William Farel (Bitesize Biographies) by Jason Zuidema

Bitesize Biographies

by Jason Zuidema

William Farel lived his life as one of the magisterial Reformers in the shadow of John Calvin and for that reason has been little

known. He was born in 1489 and in the 1520's was one of the

first French speakers to echo Luther's critique of the Roman

Catholic church, having arrived at his own conclusions by simply

reading Scripture. Farel saw this as a work of God's grace and

soon developed a passion to spread the Gospel to other Frenchspeaking

lands. By 1528 he had produced the first draft of a

French Reformed liturgy and other works soon followed. By 1532

he was in Geneva, where he would meet Calvin in 1536 and be

by God's grace the main agent in Calvin's call to the city. Calvin

described it in his Preface to his commentary on the Psalms:

. . . . Guillaume Farel detained me at Geneva, not so much by

counsel and exhortation, as by a dreadful imprecation, which I

felt to be as if God had from heaven laid his mighty hand upon

me to arrest me.

Jason Zuidema has written a thrilling account of Farel's life and

challenges the classic thinking that a worn-out Farel handed over

to Calvin in Geneva. Although Farel was some twenty years older

than Calvin he was an intellectual giant and continued to be a

major influence in the Reformation process.

Genres: Biography

Paperback

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a short biography of William Farel in the Bitesize Biographies series published by EP books and edited by Michael Haykin.

Farel was one of the first French reformers, and was saved by reading the Bible for himself and comparing what he read with the Catholic traditions with which he had grown up. He was aggressive in his witness, so was forced out of France and immigrated to what are now cities in modern Switzerland. He was one of the more evangelistic of the reformers, as he wasn't so set on predestinarianism that it inhibited his witness. Farel eventually was allowed back into France to preach for a time, but returned to his pastorate at Neuchatel, where he died.

The author is simply wrong by conflating anabaptists with libertines. He either doesn't understand the difference or is so set in his reformed thinking that he deliberately confuses them. This is not the best volume in this series.

[Catherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mostly good info, but a little more perspective-shaping commentary than I’m used to for Christian biographies. And I have a knee-jerk distaste for leaving footnotes out. Some of us not only like chasing down those links, but use the profuseness/exactitude of external quotes/references as a test for the level of scholarship and research that went into writing. If 90% of the notes comes from a single source, then THAT source is probably what I should be reading. Are most of the notes general references and not direct quotes? That sets a different set of spidey-senses tingling. Writing that will stand up to refutation should have no problem showing that it’s done its legwork.

[Benjamin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bonne biographie sur un réformateur moins bien connu. Rapide à lire et style agréable.