The last decades have witnessed awakened interest in Farel. Early French Reform is a fine example. It portrays Guillaume Farel (1489–1565) and his early work through essays and translations of primary-source texts. In an initial chapter on his life, Jason Zuidema justifies a need for reappraisal of Farel and the influences upon him. This is followed by three interpretive chapters on Farel’s writings, one by Zuidema on Farel’s Summary and Brief Exposition (an early form of Reformed dogmatics in several editions) and two chapters by Van Raalte on Farel’s spirituality and prayer. Farel often wrote in the form of a prayer. Finally, more than half of the book contains translations of Farel’s writings, a rich contribution, as these are some of the first widely accessible full-length translations of Farel into English.

Only six years younger than Martin Luther, Farel, in 1521, joined a group of preachers under Guillaume Briçonnet, reforming Bishop of Meaux, France, where Jacques Lefèvre d’Etaples also worked at translating the New Testament into French. Lefèvre influenced Farel. When the Meaux preaching enterprise collapsed, Farel fled. By 1524 he was in Basel, a decade before John Calvin, still in France, would flee there. Encouraged by Oecolampadius, Farel continued his evangelical efforts. He began an itinerant mission in the western regions of what is today Switzerland in 1529. Under Farel’s preaching and leadership, Geneva accepted the Reformation in 1535–36 as the reformed city of Bern conquered the territory of Vaud to the east. Farel persuaded Calvin, in transit in 1536, to remain in Geneva to help with the Reformation already voted in.

Farel’s early evangelical work occurred at a time when there was a serious lack of Reformed pastors. He was never formerly ordained but served as a pastor. He appears to have begun administering the sacraments in 1524. He wrote ground-breaking works in French for the use of the laity. His spirituality shines through. His elaboration on The Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed of 1524 (303–16) was Farel’s most popular work, designed to replace as devotional literature the rosaries and the Books of Hours of Catholicism.

Van Raalte emphasizes Farel as a burningly ardent man of prayer and provides a valuable summary of medieval devotional practices that Farel rejected (36–46, 56–59, 69): the Mass, Purgatory, chantries, the papacy, fasting, celibacy of the clergy, worship of saints, multitudinous feast days, Latin rather than vernacular services, private confession, and absolution of sins by priests. Farel recommended congregational psalm singing.

Farel’s writings reveal that ideas that often have been attributed in the secondary literature to Calvin were originally Farel’s, but pride of origin would not have preoccupied Farel. He acknowledged Calvin to have been the better writer and at times requested Calvin to express a point of view that they both shared. For instance, it was Farel who beseeched Calvin to write Calvin’s treatise against the Anabaptists although it was the region around Neuchatel that was beset with Anabaptists, where Farel finished out his life as pastor after having been expelled from Geneva with Calvin in 1538.

Farel’s writings are of interest to both the theologian and the social historian as they provide insights into the mentality of the era and its conventional wisdoms. For instance, Farel advocated parental consent for marriage because of disastrous choices young people might make, a sentiment that modern parents might agree with but have little power to enforce. Farel did not oppose slavery but stated that the Lord commanded rest on the seventh day out of compassion for servants and workers to give them a day of rest (149). Farel advocated the keeping of baptism and marriage registers. He opposed private baptisms and private Communion services. He supported exegetical preaching, poor relief, and church discipline of members who did not live up to moral expectations, setting the tone for the foundation of the consistories and the social welfare institutions of the Reformed tradition in the next generations. Among his words were “do not let anyone become poor, but give assistance to all” (217). Women who break their marriages “must be condemned to die with the wicked. The thief should not even be punished as greatly as the adulterer” (169).