This is thinking in public, a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about frontline

theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mowo, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

in Louisville, Kentucky. Bruce Gordon is the Titus Street Professor of Ecclesiastical History at Yale Divinity School.

He earned his PhD in Scotland from the University of St Andrews, where he also served as Professor of History before moving to Yale. In addition to his teaching

Professor Gordon is a writing researching scholar focusing on the

reformation and early modern history. He has written dozens of academic articles. He's the author of

over 10 books including a biography of John Calvin, a reception history of

Calvin's Institute, a history of the Swiss Reformation. His most recent book,

Zveingly, God's Armed Prophet, is a lively work, and it's the topic of our conversation today.

Professor Gordon, welcome to Thinking in Public.

I'm delighted to be here. Thank you so much for the invitation.

The immediate reason for this conversation is your newest book God's Armed Prophet Zvingly, published by Yale University Press.

I have to tell you that as someone who kind of lives in many ways in history, the Reformation,

your book took me by storm.

I by the way gave it as Christmas gifts to many of my friends.

It's really outstanding. You obviously wanted to write this book.

I did. Yeah, there's I you'll find in the acknowledgement the slightly

rather long acknowledgments is that there's an element that's somewhat

autobiographical in this I found the story of Zwingley by pulling a book off the shelf when I was an undergraduate or rather bored undergraduate in the library. I looked through it and I thought this is a fascinating life and what sort of reformer dies on a battlefield then.

This isn't what I imagined the reformation to be.

And over the years, I spent a lot of time in Switzerland

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