#108 The Anabaptist Vision - Part 1
Harold S. Bender’s The Anabaptist Vision1 offers a clear and influential
introduction to the core ideals of early Anabaptism. Written in 1944, the essay
defines the movement around three central themes: obeying and following Christ,
the voluntary believers’ church, and an ethic of love and nonresistance.
What makes Bender’s work especially effective is how directly he contrasts these
ideas with other Protestant traditions. While Reformers like Luther emphasized
faith and doctrine, Bender shows that Anabaptists stressed visible obedience and
a transformed life as the true expression of faith.
Because of this clear structure and direct comparison, The Anabaptist Vision
stands out as a concise and thorough explanation of Anabaptist beliefs, making
their distinct identity within the Reformation easy to understand.
The Anabaptist Vision part 1, by Harold S. Bender
The Anabaptist contribution to religious liberty; persecution and martyrdom
> Judged by the reception it met at the hands of those in power, both in Church
> 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. Jones2 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 any 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 "but 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
FOOTNOTES
1
Reprinted from The Mennonite Quarterly Review 18 (April 1944) XIII, 67-88,
with slight revisions. That version had in turn been reprinted (with slight
revisions) from Church History (March 1944), 3-24. The essay is available
in booklet form from Herald Press, 616 Walnut Ave., Scottdale, Pa.
15683-1999.
2
Rufus M. Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion (London, 1909) 369.
Professor Walter Köhler of Heidelberg has recently expressed a similar
evaluation, asserting that the historical significance of the Anabaptists
"erschöpft sich nicht in dem Duldermut, der Arbeitstreue, dem kulturellen
Fleiss…. Nein, die Mennoniten dürfen ohne Überhebung einen Platz in der
Weltgeschichte beanspruchen als Bahnbrecher der modernen Weltanschauung mit
ihrer Glaubens- und Gewissensfreiheit."
3
The results of this research are best found in: Mennonitisches Lexikon,
edited by Christian Hege and Christian Neff (Frankfurt a. M. and Weierhof
[Pfalz], Germany 1913 ff.), now at the letter "N"; Ernst Correll, Das
Schweizerische Täufermennonitentum: Ein Soziologischer Bericht (Tübingen,
1925); Mennonite Quarterly Review (published at Goshen, Indiana, since
1927); Mennonitische Geschichtsblätter (published at Weierhof [Palatinate]
since 1936); R. J. Smithson, The Anabaptists, Their Contribution to Our
Protestant Heritage (London, 1935); John Horsch, Mennonites in Europe
(Scottdale, Pa., 1942); C. Henry Smith, The Story of the Mennonites
(Berne, Indiana, 1941); L. von Muralt, Glaube und Lehre der Schweizerschen
Wiedertäufer in der Reformationszeit (Zurich, 1938). Cf. also: Wilhelm
Pauck "The Historiography of the German Reformation During the Past Twenty
Years; IV. Research in the History of the Anabaptists," Church History
(December 1940) IX, 335-364; Harold S. Bender, "Recent Progress in Research
in Anabaptist History," Mennonite Quarterly Review (January 1934) VIII,
3-17. Only three volumes of the great source publication, Quellen zur
Geschichte der Wiedertäufer (Leipzig, 1930 ff.), published by the Verein
für Reformationsgeschichte, have yet appeared.
4
Quoted in translation by John Horsch, Mennonites in Europe, 325, from
Bullinger's Der Wiedertäufferen Ursprung, etc., Zurich, 1560.
5
Horsch, 293, from Sebastian Frank's Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtbibel
(Strassburg, 1531).
6
Heinrich Bullinger, Von dem unverschampten fräfel … der selvsgesandten
Widertouffern (Zurich, 1531), folio 2v.
7
F. Roth, Augsburgs Reformationsgeschichte (Munich, 1901), I, 230.
8
Letter of Zwingli to Vadian, May 28, 1525, Huldreich Zwinglis Sämtliche
Werke, ed. Egli, Finsler, Köhler, et al. (Leipzig, 1914) VII, 332.
9
The full official text of the decree may be found in Aller des Heiligen
Roemischen Reichs gehaltene Reichstage, Abschiede und Satzungen (Mainz,
1666), 210, 211. It is also edited by Ludwig Keller in Monatshefte der
Comenius Gesellschaft (Berlin, 1900), IX, 55-57, and by Bossert in "Die
Reichsgesetze über die Wiedertäufer" in Quellen zur Geschichte der
Wiedertäufer, 1. Band Herzogtum Württemberg (Leipzig, 1930), 1º-10º. See
the excellent discussion of Anabaptist persecution by John Horsch in "The
Persecution of the Evangelical Anabaptists," Mennonite Quarterly Review
(January 1938), XII, 3-26.
10
Geschicht-Buch der Hutterischen Brüder, edited by Rudolf Wolkan (Macleod
[Alberta] and Vienna, 1923), 142, 181.
11
Ibid., 182-187. The following quotation is composed of extracts selected
from this account without regard to the original order, chiefly from
186, 187.
12
Gottfried Keller's Werke, ed. by Max Nussberger (Leipzig, n. d.) VI, 309.
See Elizabeth Horsch Bender, "The Portrayal of the Swiss Anabaptists in
Gottfried Keller's Ursula," Mennonite Quarterly Review [July, 1943] XVII,
136-150.
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