What was the most important feature of Ulrich Zwingli's reformed theology?

Question

Was it the belief i the concept of predestination or seperation of church and state?

Answer 1

Zwingli's theology and morality were based on a single principle: if the Old or New Testament did not say something explicitly and literally, then no Christian should believe or practice it. This was the basis of his critique of indulgences. In 1522, for instance, Zwingli mounted a protest against the fast at Lent, a standard Catholic practice. His argument: the New Testament says absolutely nothing about fasting at Lent so the practice is inherently unchristian.

   There are two important shifts in Western religious experience that result from this position. The first is the literal reading of the Old and New Testaments. No longer would these texts be dark and mysterious, full of difficult and allegorical meanings; instead, the texts of the Old and New Testaments became something like statute law. The words meant what they said; any difficulty, contradiction, or obscure meaning was the fault of the reader and not the text. Because these texts had simple and literal meanings, they also became standardized . While theologians and religious sages could debate the allegorical and figurative meanings of scriptural texts until the end of the world, the literal reading of Christian scriptures meant that it was possible to have one and only one meaning of the text. From this profound shift in the reading of the central writings of Christianity developed one of the most strict and severe applications of these writings to social life. Not only were practices not contained in Scriptures to be shunned, but practices, beliefs, and rules that were contained in the literal meaning of the Old and New Testaments were to be adhered to absolutely and uncritically . This became the underpinning of the social theories and organization of radical Protestant and Puritan societies and later the foundational social organization of the English colonies in America. We still live in a society dominated by this theory of social organization; you cannot walk down the street of American political discourse and not run into Zwinglian ideas of social organization based on the literal meaning of Christian scriptures...

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/REFORM/ZWINGLI.H...

http://www.theologywebsite.com/history/z...

http://atheism.about.com/library/glossar...