Wish I’d Been There: Schleitheim Synod

by Myron S. Augsburger

One of the greater events of the Reformation was the Schleitheim Synod. Its impact has been underestimated among many of us, but not so by its contemporaries. The Reformers of Switzerland wrote that they could scarcely find an Anabaptist who did not carry a hand-written copy of this Confession. While it was not a full statement of faith it spoke to the crucial issues of identity and unity for the group. This meeting has a very high rating in my own study and reflections on the 16th century and I would have liked to have been present.

First, because it was the Anabaptist answer to the martyrdom of Felix Manz and others, it was a gathering which may well have determined the fate of the movement—whether it would live or die.

Second, because it was a creative and daring thing for the believers’ church to call a Synod, and to have done so before the other movements of the Reformation, Lutheran and Reformed, had called such a gathering.

Third, because Michael Sattler’s leadership, only a few months before his arrest and martyrdom, was a very formative influence for the Anabaptist movement; his story going down the Rhine to the Netherlands already in 1527.

Fourth, because the process and spirit of the meeting and of the written confession gives special attention to the discernment and unifying work of the Holy Spirit among them.

Fifth, because the confession is clearly Christological, distinguishing between the Church within the perfection of Christ and society outside the perfection of Christ.

Sixth, because this conference rejected the use of the sword and took a very positive and unapologetic stance for peace and non-violence.

Seventh, because the group drew up plans for the evangelization of Europe and adjourned with these plans as their directives.

Among other things these seven points present the uniqueness of this first and special synod; a gathering of religious leaders without officials from the State. While two hundred years ahead of recognition in the “New World” of the principle of religious freedom this gathering was a revolutionary pointer to a new day.

 

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Myron S. Augsburger, Harrisonburg, Virginia, is pastor emeritus of Washington (D.C.) Community Fellowship and teaches theology at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

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Mennonite Historical Bulletin, April 2000