Benjamin G. Robinson

CH14

The Protestant Reformation: The Anabaptists

Amongst the various visions for reform in the sixteenth century, the Anabaptists were known for what was considered to be a rather radical brand. Of considerable importance to all the Reformers was the doctrine of the church. This was no different for the Anabaptists. In this paper, I will argue that the Anabaptists understood the church as an alternative community constituted by the way of Christ in the world. In order to do so I will describe the Anabaptist distinctives of nonviolence, a community of goods, and separation from the world.

The Anabaptists argued that their ecclesiology was derived only from Scripture (123). They objected to both Catholic and evangelical doctrine and practice not clearly delineated in Scripture. Unlike Calvin, the Anabaptists did not desire to restore ancient customs of the church, but sought to purify the church of any custom or notion of humanity (126). There was no need for supplemental church prescriptions since “there is more than enough of wisdom and counsel in the Scripture” (127). Scripture provided an inexhaustible wealth of knowledge as to how the church was to govern and direct itself. Furthermore, it was the Scripture that contained direct testimony concerning Christ, and the Anabaptists noticed that this testimony said much about the cross of Christ (148).

Since the Anabaptists were concerned with deriving doctrine only from Scripture, their ecclesiological distinctives were very much informed by the way of Christ in the Scripture. As mentioned above, this way apparently had much to do with the cross. The Anabaptist understanding of the necessity of nonviolence as the way of the church was rooted in

Jesus’ particular command to “learn of him” (134). That is to say, that the way Christ was in the world is the way that the members of his body were to be in the world. A common claim the Anabaptists made was that Christ left us an example to follow, and it was an example that we must follow (135).

There were a number of levels to the Anabaptist understanding of Christian nonviolence. First, they advocated nonviolence because Christ had commanded it. Christians were called to be separate from the evil of the world, and this included the cessation of the use of “devilish weapons of force” (133). In contrast, Christ had commanded, “resist not him that is evil” (133). This was possible because of the freedom from slavery to the flesh, which the Spirit of God accorded (133). Secondly, the Anabaptists believed that this Spirit brought them into a new unified fellowship called the church. They also referred to this fellowship as the body of Christ (132). This fellowship participated in the kingdom of God, a kingdom not of this world. Finally, participation in this kingdom was by virtue of being united with Christ, through the Spirit, and being united with Christ meant to become like him in the way he went before us (135).

In the Schleitheim Confession, the Anabaptists made an important claim about the interconnectedness of following Christ’s way and nonviolence. Christ’s mind towards us was one of lowliness in which he fled from being crowned king, and instead took up the suffering of the cross. Being members of Christ’s body, Christians divide that body when they employ violence because it is not in conformity with Christ’s mind towards us (135). That is, they resist being renewed in the likeness of Christ. Incorporation into Christ was crucial for the Anabaptist understanding of the church and salvation. For the Anabaptists the church was,

“all those who loved God, who are the children of light, and who are scattered everywhere as it has been ordained of God our Father, where they are with one mind assembled together in one God and Father of us all” (129).

This emphasis on unity was exercised in the practice of the Lord’s Supper. It was a meal of fellowship participated in by those united in baptism, with one mind, love, faith, bread, and cup, who are the one body of Christ (125, 132). To be united in Christ meant that a Christian was being renewed in the image of God, which thus entailed the community living as Christ (133). But since this community was called to live as Christ, whose kingdom is not of this world, the community of Christians could expect to undergo hostility and persecution from the world. Correlatively, the Anabaptists wrote often of Christ’s blood, Christ’s cross, and Christ’s suffering (129, 135, 137, 148). The Anabaptists expected persecution because they identified with Jesus and his alternative kingdom that challenged the legitimacy of the kingdoms of the world. In the proceedings of the trial of Augustin Wurzlburger, Augustin had claimed that in the Scripture he found that “each one must be persecuted and suffer, for the world has no kinship with the Christian” (140).

The renewing of this community in the image of Christ took further shape in the concrete acts of sharing all goods with one another. To take material things as property was sinful, and led a person far away from the image of God and the community of Christ (145). The Anabaptists claimed that Christians had fellowship in God, who had given them Christ and all gifts, not for themselves but for others (143). This argument again centered around the language of being renewed in the likeness of God. It was not by garnering property but by forsaking all that a person showed they had a share in the community of the saints being renewed in God’s image (145). For the Anabaptists, Christians lived for the profit of others because that is the way God acts, giving us all things and quintessentially Christ (144). Christ did not lord his authority over others, but gave himself on their behalf (134). By properly recognizing the giftedness of both materiality and spirituality, a Christian learns to hold nothing as his/her own.

From the consideration of the aspects of nonviolence and the community of goods as constituted by Christ’s way of being in the world, the claim the Anabaptists made regarding the necessity of being separate from the world becomes more intelligible. If Christ’s church is constituted by the life he lived, then this alternative community is already wholly different from the social arrangements of the world. The Anabaptists thus named the social relations of the world as evil. They called Christians to be separate from the world, to be purged from the world. The ostensible dualism of the Anabaptists was, more accurately, an inevitable adjudication derived from their convictions about the church (141). Imbedded within this adjudication was also the Anabaptist conviction that this world is passing away, and that Christians must die to this world to serve God (138, 151). Anything not united with God and Christ was considered an abomination and must be purged (132). While this separation may have entailed living apart from society, it was apparently not a wholesale abandonment of society. Although the Anabaptists exhorted one another to be far removed from wicked ones, they nonetheless compelled one another to pray to God for the wicked to be led to repentance (131).

It has been the purpose of this paper to articulate an Anabaptist vision of the church as an alternative community. In particular, attention was given to the features of nonviolence, a community of goods, and separation from the world. The aspect of separation from the world was deliberately discussed last because it is more intelligible within the larger framework of Anabaptist ecclesiological convictions. The Anabaptists described the life of the church in the world as constituted by the way of Christ in the world. Being united with Christ and renewed in God’s image was understood by the Anabaptists to occur in a community whose ways were an alternative to the ways of the world precisely because they were the ways of Christ.