Faith First Media

This is chapter sixteen of the book A Theology of Peace by Matthew Elton.

Click here to read the previous chapter: The Oxymoron of "Just War".

The Example of the Anabaptists

During the Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther and other reformers protested many unbiblical practices practiced by the Catholic Church, which had its earliest beginnings under Constantine. The Protestant Reformers, however, continued to see the Christian church as a universal power that should rule over the entire population like a government. Indeed, throughout Renaissance Europe - in Protestant nations as well as Catholic ones - the church and the government were woven tightly together, and membership in the state church from birth was enforced by law and military might.

However, one group of Christians called the Anabaptists had a very different view of the church’s role in society. The believed that being a Christian was more than being a member of a church; it meant making the conscious decision to actually follow the commands of Jesus Christ. The Anabaptists saw no value in following the state church - which was an institution created by man. Rather, they sought to follow Jesus as Lord.

The Anabaptists believed that in order to be a Christian one must make the conscious decision to follow Jesus in every aspect of life. Therefore, the Anabaptists opposed the practice of infant baptism. How could an infant make the conscious decision to follow Jesus, which baptism symbolizes? For the Anabaptists, baptism was not a vain ritual but an important decision to commit one’s life to following Jesus Christ; to die to oneself and emerge as a new creation - destroying the old, sinful self and striving for total holiness and purity.

In his book The Anabaptist Vision, Harold S. Bender writes:

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. 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 inward 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. 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 for 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), 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.

--Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision

The testimony of many church reformers confirms that the for the Anabaptists, faith was not just a matter of understanding and believing, but also a matter of transformative, life-changing obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ. The Anabaptists not only had faith, but lived out their faith through action. The reformer Huldrych Zwingli wrote of the Anabaptists:

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!

--Huldrych Zwingli, 1527

And the reformer Heinrich Bullinger once said of the Anabaptists that “the people are running after them as though they were the living saints.” He also wrote:

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.

--Heinrich Bullinger, c. 1531

The German reformer Wolfgang Capito wrote of the Anabaptists that “in most there is in evidence piety and consecration and indeed a zeal which is beyond any suspicion of insincerity.”

In a 1532 letter to the Council of Berne, the Canton of Berne wrote, “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.”

In 1582, the Catholic theologian Franz Agricola wrote a book attacking the Anabaptists, and denouncing them as “heretics.” And yet, Agricola could not help but take note of the obvious holiness which pervaded the Anabaptist community, culture, and lifestyle:

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.

--Franz Agricola, Against the Terrible Errors of the Anabaptists

Agricola’s supposition was correct! The Anabaptists were living out the kingdom lifestyle we described earlier, and they did so with the empowering aid of the Holy Spirit.

The German radical reformer Sebastian Franck wrote in 1531 that the Anabaptists “gained a large following” of “many sincere souls who had a zeal for God.” Franck also noted that the Anabaptists “taught nothing but love, faith, and the cross” and he went on to say that:

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.

--Sebastian Franck, 1531

The sixteenth century Anabaptist martyr Hand Leopold said of the Anabaptists:

If they know of any one who is in need, whether or not he is a member of their church, they believe it is their duty, out of love to God, to render help and aid.

--Hans Leopold

In The Anabaptist Vision, Harold S. Bender describes how holy living through obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ is the foundation of Anabaptism:

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.

--Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision

Bender goes on to say that for the Anabaptists:

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 noncomformity of the Christian to the worldly way of life.

--Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision

In a 1532 debate at Zofingnen, the Anabaptists declared that “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.”

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.

--Professor Ernest Staehelin

Harold S. Bender writes in The Anabaptist Vision:

The third great element in the Anabaptist vision was the ethic of love and nonresistance as applied to all human relationships. The Brethren understood this to mean complete abandonment of all warfare, strife, and violence, and of the taking of human life.

--Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision

In a letter criticizing “Christian” nations that were waging war against other “Christian” nations, Anabaptist leader Peter Chelcicky wrote:

The whole rabble of these divided multitudes are called Christians, and together they pray: “Our Father which art in heaven.” They approach God in this way while each party has in mind the destruction of the other. They think they are serving God by shedding others’ blood. And on both sides they say: “Forgive us as we forgive.” And every party seeks to increase its military force and never thinks of forgiving the other so long as they can hope to overcome them. Therefore, their prayers are blasphemies against God.

--Peter Chelcicky, c. 1420

“Father of the Anabaptists” Conrad Grebel wrote in 1524:

True Christians use neither worldly sword nor engage in war, since among them taking human life has ceased entirely, for we are no longer under the Old Covenant.

--Conrad Grebel, 1524

In 1535, Anabaptist Jacob Hutter was arrested for leaving the Catholic church. Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I ordered that he Hutter be tortured and burned at the stake. Though he was offered mercy in exchange for the names of other Anabaptists, he remained silent in order to protect his fellow brethren in Christ. During his arrest, he made no attempt to fight back with violence, but was prepared to die rather than disobey the Lord Jesus Christ by repaying evil with evil.

We will not do a wrong or an injury to any man, yea, not to our greatest enemy, neither to Ferdinand, nor anyone else, great or small. All our actions and conduct, word and work, life and walk are open; there is no secret about it all. Rather than knowingly to rob a man of a penny, we would willingly give up a hundred guilders [equal to $182.35]. And before we would give our greatest enemy a blow with the hand, to say nothing of spear, sword, or halberd as is the manner of the world, we would be willing to lose our lives.

--Jacob Hutter, c. 1535

The German Anabaptist Pilgram Marpeck wrote of the “law of love” that Jesus “observed and thereby gave His followers a pattern to follow after.” Speaking of this law of love, he wrote:

All bodily, carnal, earthly fightings, conflicts, and wars are annulled and abolished among them through such law

--Pilgram Marpeck, 1544

The German Anabaptist Peter Riedemann wrote:

Christ, the Prince of Peace, has established His Kingdom, that is, His Church, and has purchased it by His blood. In this kingdom all worldly warfare has ended. Therefore a Christian has no part in war nor does he wield the sword to execute vengeance.

--Peter Riedemann, 1545

The Dutch Anabaptist Menno Simons wrote that Christians should be “children of peace who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks, and know of no war.” He went on to say that:

Our weapons are not weapons with which cities and countries may be destroyed, walls and gates broken down, and human blood shed in torrents like water. But they are weapons with which the spiritual kingdom of the devil is destroyed. Christ is our fortress; patience our weapon of defense; the Word of God our sword. And our victory is a candid, firm, unfeigned faith in Jesus Christ. Iron and metal spears and swords we leave to those who, alas, regard human blood and swine’s blood of well-nigh equal value.

--Menno Simons, 1550

In The Anabaptist Vision, Harold S. Bender notes that “nonresistance” and “biblical pacifism” were “believed and resolutely practiced by all the original Anabaptist Brethren and their descendants throughout Europe from the beginning until the last century.” He goes on to say:

Lutheranism said that since the Christian must live in a world order that remains sinful, he must make a compromise with it. As a citizen he cannot avoid participation in the evil of the world, for instance in making war, and for this his only recourse is to seek forgiveness by the grace of God; only within his personal private experience can the Christian truly Christianize his life. The Anabaptist rejected this view completely. Since for him no compromise dare be made with evil, the Christian may in no circumstance participate in any conduct in the existing social order which is contrary to the spirit and teaching of Christ and the apostolic practice.

--Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision

Several denominations emerged from the Anabaptist movement, including the Brethren in Christ and the Church of the Brethren. The Church of the Brethren refused to “submit to the higher powers so as to make ourselves their instruments to shed human blood.”

The church cannot concede to the state the authority to conscript citizens for military training or military service against their conscience.

--Church of the Brethren, Annual Conference of 1785

Click here to continue to the next chapter: A Return to Christian Nonviolence

See also:

• Pacifism: Following Christ's Example
• Conquering Evil by Doing Good
• A Theology of Peace: Introduction
• The Kingdom of God
• The Sermon on the Mount
• Turning the Other Cheek
• Giving the Coat Also
• Going the Extra Mile
• The Example of Christ
• The Example of the Apostles
• The Resurrection of Jesus
• The Holy Spirit
• The New Covenant
• The Kingdom Lifestyle
• The Testimony of Early Christians
• The Downfall of Nonviolent Theology Under Constantine

Have questions, comments, criticisms, or concerns?

Email the author at: matt@faithfirstmedia.com