Jason Landsel

By Water: The Felix Manz Story - Heroes of the Radical Reformation Jason Landsel

Would you die for your beliefs? In a city astir with dangerous new ideas, the son of a priest and a prostitute becomes a leader and martyr of the Radical Reformation.

Five hundred years ago, people across Europe imagined an alternative society, with sharing instead inequality, peace instead of violence, and freedom of conscience instead of coercion. These radicals were ready to die for their vision. (Some were also willing to kill for it, but others were committed to nonviolence.) They were executed by the thousands--by water, by fire, and by sword. Their stories come to life in this graphic novel series that dramatically and creatively evokes a little-known chapter in the history of the Reformation.

By Water, the first book of a trilogy with subsequent volumes titled By Fire and By Sword, is set in Zurich. It chronicles the conflict between establishment reformer Ulrich Zwingli (1484-1531) and his student Felix Manz (1498-1527), who at first reveres Zwingli as a father figure but ends up drowned on Zwingli's orders for his radicalism. Ursula, a (fictional) young woman who participates in the Peasant Revolt and then meets Felix Manz, keeps his dream alive and carries the plot into the next book.




This compelling story of young people standing up for truth against the corrupt political and religious leaders of their day will awaken the latent hero in every young person.
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