#110 The Anabaptist Vision - Part 3
The Anabaptist Vision part 3, by Harold S. Bender
The first two elements: discipleship and the church as a brotherhood
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.1 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.2 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),3 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."4
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.5
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.6
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."7 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.8
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.9
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.10
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.11
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]."12
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.13
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."14 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.15
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.16 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.17
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.18
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.19
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.20
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.21
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.22 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.23
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.24
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."25 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."26 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.27
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.28
FOOTNOTES
1
Johannes Kuhn, Toleranz und Offenbarung (Leipzig, 1923), 224 says: "With
the Anabaptists everything was based on a central idea. This central idea
was concretely religious. It was Jesus' command to follow Him in a holy life
of fellowship." Professor Alfred Hegler of Tübingen describes the Anabaptist
ideal as "liberty of conscience, rejection of all state-made Christianity,
the demand for personal holiness, and a vital personal acceptance of
Christian truth." Professor Paul Wernle says, "Their vital characteristic
was the earnestness with which they undertook the practical fulfillment of
New Testament requirements both for the individual and for the church."
These and other similar quotations are to be found in Horsch, "The Character
of the Evangelical Anabaptists as Reported by Contemporary Reformation
Writers," Mennonite Quarterly Review (July 1934), VIII, 135.
2
Pilgram Marpeck, the outstanding writer of the Swiss and South German
Brethren, is an example. See J. C. Wenger, "The Theology of Pilgram
Marpeck," Mennonite Quarterly Review (October 1938), XII, 247.
3
The German (Luther) translation of I Peter 3:21 calls baptism "Der Bund
eines guten Gewissens mit Gott."
4
Bullinger, Von dem unverschampten fräfel (1531), fol. 75 r.
5
S. M. Jackson, Selected Works of Huldreich Zwingli (Philadelphia,
1901), 127.
6
Bullinger, Der Widertäufferen Ursprung, fol. 15 v.
7
Joachim von Watt, Deutsche Historische Schriften, ed. Ernst Götzinger (St.
Gall, 1879), II, 408.
8
C. A. Cornelius, Geschichte des Münsterschen Aufruhrs (Leipzig, 1860),
II, 52.
9
W. J. McGlothlin, Die Berner Täufer bis 1532 (Berlin, 1902), 36.
10
J. J. Simler, Sammlung alter und neuer Urkunden (Zurich, 1757), I, 824.
11
Karl Rembert, Die Wiedertäufer im Herzogtum Jülich (Berlin, 1899), 564.
12
Ernst Müller, Geschichte der Bernischen Täufer (Frauenfeld, 1895), 88.
Müller speaks (p. 89) of the mandate of 1585 as conceiving of "das
Täuferwesen" as a just judgment of God on the church and the people of
Berne.
13
Sebastian Franck, Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtbibel (Strassburg,
1531), folio 444v.
14
Schwenckfeld's Epistolar (1564), I, 203.
15
Bullinger, Der Widertäufferen Ursprung (1561), fol. 170r.
16
Quellen zur Geschichte der Wiedertäufer, 1. Band Herzogtum Württemberg,
ed. Gustav Bossert (Leipzig, 1930), 216 f.
17
Ibid., 259 ff.
18
Complete Works of Menno Simons (Elkhart, Indiana, 1871), II, 37b.
19
Handlung oder Acta der Disputation gehalten zu Zofingen (Zurich, 1532).
20
Böhmer-Kirn, op. cit., 97.
21
Horsch, op. cit., 386.
22
P. Tschackert, Die Entstehung der Lutherischen und reformierten
Kirchenlehre (Göttingen, 1910), 133, says of the Anabaptists that they were
"a voluntary Christian fellowship, striving to conform to the Christian
spirit for the practice of brotherly love."
23
Johannes Kühn, op. cit., 231. fol. 22v.
24
Ernst Müller, op. cit., 44. See Ernst Correll, op. cit., 15 f. on the
attitude of the various Anabaptist groups on community of goods.
25
Horsch, op. cit., 317.
26
A. Hulshof, Geschiedenis van de Doopsgezinden te Straatsburg van 1525 tot
1557 (Amsterdam, 1905), 216.
27
Bullinger, Der Widertäufferen Ursprung, fol. 129v.
28
John Horsch, The Hutterian Brethren 1528-1931 (Goshen, Indiana, 1931),
gives the only adequate account in English of the Hutterian Brethren. It is
of interest to note that Erasmus, Melanchthon, and Zwingli condemned private
ownership of property as a sin. See Paul Wernle, Renaissance und
Reformation (Tübingen, 1912), 54, 55, for the citations of Erasmus and
Melanchthon, and Horsch, Hutterian Brethren, 132, footnote 126, for the
citation of Zwingli. Wilhelm Pauck says that Bucer's ideal state was that of
Christian communism, "Martin Bucer's Conception of a Christian State," in
Princeton Theological Review (January 1928), XXVI, 88.
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