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The Anabaptist Vision Page
The
Anabaptist Vision [1]
by Harold S. Bender
"Judged
by the reception it met at the hands of those in power, both in Church
and State, equally in Roman Catholic and in Protestant countries, the
Anabaptist movement was one of the most tragic in the history of
Christianity; but, judged by the principles, which were put into play
by the men who bore this reproachful nickname, it must be pronounced
one of the most momentous and significant undertakings in man's
eventful religious struggle after the truth. It gathered up the gains
of earlier movements, it is the spiritual soil out of which all
nonconformist sects have sprung, and it is the first plain announcement
in modern history of a programme for a new type of Christian society
which the modern world, especially in America and England, has been
slowly realizing an absolutely free and independent religious society,
and a State in which every man counts as a man, and has his share in
shaping both Church and State."
These
words of Rufus M. Jones [2] constitute
one of the best characterizations of Anabaptism and its contribution to
our modern Christian culture to be found in the English language. They
were brave words when they were written thirty-five years ago, but they
have been abundantly verified by a generation of Anabaptist research
since that time. [3]
There can be no question but that the great principles of freedom of
conscience, separation of church and state, and voluntarism in
religion, so basic in American Protestantism and so essential to
democracy, ultimately are derived from the Anabaptists of the
Reformation period, who for the first time clearly enunciated them and
challenged the Christian world to follow them in practice. The line of
descent through the centuries since that time may not always be clear,
and may have passed through other intermediate movements and groups,
but the debt to original Anabaptism is unquestioned.
The sixteenth-century
reformers understood the Anabaptist position on this point all too
well, and deliberately rejected it. The best witness is Heinrich
Bullinger, Zwingli's successor in Zurich, whose active life-span covers
the first fifty years of the history of the Swiss Anabaptists and who
knew them so well that he published two extensive treatises against
them in 1531 and 1561. According to Bullinger, the Swiss Brethren
taught that:
One cannot and should
not use force to compel anyone to accept the faith, for faith is a free
gift of God. It is wrong to compel anyone by force or coercion to
embrace the faith, or to put to death anyone for the sake of his erring
faith. It is an error that in the church and sword other than that of
the divine Word should be used. The secular kingdom should be separated
from the church, and no secular ruler should exercise authority in the
church. The Lord has commanded simply to preach the Gospel, not to
compel anyone by force to accept it. The true church of Christ has the
characteristic that it suffers and endures persecution but does not
inflict persecution upon anyone. [4]
Bullinger reports these
ideas, not in commendation but in condemnation urging the need of rigid
suppression. He attempts a point by point refutation of the Anabaptist
teaching, closing with the assertion that to put to death Anabaptists
is a necessary and commendable service.
But great as is the
Anabaptist contribution to the development of religious liberty, this
concept not only does not exhaust but actually fails to define the true
essence of Anabaptism. In the last analysis freedom of religion is a
purely formal concept, barren of content; it says nothing about the
faith or the way of life of those who advocate it, nor does it reveal
their goals or program of action. And Anabaptism had not only clearly
defined goals but also an action program of definiteness and power. In
fact the more intimately one becomes acquainted with this group the
more one becomes conscious of the great vision that shaped their course
in history and for which they gladly gave their lives.
Before describing this
vision it is well to note its attractiveness to the masses of
Christians of the sixteenth century. Sebastian Franck, himself an
opponent, wrote in 1531, scarcely seven years after the rise of the
movement in Zurich:
The Anabaptists spread
so rapidly that their teaching soon covered the land as it were. They
soon gained a large following, and baptized thousands, drawing to
themselves many sincere souls who had a zeal for God.... They increased
so rapidly that the world feared an uprising by them though I have
learned that this fear had no justification whatsoever. [5]
In the same year
Bullinger wrote that "the people were running after them as though they
were living saints." [6] Another
contemporary writer asserts that " Anabaptism spread with such speed
that there was reason to fear that the majority of the common people
would unite with this sect." [7] Zwingli was
so frightened by the power of the movement that he complained that the
struggle with the Catholic party was "tub child's play" compared to the
conflict with the Anabaptists. [8]
The
dreadful severity of the persecution of the Anabaptist movement in the
years 1527-60 not only in Switzerland, South Germany, and Thuringia,
but in all the Austrian lands as well as in the Low Countries,
testifies to the power of the movement and the desperate haste with
which Catholic, Lutheran, and Zwinglian authorities alike strove to
throttle it before it should be too late. The notorious decree issued
in 1529 by the Diet of Spires (the same diet which protested the
restriction of evangelical liberties) summarily passed the sentence of
death upon all Anabaptists, ordering that "every Anabaptist and
rebaptized person of either sex should be put to death by fire, sword,
or some other way." [9] Repeatedly
in subsequent sessions of the imperial diet this decree was reinvoked
and intensified; and as late as 1551 the Diet of Augsburg issued a
decree ordering that judges and jurors who had scruples against
pronouncing the death sentence on Anabaptists be removed from office
and punished by heavy fines and imprisonment.
The authorities had great
difficulty in executing their program of suppression, for they soon
discovered that the Anabaptists feared neither torture nor death, and
gladly sealed their faith with their blood. In fact the joyful
testimony of the Anabaptist martyrs was a great stimulus to new
recruits, for it stirred the imagination of the populace as nothing
else could have done.
Finding, therefore, that
the customary method of individual trials and sentences was proving
totally inadequate to stem the tide, the authorities resorted to the
desperate expedient of sending out through the land companies of armed
executioners and mounted soldiers to hunt down the Anabaptists and kill
them on the spot singly or en masse without trial or sentence. The most
atrocious application of this policy was made in Swabia where the
original 400 special police of 1528 sent against the Anabaptists proved
too small a force and had to be increased to 1,000. An imperial provost
marshal, Berthold Aichele, served as chief administrator of this bloody
program in Swabia and other regions until he finally broke down in
terror and dismay, and after an execution at Brixen lifted his hands to
heaven and swore a solemn oath never again to put to death an
Anabaptist, which vow he kept. [10] The Count
of Alzey in the Palatinate, after 350 Anabaptists had been executed
there, was heard to exclaim, "What shall I do, the more I kill, the
greater becomes their number!"
The extensive persecution
and martyrdom of the Anabaptists testify not only of the great extent
of the movement but also of the power of the vision that burned within
them. This is most effectively presented in a moving account written in
1542 and taken from the ancient Hutterian chronicle where it is found
at the close of a report of 2,173 brethren and sisters who gave their
lives for their faith. [11]
No human being was able
to take away out of their hearts what they had experienced, such
zealous lovers of God were they. The fire of God burned within them.
They would die the bitterest death, yea, they would die ten deaths
rather than forsake the divine truth which they had espoused....
They had drunk of the
waters which had flowed from God's sanctuary, yea, the water of life.
They realized that God helped them to bear the cross and to overcome
the bitterness of death. The fire of God burned within them. Their tent
they had pitched not here upon earth, but in eternity, and of their
faith they had a foundation and assurance. Their faith blossomed as a
lily, their loyalty as a rose, their piety and sincerity as the flower
of the garden of God. The angel of the Lord battled for them that they
could not be deprived of the helmet of salvation. Therefore they bore
all torture and agony without fear. The things of this world they
counted in their holy mind only as shadows, having the assurance of
greater things. They were so drawn unto God that they knew nothing,
sought nothing, desired nothing, loved nothing but God alone. Therefore
they had more patience in their suffering than their enemies in
tormenting them.
. . . The persecutors
thought they could dampen and extinguish the fire of God. But the
prisoners sang in their prisons and rejoiced so that the enemies
outside became much more fearful than the prisoners and did not know
what to do with them....
Many were talked to in
wonderful ways, often day and night. They were argued with, with great
cunning and cleverness, with many sweet and smooth words, by monks and
priests, by doctors of theology, with much false testimony, with
threats and scolding and mockery, yea, with lies and grievous slander
against the brotherhood, but none of these things moved them or made
them falter.
From the shedding of such
innocent blood arose Christians everywhere, brothers all, for all this
persecution did not take place without fruit.
Perhaps this
interpretation of the Anabaptist spirit should be discounted as too
glowing, coming as it does from the group itself, but certainly it is
nearer to the truth than the typical harsh nineteenth-century
interpretation of the movement which is well represented by the opening
sentence of Ursula, the notable historical novel on the Anabaptists
published in 1878 by the Swiss Gottfried Keller, next to Goethe perhaps
the greatest of all writers in the German language:
Times of religious
change are like times when the mountains open up; for then not only do
all the marvelous creatures of the human spirit come forth the great
golden dragons, magic beings and crystal spirits, but there also come
to light all the hateful vermin of humanity, the host of rats and mice
and pestiferous creation, and so it was at the time of the Reformation
in the northeast part of Switzerland. [12]
Before defining the
Anabaptist vision, it is essential to state clearly who is meant by the
term "Anabaptist", since the name has come to be used in modern
historiography to cover a wide variety of Reformation groups, sometimes
thought of as the whole "left wing of the Reformation" (Roland
Bainton). "the Bolsheviks of the Reformation" (Preserved Smith).
Although the definitive history of Anabaptism has not yet been written,
we know enough today to draw a clear line of demarcation between
original evangelical and constructive Anabaptism on the one hand, which
was born in the bosom of Zwinglianism in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525,
and established in the Low Countries in 1533, and the various mystical,
spiritualistic, revolutionary, or even antinomian related and unrelated
groups on the other hand, which came and went like the flowers of the
field in those days of the great renovation. The former, Anabaptism
proper, maintained an unbroken course in Switzerland, South Germany,
Austria, and Holland throughout the sixteenth century, and has
continued until the present day in the Mennonite movement, now almost
500,000 baptized members strong in Europe and America. [13] There is
no longer any excuse for permitting our understanding of the distinct
character of this genuine Anabaptism to be obscured by Thomas
Müntzer and the Peasants War, the Munsterites, or any other
aberration of Protestantism in the sixteenth century.
There may be some excuse,
however, for a failure on the part of the uninformed student to see
clearly what the Anabaptist vision was, because of the varying
interpretations placed upon the movement even by those who mean to
appreciate and approve it. There are, for instance, the socialist
writers, led by Kautsky, who would make Anabaptism either "the
forerunner of the modern socialism" or the "culminating effort of
medieval communism," and who in reality see it only as the external
religious shell of a class movement. [14] There are
the sociologists with their partial socioeconomic determinism as
reflected in Richard Niebuhr's approach to the social origin of
religious denominations. There is Albert Ritschl, who sees in
Anabaptism an ascetic semimonastic continuation of the medieval
Franciscan tertiaries, and locates the seventeenth-century Pietists in
the same line; [15]
and Ludwig Keller, who finds Anabaptists throughout the pre-Reformation
period in the guise of Waldenses and other similar groups whom he
chooses to call "the old-evangelical brotherhood," [16] and for
whom he posits a continuity from earliest times Related to Keller are
the earlier Baptist historians (and certain Mennonites) who rejoice to
find in the Anabaptists the missing link which keeps them in the
apostolic succession of the true church back through the Waldenses,
Bogomils, Cathari, Paulicians, and Donatists, to Pentecost. More
recently there is Rufus M. Jones who is inclined to class the
Anabaptists with the mystics, and Walter Koehler who finds an Erasmian
humanist origin for them.
However, there is another
line of interpretation, now almost 100 years old, which is being
increasingly accepted and which is probably destined to dominate the
field. It is the one which holds that Anabaptism is the culmination of
the Reformation, the fulfillment of the original vision of Luther and
Zwingli, and thus makes it a consistent evangelical Protestantism
seeking to recreate without compromise the original New Testament
church, the vision of Christ and the apostles. This line of
interpretation begins in 1848 with Max Göbel's great Geschichte
des christlichen Lebens in der Rheinisch-Westfälischen Kirche,
continues with the epoch-making work of C. A. Cornelius, particularly
in his Geschichte des Münsterschen Aufruhrs (1855-1860), follows
in the work of men like Johann Loserth, Karl Rembert, and John Horsch,
and is represented by such contemporaries as Ernst Correll of
Washington and Fritz Blanke of Zurich. A quotation from Göbel may
serve to illustrate this interpretation:
The essential and
distinguishing characteristic of this church is its great emphasis upon
the actual personal conversion and regeneration of every Christian
through the Holy Spirit.... They aimed with special emphasis at
carrying out and realizing the Christian doctrine and faith in the
heart and life of every Christian in the whole Christian church. Their
aim was the bringing together of all the true believers out of the
great degenerated national churches into a true Christian church. That
which the Reformation was originally intended to accomplish they aimed
to bring into full immediate realization. [17]
And Johann Loserth says:
More radically than any
other party for church reformation the Anabaptists strove to follow the
footsteps of the church of the first century and to renew unadulterated
original Christianity. [18]
The evidence in support
of this interpretation is overwhelming, and can be taken from the
statements of the contemporary opponents of the Anabaptists as well as
from the Anabaptists themselves. Conrad Grebel, the founder of the
Swiss Brethren movement, states clearly this point of view in his
letter to Thomas Müntzer of 1524, in words written on behalf of
the entire group which constitute in effect the original Anabaptist
pronunciamento:
Just as our forebears
[the Roman Catholic Papal Church] fell away from the true God and the
knowledge of Jesus Christ and of the right faith in him, and from the
one true, common divine word, from the divine institutions, from
Christian love and life, and lived without God's law and gospel in
human, useless, un-Christian customs and ceremonies, and expected to
attain salvation therein, yet fell far short of it, as the evangelical
preachers [Luther, Zwingli, etc.] have declared, and to some extent are
still declaring; so today, too, every man wants to be saved by
superficial faith, without fruits of faith, without the baptism of test
and probation without love and hope, without right Christian practices,
and wants to persist in all the old fashion of personal vices, and in
the common ritualistic and anti-Christian customs of baptism and of the
Lord' s Supper, in disrespect for the divine word and in respect for
the word of the pope and of the antipapal preachers, which yet is not
equal to the divine word nor in harmony with it. In respecting persons
and in manifold seduction there is grosser and more pernicious error
now than ever has been since the beginning of the world. In the same
error we, too, lingered as long as we heard and read only the
evangelical preachers who are to blame for all this, in punishment for
our sins. But after we took the Scriptures in hand, too, and consulted
it on many points we have been instructed somewhat and have discovered
the great and hurtful error of the shepherds, of ours too, namely that
we do not daily beseech God earnestly with constant groanings to be
brought out of this destruction of all godly life and out of human
abominations, and to attain to true faith and divine instruction. [19]
A similar statement was
made in 1538, after fourteen years of persecution, by an Anabaptist
leader who spoke on behalf on his group in the great colloquy at Berne
with the leaders of the Reformed Church:
While yet in the
national church, we obtained much instruction from the writings of
Luther, Zwingli, and others, concerning the mass and other papal
ceremonies, that they are vain. Yet we recognized a great lack as
regards repentance, conversion, and the true Christian life. Upon these
things my mind was bent. I waited and hoped for a year or two, since
the minister had much to say of amendment of life, of giving to the
poor, loving one another, and abstaining from evil. But I could not
close my eyes to the fact that the doctrine which was preached and
which was based on the Word of God, was not carried out. No beginning
was made toward true Christian living, and there was no unison in the
teaching concerning the things that were necessary. And although the
mass and the images were finally abolished, true repentance and
Christian love were not in evidence. Changes were made only as
concerned external things. This gave me occasion to inquire further
into these matters. Then God sent His messengers, Conrad Grebel and
others, with whom I conferred about the fundamental teachings of the
apostles and the Christian life and practice. I found them men who had
surrendered themselves to the doctrine of Christ by " Bussfertigkeit"
[repentance evidenced by fruits] . With their assistance we established
a congregation in which repentance was in evidence by newness of life
in Christ. [20]
It is evident from these
statements that the Anabaptists were concerned most of all about "a
true Christian life," that is, a life patterned after the teaching and
example of Christ. The reformers, they believed, whatever their
profession may have been, did not secure among the people true
repentance, regeneration, and Christian living as a result of their
preaching. The Reformation emphasis on faith was good but inadequate,
for without newness of life, they held, faith is hypocritical.
This Anabaptist critique
of the Reformation was a sharp one, but it was not unfair. There is
abundant evidence that although the original goal sought by Luther and
Zwingli was "an earnest Christianity" for all, the actual outcome was
far less, for the level of Christian living among the Protestant
population was frequently lower than it had been before under
Catholicism. Luther himself was keenly conscious of the deficiency. In
April 1522 he expressed the hope that, "We who at the present are well
nigh heathen under a Christian name may yet organize a Christian
assembly." [2l]
In December 1525 he had an important conversation with Caspar
Schwenckfeld, concerning the establishment of the New Testament church.
Schwenckfeld pointed out that the establishment of the new church had
failed to result in spiritual and moral betterment of the people, a
fact which Luther admitted, for Schwenckfeld states that "Luther
regretted very much that no amendment of life was in evidence." [22] Between
1522 and 1527 Luther repeatedly mentioned his concern to establish a
true Christian church, and his desire to provide for earnest Christians
("Die mit Ernst Christen sein wollen") who would confess the gospel
with their lives as well as with their tongues. He thought of entering
the names of these "earnest Christians" in a special book and having
them meet separately from the mass of nominal Christians, but
concluding that he would not have sufficient of such people, he dropped
the plan. [22a]
Zwingli faced the same problem; he was in fact specifically challenged
by the Swiss Brethren to set up such a church; but he refused and
followed Luther's course. [23] Both
reformers decided that it was better to include the masses within the
fold of the church than to form a fellowship of true Christians only.
Both certainly expected the preaching of the Word and the ministration
of the sacraments to bear fruit in an earnest Christian life, at least
among some, but they reckoned with a permanently large and indifferent
mass. In taking this course, said the Anabaptists, the reformers
surrendered their original purpose, and abandoned the divine intention.
Others may say that they were wise and statesmanlike leaders. [24]
The Anabaptists, however,
retained the original vision of Luther and Zwingli, enlarged it, gave
it body and form, and set out to achieve it in actual experience. They
proceeded to organize a church composed solely of earnest Christians,
and actually found the people for it. They did not believe in any case
that the size of the response should determine whether or not the truth
of God should be applied, and they refused to compromise. They
preferred to make a radical break with 1,500 years of history and
culture if necessary rather than to break with the New Testament.
May it not be said that
the decision of Luther and Zwingli to surrender their original vision
was the tragic turning point of the Reformation? Professor Karl
Mueller, one of the keenest and fairest interpreters of the
Reformation, evidently thinks so, for he says, "The aggressive,
conquering power, which Lutheranism manifested in its first period was
lost everywhere at the moment when the governments took matters in hand
and established the Lutheran Creed, [25] that is to
say, when Luther's mass church concept was put into practice. Luther in
his later years expressed disappointment at the final outcome of the
Reformation, stating that the people had become more and more
indifferent toward religion and the moral outlook was more deplorable
than ever. His last years were embittered by the consciousness of
partial failure, and his expressions of dejection are well known.
Contrast this sense of defeat at the end of Luther's outwardly
successful career with the sense of victory in the hearts of the
Anabaptist martyrs who laid down their lives in what the world would
call defeat, conscious of having kept faith with their vision to the
end.
Having defined genuine
Anabaptism in its Reformation setting, we are ready to examine its
central teachings. The Anabaptist vision included three major points of
emphasis; first, a new conception of the essence of Christianity as
discipleship; second, a new conception of the church as a brotherhood;
and third, a new ethic of love and nonresistance. We turn now to an
exposition of these points.
First
and fundamental in the Anabaptist vision was the conception of the
essence of Christianity as discipleship. It was a
concept which meant the transformation of the entire way of life of the
individual believer and of society so that it should be fashioned after
the teachings and example of Christ [26] The
Anabaptists could not understand a Christianity which made
regeneration, holiness and love primarily a matter of intellect, of
doctrinal belief, or of subjective "experience," rather than one of the
transformation of life. They demanded an outward expression of the
inner experience. Repentance must be "evidenced" by newness of
behavior. "In evidence" is the keynote which rings through the
testimonies and challenges of the early Swiss Brethren when they are
called to give an account of themselves. The whole life was to be
brought literally under the lordship of Christ in a covenant of
discipleship, a covenant which the Anabaptist writers delighted to
emphasize. [27] The
focus of the Christian life was to be not so much the inward experience
of the grace of God, as it was for Luther, but the outward application
of that grace to all human conduct and the consequent Christianization
of all human relationships. The true test of the Christian, they held,
is discipleship. The great word of the Anabaptists was not "faith" as
it was with the reformers, but "following" (nachfolge Christi). And
baptism, the greatest of Christian symbols, was accordingly to be for
them the "covenant of a good conscience toward God" (1 Peter 3:21), [28] the pledge
of a complete commitment to obey Christ, and not primarily the symbol
of a past experience. The Anabaptists had faith, indeed, but they used
it to produce a life. Theology was for them a means, not an end.
That the Anabaptists not
only proclaimed the ideal of full Christian discipleship but achieved,
in the eyes of their contemporaries and even of their opponents, a
measurably higher level of performance than the average, is fully
witnessed by the sources. The early Swiss and South German reformers
were keenly aware of this achievement and its attractive power. Zwingli
knew it best of all, but Bullinger, Capito, Vadian, and many others
confirm his judgment that the Anabaptist Brethren were unusually
sincere, devoted, and effective Christians. However, since the Brethren
refused to accept the state church system which the reformers were
building, and in addition made "radical"" demands which might have
changed the entire social order, the leaders of the Reformation were
completely baffled in their understanding of the movement, and
professed to believe that the Anabaptists were hypocrites of the
darkest dye. Bullinger, for instance, calls them ' ' devilish enemies
and destroyers of the Church of God." [29]
Nevertheless they had to admit the apparent superiority of their life.
In Zwingli's last book against the Swiss Brethren (1527), for instance,
the following is found:
If you investigate their
life and conduct, it seems at first contact irreproachable, pious,
unassuming, attractive, yea, above this world. Even those who are
inclined to be critical will say that their lives are excellent. [30]
Bullinger, himself, who
wrote bitter diatribes against them, was compelled to admit of the
early Swiss Brethren that
Those who unite with them
will by their ministers be received into their church by rebaptism and
repentance and newness of life. They henceforth lead their lives under
a semblance of a quite spiritual conduct. They denounce covetousness,
pride, profanity, the lewd conversation and immorality of the world,
drinking and gluttony. In short, their hypocrisy is great and manifold.
[31]
Bullinger's lament (1531)
that "the people are running after them as though they were the living
saints" has been reported earlier. Vadian, the reformer of St. Gall,
testified, that " none were more favorably inclined toward Anabaptism
and more easily entangled with it than those who were of pious and
honorable disposition." [32] Capito,
the reformer of Strassburg, wrote in 1527 concerning the Swiss Brethren:
I frankly confess that
in most [Anabaptists] there is in evidence piety and consecration and
indeed a zeal which is beyond any suspicion of insincerity. For what
earthly advantage could they hope to win by enduring exile, torture,
and unspeakable punishment of the flesh? I testify before God that I
cannot say that on account of a lack of wisdom they are somewhat
indifferent toward earthly things, but rather from divine motives. [33]
The preachers of the
Canton of Berne admitted in a letter to the Council of Berne in 1532
that
The Anabaptists have
the semblance of outward piety to a far greater degree than we and all
the churches which unitedly with us confess Christ, and they avoid
offensive sins which are very common among us. [34]
Walter Klarer, the
Reformed chronicler of Appenzell, Switzerland, wrote:
Most of the Anabaptists
are people who at first had been the best with us in promulgating the
word of God. [35]
And the Roman Catholic
theologian, Franz Agricola, in his book of 1582, Against the Terrible
Errors of the Anabaptists, says:
Among the existing
heretical sects there is none which in appearance leads a more modest
or pious life than the Anabaptist. As concerns their outward public
life they are irreproachable. No lying, deception, swearing, strife,
harsh language, no intemperate eating and drinking, no outward personal
display, is found among them, but humility, patience, uprightness,
neatness, honesty, temperance, straightforwardness in such measure that
one would suppose that they had the Holy spirit of God. [36]
A mandate against the
Swiss Brethren published in 1585 by the Council of Berne states that
offensive sins and vices were common among the preachers and the
membership of the Reformed Church, adding, "And this is the greatest
reason that many pious, God-fearing people who seek Christ from their
heart are offended and forsake our church [to unite with the
Brethren]". [37]
One of the finest
contemporary characterizations of the Anabaptists is that given in 1531
by Sebastian Franck, an objective and sympathetic witness, though an
opponent of the Anabaptists, who wrote as follows:
The Anabaptists... soon
gained a large following,... drawing many sincere souls who had a zeal
for God, for they taught nothing but love, faith, and the cross. They
showed themselves humble, patient under much suffering; they brake
bread with one another as an evidence of unity and love. They helped
each other faithfully, and called each other brothers... They died as
martyrs, patiently and humbly enduring all persecution. [38]
A further confirmation of
the above evaluation of the achievement of the Anabaptists is found in
the fact that in many places those who lived a consistent Christian
life were in danger of falling under the suspicion of being guilty of
Anabaptist heresy. Caspar Schwenckfeld, for instance, declared, "I am
being maligned, by both preachers and others, with the charge of being
Anabaptist, even as all others who lead a true, pious Christian life
are now almost everywhere given this name." [39] Bullinger
himself complained that
...there are those who
in reality are not Anabaptists but have a pronounced averseness to the
sensuality and frivolity of the world and therefore reprove sin and
vice and are consequently called or misnamed Anabaptists by petulant
persons. [40]
The great collection of
Anabaptist source materials, commonly called the Täufer-Akten, now
in its third volume, contains a number of specific illustrations of
this. In 1562 a certain Caspar Zacher of Wailblingen in
Württemberg was accused of being an Anabaptist, but the court
record reports that since he was an envious man who could not get along
with others, and who often started quarrels, as well as being guilty of
swearing and cursing and carrying a weapon, he was not considered to be
an Anabaptist. [41]
On the other hand in 1570 a certain Hans Jäger of Vohringen in
Württemberg was brought before the court on suspicion of being an
Anabaptist primarily because he did not curse but lived an
irreproachable life. [42]
As a
second major element in the Anabaptist vision, a new concept of the
church was created by the central principle of newness of life and
applied Christianity. Voluntary church membership based upon true
conversion and involving a commitment to holy living and discipleship
was the absolutely essential heart of this concept. This vision stands
in sharp contrast to the church concept of the reformers who retained
the medieval idea of a mass church with membership of the entire
population from birth to the grave compulsory by law and force.
It is from the standpoint
of this new conception of the church that the Anabaptist opposition to
infant baptism must be interpreted. Infant baptism was not the cause of
their disavowal of the state church; it was only a symbol of the cause.
How could infants give a commitment based upon a knowledge of what true
Christianity means? They might conceivably passively experience the
grace of God (though Anabaptists would question this), but they could
not respond in pledging their lives to Christ. Such infant baptism
would not only be meaningless, but would in fact become a serious
obstacle to a true understanding of the nature of Christianity and
membership in the church. Only adult baptism could signify an
intelligent life commitment.
An inevitable corollary
of the concept of the church as a body of committed and practicing
Christians pledged to the highest standard of New Testament living was
the insistence on the separation of the church from the world, that is
nonconformity of the Christian to the worldly way of life. The world
would not tolerate the practice of true Christian principles in
society, and the church could not tolerate the practice of worldly ways
among its membership. Hence, the only way out was separation
("Absonderung"), the gathering of true Christians into their own
Christian society where Christ's way could and would be practiced. On
this principle of separation Menno Simons says:
All the evangelical
scriptures teach us that the church of Christ was and is, in doctrine,
life, and worship, a people separated from the world. [43]
In the great debate of
1532 at Zofingen, spokesmen of the Swiss Brethren said:
The true church is
separated from the world and is conformed to the nature of Christ. If a
church is yet at one with the world we cannot recognize it is a true
church. [44]
In a sense, this
principle of nonconformity to the world is merely a negative expression
of the positive requirement of discipleship, but it goes further in the
sense that it represents a judgment on the contemporary social order,
which the Anabaptists called "the world," as non-Christian, and sets up
a line of demarcation between the Christian community and worldly
society.
A logical outcome of the
concept of nonconformity to the world was the concept of the suffering
church. Conflict with the world was inevitable for those who endeavored
to live an earnest Christian life. The Anabaptists expected opposition;
they took literally the words of Jesus when He said, " In the world ye
shall have tribulation," but they also took literally His words of
encouragement, "But be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."
Conrad Grebel said in 1524:
True Christian
believers are sheep among wolves, sheep for the slaughter; they must be
baptized in anguish and affliction, tribulation, persecution,
suffering, and death; they must be tried with fire and must reach the
fatherland of eternal rest not by killing them bodily, but by
mortifying their spiritual, enemies. [45]
Professor Ernest
Staehelin of Basel, Switzerland, says:
Anabaptism by its
earnest determination to follow in life and practice the primitive
Christian Church has kept alive the conviction that he who is in Christ
is a new creature and that those who are identified with his cause will
necessarily encounter the opposition of the world. [46]
Perhaps it was
persecution that made the Anabaptists so acutely aware of the conflict
between the church and the world, but this persecution was due to the
fact that they refused to accept what they considered the sub Christian
way of life practiced in European Christendom. They could have avoided
the persecution had they but conformed, or they could have suspended
the practice of their faith to a more convenient time and sailed under
false colors as did David Joris, but they chose with dauntless courage
and simple honesty to live their faith, to defy the existing world
order, and to suffer the consequences.
Basic to the Anabaptist
vision of the church was the insistence on the practice of true
brotherhood and love among the members of the church. [47] This
principle was understood to mean not merely the expression of pious
sentiments, but the actual practice of sharing possessions to meet the
needs of others in the spirit of true mutual aid. Hans Leopold, a Swiss
Brethren martyr of 1528, said of the Brethren:
If they know of any one
who is in need, whether or not he is a member of their church, they
believe it their duty, out of love to God, to render help and aid. [48]
Heinrich Seiler, a Swiss
Brethren martyr of 1535 said:
I do not believe it
wrong that a Christian has property of his own, but yet he is nothing
more than a steward. [49]
An early Hutterian book
states that one of the questions addressed by the Swiss Brethren to
applicants for baptism was: "Whether they would consecrate themselves
with all their temporal possessions to the service of God and His
people." [50] A
Protestant of Strassburg, visitor at a Swiss Brethren baptismal service
in that city in 1557, reports that a question addressed to all
applicants for baptism was: "Whether they, if necessity require it,
would devote all their possessions to the service of the brotherhood,
and would not fail any member that is in need, if they were able to
render aid." [51]
Heinrich Bullinger, the bitter enemy of the Brethren, states:
They teach that every
Christian is under duty before God from motives of love, to use, if
need be, all his possessions to supply the necessities of life to any
of the brethren who are in need. [52]
This principle of full
brotherhood and stewardship was actually practiced, and not merely
speculatively considered. In its absolute form of Christian communism,
with the complete repudiation of private property, it became the way of
life of the Hutterian Brotherhood in 1528 and has remained so to this
day, for the Hutterites held that private property is the greatest
enemy of Christian love. One of the inspiring stories of the sixteenth
and seventeenth centuries is the successful practice of the full
communal way of life by this group. [53]
The
third great element in the Anabaptist vision was the ethic of love and
nonresistance as applied to all human relationships. The
Brethren understood this to mean complete abandonment of all warfare,
strife, and violence, and of the taking of human life. [54] Conrad
Grebel, the Swiss. said in 1524:
True Christians use
neither worldly sword nor engage in war, since among them taking human
life has ceased entirely, for we are no longer under the Old
Covenant.... The Gospel and those who accept it are not to be protected
with the sword, neither should they thus protect themselves. [55]
Pilgram Marpeck, the
South German leader, in 1544, speaking of Matthew 5, said:
All bodily, worldly,
carnal, earthly fightings, conflicts, and wars are annulled and
abolished among them through such law... which law of love Christ...
Himself observed and thereby gave His followers a pattern to follow
after. [56]
Peter Riedemann, the
Hutterian leader, wrote in 1545:
Christ, the Prince of
Peace, has established His Kingdom, that is, His Church, and has
purchased it by His blood. In this kingdom all worldly warfare has
ended. Therefore a Christian has no part in war nor does he wield the
sword to execute vengeance. [57]
Menno Simons, of Holland,
wrote in 1550:
[The regenerated do not
go to war, nor engage in strife.]... They are the children of peace who
have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning
hooks, and know of no war.... Spears and swords of iron we leave to
those who, alas, consider human blood and swine's blood of well-nigh
equal value. [58]
In this principle of
nonresistance, or biblical pacifism, which was thoroughly believed and
resolutely practiced by all the original Anabaptist Brethren and their
descendants throughout Europe from the beginning until the last
century, [59] the
Anabaptists were again creative leaders, far ahead of their times, in
this antedating the Quakers by over a century and a quarter. It should
also be remembered that they held this principle in a day when both
Catholic and Protestant churches not only endorsed war as an instrument
of state policy, but employed it in religious conflicts. It is true, of
course, that occasional earlier prophets, like Peter Chelcicky, had
advocated similar views, but they left no continuing practice of the
principle behind them.
As we review the vision
of the Anabaptists, it becomes clear that there are two foci in this
vision. The first focus relates to the essential nature of
Christianity. Is Christianity primarily a matter of the reception of
divine grace through a sacramental-sacerdotal institution (Roman
Catholicism), is it chiefly enjoyment of the inner experience of the
grace of God through faith in Christ (Lutheranism), or is it most of
all the transformation of life through discipleship (Anabaptism)? The
Anabaptists were neither institutionalists, mystics, nor pietists, for
they laid the weight of their emphasis upon following Christ in life.
To them it was unthinkable for one truly to be a Christian without
creating a new life on divine principles both for himself and for all
men who commit themselves to the Christian way.
The second focus relates
to the church. For the Anabaptist, the church was neither an
institution (Catholicism), nor the instrument of God for the
proclamation of the divine Word (Lutheranism), nor a resource group for
individual piety (Pietism). It was a brotherhood of love in which the
fullness of the Christian life ideal is to be expressed.
The Anabaptist vision may
be further clarified by comparison of the social ethics of the four
main Christian groups of the Reformation period, Catholic, Calvinist,
Lutheran, and Anabaptist. Catholic and Calvinist alike were optimistic
about the world, agreeing that the world can be redeemed; they held
that the entire social order can be brought under the sovereignty of
God and Christianized, although they used different means to attain
this goal. Lutheran and Anabaptist were pessimistic about the world,
denying the possibility of Christianizing the entire social order; but
the consequent attitudes of these two groups toward the social order
were diametrically opposed. Lutheranism said that since the Christian
must live in a world order that remains sinful, he must make a
compromise with it. As a citizen he cannot avoid participation in the
evil of the world, for instance in making war, and for this his only
recourse is to seek forgiveness by the grace of God; only within his
personal private experience can the Christian truly Christianize his
life. The Anabaptist rejected this view completely. Since for him no
compromise dare be made with evil, the Christian may in no circumstance
participate in any conduct in the existing social order which is
contrary to the spirit and teaching of Christ and the apostolic
practice. He must consequently withdraw from the worldly system and
create a Christian social order within the fellowship of the church
brotherhood. Extension of this Christian order by the conversion of
individuals and their transfer out of the world into the church is the
only way by which progress can be made in Christianizing the social
order.
However, the Anabaptist
was realistic. Down the long perspective of the future he saw little
chance that the mass of humankind would enter such a brotherhood with
its high ideals. Hence he anticipated a long and grievous conflict
between the church and the world. Neither did he anticipate the time
when the church would rule the world; the church would always be a
suffering church. He agreed with the words of Jesus when He said that
those who would be His disciples must deny themselves and take up their
cross daily and follow Him, and that there would be few who would enter
the strait gate and travel the narrow way of life. If this prospect
should seem too discouraging, the Anabaptist would reply that the life
within the Christian brotherhood is satisfyingly full of love and joy.
The Anabaptist vision was
not a detailed blueprint for the reconstruction of human society, but
the Brethren did believe that Jesus intended that the kingdom of God
should be set up in the midst of earth, here and now, and this they
proposed to do forthwith. We shall not believe, they said, that the
Sermon on the Mount or any other vision that He had is only a heavenly
vision meant but to keep His followers in tension until the last great
day, but we shall practice what He taught, believing that where He
walked we can by His grace follow in His steps.
Copyright 1944 by Herald Press,
Scottdale, Pa. 15683. Used By Permission
Order The Anabaptist Vision from Herald Press.
http://www.mph.org/hp/books/anabaptv.htm
_______________________________________________________________________________
 Harold S. Bender led and nurtured his people
during one of the most cataclysmic eras in human history. He became a
leader because the times demanded a leader and because his particular
qualities of personality and character commended him to his people.
Bender lived his life
within the framework of conventional Mennonite tradition and piety.
However, successful leaders not only reenact the tradition: they guide
the symbols and institutions which maintain it. Almost all of Harold
Bender's life and energy was devoted to the care and direction of
Mennonite institutions.
Successful leaders must
possess ideas powerful enough to shape the identity of their followers.
Among the most powerful ideas are those which link a meaningful past to
a purposeful future. Bender's influential 1944 essay, "The Anabaptist
Vision," did just that. It forged Mennonites into a community of memory
rooted in the 16th century, a community with strong religious impulses
embodied in nonviolent service, devout discipleship, and a primary
identity with the people of God, the church. (From the biography by Albert N.
Keim.)
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