The Anabaptists

A church of disciples

In January 1525 in Zurich, young men who had studied the Greek New Testament with Zwingli, among them Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz, baptized one another as adults who confessed their faith. They read the New Testament church as a fellowship of people who had heard the gospel, repented, believed and freely chosen to follow Christ. Peter's words at Pentecost, they held, show the order:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Acts 2:38

Their opponents called them Anabaptists, ‘rebaptizers’. They themselves did not think they were baptizing again, since they did not regard the washing of an infant who could confess nothing as baptism at all; they called one another brothers. The Schleitheim Confession of 1527, drawn up by a gathering around Michael Sattler, taught believers' baptism, mutual correction in church discipline and separation from the evil of the world. Following the command "not to resist an evil person" (Matthew 5:39), it held that a Christian does not bear the magistrate's sword and swears no oath Schleitheim Confession. They meant this not as a new law but as discipleship that takes the Sermon on the Mount at its word. The church is formed by faith, not by birth or by the state, and faith cannot be forced.

Persecution and the family of churches

The cost was high. In January 1527 Manz was drowned by the Protestant authorities of Zurich; that May Sattler was burned by Catholic authorities. Across Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed lands many Anabaptists died. In 1534–1535 a group stirred by end-time preaching seized the German city of Münster by force; for generations it was used to paint all Anabaptists as rebels, though most, committed to refusing the sword, rejected it. Out of that wreckage Menno Simons (1496–1561), a former Dutch priest, gathered the scattered congregations and taught repentance, faith and a holy and peaceable life Menno Simons, Foundation of Christian Doctrine; his followers became the Mennonites. The Hutterites, who held goods in common, and the Amish, who separated in 1693, belong to the same family.

Where the traditions part

Lutherans and Reformed parted from the Anabaptists over infant baptism, the magistrate's sword and oaths. Lutherans taught that baptism rests not on our faith but on God's command and promise, and so is given to infants too. The Reformed saw baptism, like circumcision, as the sign of the covenant:

the infants of believers, who, we believe, ought to be baptized and sealed with the sign of the covenant, as the children in Israel formerly were circumcised upon the same promises which are made unto our children

Belgic Confession, art. 34

The Baptists, who arose in seventeenth-century England, share believers' baptism with the Anabaptists, but historians differ over whether they descend from them, and most Baptists accept public office and oaths. Among evangelicals today some baptize the children of believers and some only those who profess faith; some allow Christians to bear arms and some hold to nonviolence. Each appeals to Scripture.

The Anabaptists' witness weighs heavily. They testified with their blood that faith cannot be compelled, and in 2010 the Lutheran World Federation formally asked the Mennonites' forgiveness for the persecution of the past. The story is told in the lesson The Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation; on the different views of baptism, see What are baptism and the Lord's Supper?