Radical Reformationfunction dnn(dx) {var siz=getCookie("fSize");siz=siz*1+dx;if (siz 5 && siz48) {siz=48};text.style.fontSize = siz;setCookie("fSize",siz,180,"/");};Radical Reformation Advanced InformationAlso known as the Left Wing of the Reformation and the ThirdReformation, it includes all reforming elements not identified withthe magisterial reformation. Common to all its participants wasdisappointment with moral aspects of territorial Protestantism andthe rejection of some of its doctrines and institutions. Whilevarious interlocking historical connections and doctrinal variationslimit the validity of typological and ideological classifications,three main groupings of radicals have been identified: Anabaptists,spiritualists, and evangelical rationalists.AnabaptistsThe Anabaptist movement had a varied cast ofcharacters. From it has evolved the Free Church tradition.From Luther to twentieth century scholar Karl Holl, the opinionprevailed that Anabaptism began with revolutionaries andspiritualizers such as the Zwickau Prophets and Thomas Munzer andreached its logical conclusion with the violent Munsterites. In the1940s Harold S Bender inaugurated a new era in American Anabaptiststudies. Using primary sources and following up directionsindicated earlier by C A Cornelius and other Europeans, Benderdistinguished between Anabaptists and revolutionaries. He placedAnabaptist origins in the circle of Conrad Grebel, which leftZwingli's reformation when Zwingli compromised its biblical basis.From Zurich the movement was spread by missionaries fromSwitzerland to Austria and Moravia, South Germany, and the LowCountries. Bender described the movement as the logical culminationof the reform begun but left unfinished by Luther and Zwingli. Itsprincipal characteristics were discipleship, biblicism, and pacifismBELIEVEReligiousInformationSourceweb-siteOur List of 1,000 Religious SubjectsE-mailBeginning in the late 1960s scholars challenged and, to aconsiderable measure, reoriented Bender's findings. They describeda pluralistic rather than a homogenous movement with several pointsof origin and a multiplicity of reforming impulses.Swiss AnabaptismAnabaptism in Switzerland developed fromZwingli's early supporters. These future radicals included theGrebel circle, which gathered in the home of Andreas Castelbergerfor Bible study, and priests from the outlying towns of Zurich. Fordifferent reasons the urban and rural radicals became disillusionedwith Zwingli's reform.Seeing the Bible as an alternative authority to Rome, the Grebelcircle desired Zwingli to proceed rapidly to purify the city'sreligious establishment of such corruptions as the Mass. WhenZwingli allowed the city council to determine the speed ofreformation, it seemed to the radicals the substitution of oneoppressive authority for another. The radical movement developedsocial as well as religious dimensions when its members joinedforces with rural priests such as Simon Stumpf at Hongg andWilhelm Reublin at Wittikon, who sought to establish self -governing Volkskirchen in the rural communities, independent ofZurich's central authority, both religious and civil. Therebaptisms which occurred first on January 21, 1525, and from whichcome the name Anabaptism, originally expressed an anticlericalopposition to civil and religious authority outside of the localparish rather than a Free Church theological concept.Ultimately the attempts to become a mass movement failed and thereemerged the idea of the church of the separated, persecuted, anddefenseless minority. The Schleitheim Articles of 1527, edited byMichael Sattler, consolidated this Swiss Anabaptism. Its goal wasnot the purification of existing Christianity, as it was for theearly Zurich radicals, but rather the separation of congregationsof believers from the world. Thus at Schleitheim first emerged theidea of a "free church." These Swiss Brethren came to be known fortheir legalistic approach to the Bible, a salvation manifestingitself in the creation of separated congregations, and baptismwhich symbolized that salvation and made the baptizand a memberof the congregation.South German AnabaptismIn spite of the mutual practice of adultbaptism, Anabaptism in South Germany was a quite different movementfrom the Swiss Brethren. South German Anabaptism stems from thereformulation of ideas from Thomas Munzer by Hans Hut and Hans Denck(c. 1500 - 1527). Reflecting a medieval, mystical outlook, Munzerenvisioned the inner transformation of persons through the Spiritand an accompanying external transformation of the entire society,with the newly transformed individuals acting in revolutionaryfashion to usher in the kingdom of God. This revolution, along withMunzer, died in the May 1525 massacre of peasants at Frankenhausen.Hans Denck's concept of inner transformation was pacifist inexpression, with focus more on the renewal of individuals than ofsociety. This inner, transforming Christ served Denck as analternative authority both to the Roman hierarchy and to the learnedexegesis of the Reformers. Positing the inner Christ as ultimateauthority made Denck less than absolute in his approach to adultbaptism and the written word, both positions which brought upon himthe criticism of the Swiss Brethren.Hans Hut understood the inner transformation to be accomplishedthrough the experience of both inner and outer struggle andsuffering. Hut modified Munzer's revolutionary outlook, commandingthe transformed believers to keep the revolutionary sword sheatheduntil God called for it. Unlike the Swiss Brethren, Hut's practiceof rebaptism was not to form separated congregations, but ratherto mark the elect for the end - time judgment. Hut's movementgradually died out following his death in a jail fire.A Hut legacy continued through several metamorphoses. One formdeveloped in Moravia, out of the conflict in the congregation atNikolsburg between the pacifist Stabler (staff bearers), influencedby Hut and Swiss Brethren refugees, and the Schwertler (swordbearers), the majority party under the influence of BalthasarHubmaier, who had established a state church form of Anabaptism inthe city. Forced to leave Nikolsburg in 1529, the Stabler pooledtheir few possessions as a survival necessity. This community ofgoods, which became the movement's trademark, soon received atheological justification, making it a social expression of theinner mystical transformation of believers envisioned by Hut.Following the dispute - filled early years Jacob Hutter's strongleadership from 1533 to 1536 consolidated this Anabaptist form.His name still identifies the Hutterites in the twentieth century.Another form of the Hut legacy developed in South Germany aroundPilgram Marpeck. Although he left his native Tyrol after adoptingAnabaptism, and while he was forced further to move several timesbecause of his Anabaptist views, Marpeck's skills as a civilengineer enabled him to live in relative security. Marpeck's viewwas not widely held and therefore is not normative for Anabaptism;but he did develop a mediating position on the Bible, criticalboth of the legalist Swiss and of spiritualist views. Rather thanthe radical social separation of the Swiss Brethren, Marpeck heldto a separation of church and state which did not withhold allcooperation by believers.Low Countries AnabaptismThe third major Anabaptist movement wasplanted in the Low Countries by Melchior Hofmann (c. 1495 - 1543).An erstwhile Lutheran preacher in Sweden and Schleswig - Holstein,always zealously interested in eschatological speculation, Hofmannfound in the Strasbourg Anabaptists influenced by Hans Denck theideas which precipitated his break with Luther and enabled him todevelop his own form of Anabaptism. Hofmann believed in the nearinbreaking of God's kingdom into the world, with divine vengeanceupon the wicked. The righteous would participate in this judgment,not as agents of vengeance but as witnesses to the coming peace.Hofmann's baptism served to gather the elect into an end - timecongregation to build this new Jerusalem. He died after ten yearsimprisonment in Strasbourg.Two lines carried on in transformed fashion the Hofmann legacy. One,the revolutionary Melchiorites, founded the short - lived kingdom ofMunster, 1534 - 35. Under Jan Matthys, baptized as a disciple ofHofmann, and then under Jan van Leiden, who seized power at thedeath of Matthys, the revolutionary Melchiorites in the city ofMunster gave a political and social expression to Hofmann's end -time kingdom. They transformed his idea of divine vengeance so thatin Munster the members of the kingdom carried out vengeance uponanyone who opposed them. Following the fall of the cityrevolutionary Melchioritism died out, although it was carried on fora time by personages such as Jan van Batenburg.The pacifist line from Hofmann runs through Menno Simons, who leftthe priesthood in 1536 and whose name twentieth century Mennonitescarry. After the fall of Munster, Menno rallied the peacefulMelchiorites as well as the surviving Munsterites disillusionedwith violence. Menno replaced Hofmann's near end time with the ideaof a time of peace which had already begun with Jesus. Using theaberrant "celestial flesh" Christology of Hofmann which he adopted,Menno developed concepts of the transformation of the individualand of the assembly of a spotless church.Although beginning from different presuppositions, Menno's positionson transformed individuals and a pure, separated church resembledclosely the outlook of the Schleitheim Articles. The heirs of thevarious Anabaptist groups came to recognize their common emphases onthe Bible, adult baptism, pacifism, and sense of separation from thestate church and worldly society. They had contacts and discussionsand divisions. While they never united into one homogeneous body,some sense of unity developed, as represented by the Concept ofCologne signed in 1591 by fifteen preachers, the first confessionof faith accepted simultaneously by Dutch and High and LowGerman Mennonites.SpiritualistsRadicals characterized as spiritualizers downplayed significantlyor rejected altogether external forms of church and ceremonies,opting instead for inner communion through the Holy Spirit. Thusfor example Silesian nobleman Kasper Schwenckfeld held that therehad been no correct baptism for a thousand years, and in 1526 herecommended suspension of the observance of the Lord's Supper, theStillstand observed by his followers until 1877, until the questionof its proper form could be settled. Sebastian Franck (1499 - 1542)rejected altogether the idea of an external church. He saw externalceremonies as mere props to support an infant church and which inany case had been taken over by the antichrist immediately afterthe death of the apostles. Franck held the true church to beinvisible, its individuals nurtured by the Spirit but remainscattered until Christ gathered his own at his second coming.Marpeck combated this individualistic, invisible church as theprincipal threat to South German Anabaptism.Evangelical RationalistsOther radicals, given significantweight to reason alongside the Scriptures, came to reject aspectsof traditional theology, principally in Christological andTrinitarian matters. Michael Servetus, burned in Calvin's Genevafor his views, is a noteworthy example of antitrinitarianism.Antitrinitarianism attained institutional form in the pacifisticPolish Brethren, later known as Socinians, and in the Unitarianchurches in Lithuania and Transylvania. A remnant of the lattersurvives into the twentieth century. Other modern Unitariansinherit the intellectual if not the historical legacy ofantitrinitarianism.J D Weaver(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)BibliographyW R Estep, ed., Anabaptist Beginnings; E J Furcha,ed., Selected Writings of Hans Dench; L Harder, ed., Grebeliana; WKlaassen, ed., Anabaptism in Outline; W Klaassen and W Klassen,eds., The Writings of Pilgram Marpeck; J C Wenger, ed., TheComplete Writings of Menno Simons; G H Williams and A Mergal,eds., Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers; J H Yoder, ed., TheLegacy of Michael Sattler; R S Armour, Anabaptist Baptism; R HBainton, "Left Wing of the Reformation," in Studies in theReformation, 2, and The Travail of Religious Liberty; H S Bender,The Anabaptist Vision and Conrad Grebel;T Bergsten, Balthasar Hubmaier; C J Dyck, Introduction toMennonite History and (ed.), A Legacy of Faith; R Friedmann,Hutterite Studies; H J Hillerbrand, ed., A Bibliography ofAnabaptism and A Fellowship of Discontent; W Klassen, Covenant andCommunity; M Lienhard, ed., The Origins and Characteristics ofAnabaptism; Mennonite Encyclopedia, I - IV; J S Oyer, LutheranReformers Against Anabaptists; W O Packull, Mysticism and theEarly South German - Austrian Anabaptist Movement; J M Stayer,Anabaptists and the Sword and "The Swiss Brethren,";J M Stayer and W O Packull, eds., The Anabaptists and ThomasMunzer; J M Stayer, W O Packull, and K Deppermann, "FromMonogenesis to Polygenesis," M Q R 49; D C Steinmetz,Reformers in the Wings; G H Williams, The Radical Reformation.The individual articles presented here were generally first publishedin the early 1980s. This subject presentation was first placedon the Internet in May 1997.Copyright InformationSend an e-mail question or comment to us:E-mailThe main BELIEVE web-page (and the index to subjects) is athttp://mb-soft.com/believe/indexaz.html |
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