Part One of Two
Today I am compelled as I witness the North American Anabaptist landscape to introduce you to the scholarly presidential address by Harold S Bender to the American Society of Church History at Columbia University in NYC in 1943. The address has remained predominately in circles of the theologians and historians and few of today’s 500,000 NA Anabaptists in the pews have actually read it or discussed its significance.
Harold S Bender held degrees from Goshen College, Garrett Biblical Institute, Princeton Theological Institute, Princeton University and Heidelberg University. He was ordained to ministry in 1933 as well as the Dean of Goshen College, and from 1944 until his death in 1962 he served as Dean of the Goshen College Biblical Seminary. He became the President of Mennonite World Conference in 1952 and in 1927 he founded the scholarly quarterly, The Mennonite Quarterly Review and served as its editor until his death.
This entire address of 35 pages plus 11 pages of extensive footnotes is available on Amazon or you may Google “the anabaptist vision summary” and the second choice, “The Anabaptist Vision by Harold S Bender – Goshen College” will take you to the address in its entirety. Here is my Reader’s Digest Condensed version if you prefer.
The Anabaptist Vision
“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 program for a new type of Christian society which the modern world, especially in America and England, has been slowly realizing – an absolute 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 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 in 1908, but they have been abundantly verified by a generation of Anabaptist research since that time. 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 to 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.”
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 who had not only clearly defined goals but also an action plan 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. Bullinger wrote in 1531 that “ the people were running after them as though they were living saints.” Another contemporary writer asserts that “Anabaptism had spread with such speed that there was reason to fear that the majority of the common people would unite with this sect. 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.
The dreadful severity of the persecution of the Anabaptist movement in the years 1527-60 not only in Switzerland and South Germany, 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 the Catholic, Lutheran, and Zwinglian authorities alike strove to throttle it before it should be too late. In 1529 the decree issued by the Diet of Spires summarily passed the sentence of death upon all Anabaptists, ordering that “every Anabaptist and re-baptized person of either sex should be put to death by fire, sword, or some other way.” Even 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 or death, and gladly sealed their faith with their blood. Therefore, since the customary method of individual trials and sentences were proving totally inadequate to stem the tide, the authorities resorted to sending out mounted soldiers and armed executioners to hunt down Anabaptists and kill them on the spot singly or en masse without trial or sentence.
The Anabaptists bore all the 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 to God that they sought nothing, desired nothing, loved nothing but God alone. Therefore they had more patience in their suffering than their enemies in tormenting them. 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.
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), or “the Bolsheviks of the Reformation” (Preserved Smith). There is no longer any excuse for permitting our understanding of the distinct character of this genuine Anabaptism to be obscured by Thomas Munster and the Peasants War, the Munsterites, or any other aberration of Protestantism in the sixteenth century.
The Anabaptists were concerned most of all about “a true Christian life,” that is a life patterned after the teaching and example of Christ by establishing congregations in which repentance was evidenced by fruits from their newness of life in Christ. The Anabaptists believed the reformers, such as Luther and Zwingli, did not secure among the people true repentance, regeneration, and Christian living as a result of their preaching.
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 aware of the deficiency. Between 1522 and 1527 Luther repeatedly mentioned his concern to establish a true Christian church, and his desire to provide for earnest Christians who would confess the gospel with their lives as well as with their tongues. 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. Both reformers decided it was better to include the masses within the fold of the church than to form a fellowship of true Christians only. In taking this course, the Anabaptists said the reformers surrendered their original purpose, and abandoned the divine intention. Others may say they were wise and statesman-like leaders.
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 1500 years of history and culture if necessary rather than to break with the New Testament.
Luther’s expressions of his partial failures and 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.
Therefore, by having defined genuine Anabaptism in its Reformation setting, we are now ready to examine its central teachings. The Anabaptist vision included three major points of emphasis: 1.) Discipleship, 2.) Brotherhood, and 3.) Love and Nonresistance.These three will be reviewed in the next posting. Blessings as you ponder the significance of either your heritage or the spiritual integrity of the martyrs for all believers. Merlin