984], 205). During his forty-four years as the chief minister in Zurich, Bullinger's literary output exceeded that of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and Zwingli combined. He was of monumental importance in the spread of Reformed teaching throughout the Reformation. So far-reaching was Bullinger's influence throughout conti...

Other than Martin Luther , Heinrich Bullinger , and John Calvin , the most important early Reformer was Ulrich Zwingli . A first-generation Reformer, he is regarded as the founder of Swiss Protestantism. Furthermore, history remembers him as the first Reformed theologian . Though Calvin would later surpass Zwingli as a theologian, he would stand squarely on Zwingli's broad shoulders. Less than two months after Luther came into the world, Zwingli was born on January 1, 1484, in Wildhaus, a small village in the eastern part of modern-day Switzerland, forty miles from Zurich . His father, Ulrich Sr., had risen from peasant stock to become an upper-middle-class man of means, a successful farmer and shepherd, as well as the chief magistrate for the district. This prosperity allowed him to provide his son with an excellent education. He presided over a home where typical Swiss values were inculcated in young Ulrich: sturdy independence, strong patriotism, zeal for religion, and re...

Desiderius Erasmus, 1466-1536, Rotterdam Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest and theologian, by Hans Holbein the Younger, 1523. (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Desiderius Erasmus  was born in Holland in 1466, the illegitimate son of a  Roman Catholic priest . He was given a fine education at monastic schools and, when he was twenty-five years old, was ordained as a priest. Three years later he began studies at the University of Paris and there he was exposed to Renaissance humanism and seeds were planted which would later make him a fierce opponent of excess and superstition within the Catholic Church. He soon travelled to England and while there was persuaded by  John Colet , an English scholar, to study the New Testament.  Erasmus believed that to properly understand the New Testament he would need to first learn Greek and for that reason he began an intense, three-year study of the language. Before long he was not only fluent in Greek, but had becom...

There are many caricatures and missinformation when it comes to how Christians through the ages have viewed sex in marriage. In Dr. Joel R. Beeke's  Living for God's Glory: An Introduction to Calvinism , he dedicates a chapter to marriage, in which he discusses the Puritan's view. Marital love must be sexual, so that both marital partners can give themselves fully to each other with joy and exuberance in a healthy relationship marked by fidelity. Reformers such as Martin Luther , Ulrich Zwingli , and John Calvin established this aspect of marriage by abandoning the medieval Roman Catholic attitudes that marriage was inferior to celibacy, that all sexual contact between marital partners was a necessary evil to propagate the human race, and that a procreative act that involved passion was inherently sinful. This negative view was rooted in the ancient church and based on the writings of such notables as Tertullian, Ambrose, and Jerome, all of whom believed that, even withi...