Anabaptists

An entry in the online German-language MennLex encyclopedia project (originally from 2012; published in 2020). The article considers how Swiss Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites can be analyzed in terms of the historiographical model of confessionalization, if that concept is understood in a heuristically flexible way. The English version is a pre-publication text. Please consult and cite the German version (link included).

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, Martin Luther is ubiquitous. Too often, however, Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism has been set aside with much less argumentative work than is appropriate in light of his sustained engagement with Luther. As a result, Luther remains a largely untouched hermeneutic key in Bonhoeffer interpretation. In Bonhoeffer's Reception of Luther, Michael P. DeJonge presents Bonhoeffer's Lutheran theology of justification focused on the interpersonal presence of Christ in word, sacrament, and church. The bridge between this theology and Bonhoeffer's ethical-political reflections is his two-kingdoms thinking. Arguing that the widespread failure to connect Bonhoeffer with the Lutheran two-kingdoms tradition has presented a serious obstacle in interpretation, DeJonge shows how this tradition informs Bonhoeffer's reflections on war and peace, as well as his understanding of resistance to political authority. In all of this, DeJonge argues that an appreciation of Luther's ubiquity in Bonhoeffer's corpus sheds light on his thinking, lends it coherence, and makes sense of otherwise difficult interpretive problems. What might otherwise appear as disparate, even contradictory moments or themes in Bonhoeffer's theology can often be read in terms of a consistent commitment to a basic Lutheran theological framework deployed according to dramatically changing circumstances.

Table of Contents
0. Introduction: An Argument for Bonhoeffer Interpretation
-Taking Luther’s Ubiquity Seriously
-What is ‘Lutheran’? Issues of Definition and Method
-Arguing for the Lutheran Character of Bonhoeffer’s Thinking

1. On the Way toward Christocentrism
--Karl Holl: Luther’s Religion of Conscience
--Christ or the Conscience?
--Conscience against Conscience
--Meager Christology
--Justification as the Unconditional, Effective Word of Christ’s Personal Presence as the Church

2. Christology in Conversation with Barth and the Lutheran Tradition
-Once more, Barth and Bonhoeffer on whether the Finite is Capable of the Infinite
-The History and Pre-History of the (in)capax Phrases
---This Man Is God
---This Is My Body
---The Finite is Capable of the Infinite
-Barth’s Rejection of the capax and the Majestic Genus
---The Finite is Not Capable of the Infinite
---The Common Actualization of Divine and Human Essences in Christ
-“The is may not be interpreted any further”: Bonhoeffer’s Christology

3. Caricatures of the Two Kingdoms
-Denials of Bonhoeffer’s Two-Kingdoms Thinking
-From Luther’s Two Kingdoms to the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms
---The Two Kingdoms in Luther’s Theology
---Church and State from a Lutheran Confessional Perspective
---Church and State in Confessional Comparison
---The Twentieth-Century Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms
---Troeltsch and the Niebuhrs

4. The Twofold Form of Christ: Bonhoeffer’s Two-Kingdoms Thinking
-Early Two-Kingdoms Thinking
---“The Nature of the Church”
---“Lectures on Christology”
---“Thy Kingdom Come!”
---“The Church and the Jewish Question”
-The Two Kingdoms in Discipleship
-Late Two-Kingdoms Thinking
---“Protestantism without Reformation”
---“Heritage and Decay”
---Green, Rasmussen, Hauerwas
---“Ultimate and Penultimate Things”

5. Anabaptists and Peace
-Bonhoeffer’s Non-Commitment to Nonviolence
-The Doubly Curious Association of Bonhoeffer with Anabaptism through Yoder
---Yoder on Bonhoeffer
---Bonhoeffer on Anabaptists
-Bonhoeffer on Peace
--Peace and Preservation
--Orders of Preservation
--The Sermon on the Mount as Concrete Commandment
-Peace in Bonhoeffer and Anabaptists
-Interpreting Bonhoeffer on Peace
-Ecumenical Lutheranism and Lutheran Ecumenism

6. Lutheran Resistance Resources
-Luther to Hitler
-Lutheran Subservience and Bonhoeffer’s Resistance
-Luther on Resistance to Authority
-The Interims, Flacius, and the Magdeburg Confession
-Formula of Concord X
-Bonhoeffer and Lutheran Resistance Resources

7. Struggle and Resistance
-Resistance through the Confession of the Ecumenical Church
---Status confessionis
---Threats to the Gospel from outside: The State that Disregards its Mandate
---Threats to the Gospel from Inside: Heretical Legalism
---Confession, ‘the Jews,’ and Race
-Resistance through the Suffering Obedience of the Discipleship Community
---The Second Battle of the Church Struggle
---Cheap and Costly Grace
---Justification
-Resistance through the Responsible Action of the Individual
---Between Compromise and Radicalism
---Active Resistance
-Conclusion: A Lutheran Theology in Accord with Reality

The fact that both Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin felt compelled to write a refutation of the Schleitheim Articles of 1527, and to do so only seventeen years apart, establishes the importance of these texts, not only for Anabaptism but also for the history of the emerging Reformed tradition. Through a fresh reading of the primary sources, the following essay illumniates for the first time: 1) the steps leading up to Calvin’s ‹Briève Instruction› of 1544 within the larger context of the theology of John Calvin an William Farel; 2) details regarding the anabaptist movement in French-speaking Switzerland, which has not yet been adequately studied; and 3) the context surrounding the publication of the 1543 French Version of the Schleitheim Articles, which is no longer extant.

Resumen El protestantismo se aplica a un amplio y heterogéneo sector del cristianismo moderno y contemporáneo que hunde sus raíces históricas y espirituales en la que, tradicionalmente, se conoce como "reforma del Siglo XVI". Es así, como dentro de ese diverso sector del cristianismo surge el movimiento anabaptista (el que vuelve a bautizar). El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo examinar y analizar el movimiento anabaptista durante el contexto de la reforma protestante, visualizando sus principales características y su desarrollo en Europa, bajo una perspectiva político-cultural mediante la revisión de fuentes secundarias. Palabras Claves: Reforma protestante, protestantismo, anabaptismo, bautismo, historia de la religión.

ABSTRACT: The article examines the differences in the theological stance between John Knox, leader of the Protestant Reformation, and his adversary Anabaptist Robert Cooche, and looks at their practical meaning with the relationship between predestination and the ecclesiology of Knox. The impulses for Knox's doctrine of predestination are presented to include the clear manner he pursued his theology in response to opponents, and his concept of the church that preserves a scriptural unity of the church.

*** In 2023 I have updated the entry to include a pre-publication version of my essay. ***  For a further sample from the text, including an excerpt by Hartmut Lehmann, see the attached link or go to the publisher's website (look for the "Leseprobe" tab on the Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht website). The papers in the volume are from a conference held in Sept. 2016 at the German Historical Institute in London.

Under persecution during the Ethiopian Revolution (1974-1991), highly committed men and women led the Meserete Kristos Church (MKC) through remarkable transformation and growth. Although persecution has been an enduring reality in the global church, leadership in that context has received scant research attention. Drawing on interviews and other first-person accounts of faithful MKC leaders in the Derg era, this essay explores the dynamics of their experience using the leadership theory of Robert E. Quinn as a conceptual lens. Persecution forced MKC leaders to clarify the priority of their commitment to Jesus and the mission of the church. Prepared to die for the sake of the gospel, they demonstrated leadership marked by a highly effective pursuit of purpose, compelling integrity under pressure, attractive love, and remarkable creativity—leading to extraordinary results. Between 1974 and 1991 the Meserete Kristos Church (MKC)—an Anabaptist Christian renewal movement in Ethiopia—experienced a profound transformation. Under pressure from a Marxist regime bent on eradicating evangelical Christianity from the country, the MKC grew from 800 to 34,000 baptized members, greatly expanded its geographic reach, dramatically increased the pool of people in active ministry, became financially self-supporting, adopted a radically new ministry structure, and nurtured a contagious spiritual vitality among its members. A remarkable group of leaders—both men and women—played an essential role in this transformation, leading the MKC with courageous purpose, integrity, love, and creativity. This essay, based largely on extensive interviews with twenty-four MKC leaders, explores the dynamics of leadership that enabled the MKC not only to survive but also to flourish under circumstances of persecution and extreme hardship. Research participants were selected based on the recommendations of various people with personal knowledge of MKC

This candidate’s thesis is that the sixteenth-century Anabaptists, and by historical extension the Free Church movement, generally speaking, have come closer than anyone else to reflecting a well-rounded and balanced approach to biblical hermeneutics especially by way of consistent application in kingdom life.

Minority groups throughout history have often used their experiences with persecution to define their own identities. The Anabaptists of the sixteenth century were just such a group. Targeted by both Catholic and Protestant authorities, thousands of Anabaptists made the ultimate sacrifice by becoming martyrs for their faith. The manner in which the Anabaptists responded to this martyrdom provides a crucial insight into their deepest beliefs. While Anabaptist theologies of martyrdom came in a host of different forms, they universally reflected the unique belief of radical discipleship. The presence of this notion of radical discipleship in Anabaptist theologies provides a link which shows a much more unified group theologically then previously thought.*

Written in 1954 but unpublished in his lifetime, Robert Friedmann’s Design for Living asks that pertinent existential question: how should we live? Drawing on literary, philosophical, and theological sources, Friedmann’s answer begins with a critique of utilitarian ethics and popular apathy, and proceeds through an existential preparation that ascends in confessional style to the question of the meaning of human life, culminating in a fourfold set of principles: regard, concern, service, and love. Along the way, Friedmann’s critical eye remains clearly fixed on his object of study—lived experience, and not abstract principles detached from day-to-day life—and he intentionally guides his reader step by step up the mountain of spiritual and ethical inquiry in a deliberate and serious attempt to educate the heart, mind, and soul. At once accessible and scholarly, while troubling our contemporary divide between religion and the secular, Design for Living presents a rare vision of human meaning and purpose that will appeal to scholarly and public readers alike.

The words of this song were eventually printed in a song collection that was incorporated into the influential Ausbund hymnbook, which is why these words about “Christ the lamb” continue to be sung by Old Order Amish congregations during each Advent season.3 The picture in this song of the mission of Jesus Christ—becoming a “dwelling of the gentle divinity” through which “everything shall be healed”—reflects also the vision for mission that shaped the particular Anabaptist community with which Hans Betz associated. Nearly sixty of the members of that community were imprisoned with him in the Passau castle at the time he wrote these words. Betz’s fellow Anabaptists were members of a larger communitarian circle that had been centered at Auspitz and led by Philip Plener, a weaver and

ABSTRACT: This essay uses the method of historiographical criticism to reexamine the frameworks used to research the relationship between apocalypse and violence. Its focus is the presentation of Anabaptist rule at Münster in the mid-1530s. New religions scholars and historians alike often cite this case as evidence of how millenarian prophecy can lead believers to violent actions. The essay demonstrates that this view is based largely on anti-Anabaptist and anti-sectarian propaganda that has its origins in the medieval and early modern eras. Partly because of the popularity of Norman Cohn's The Pursuit of the Millennium (1957), which translated older polemical interpretations of religious outsiders into a modern scholarly form, hostile assumptions about Anabaptist violence have found their way into academic debates today. The essay shows that the distorting effects of these kinds of assumptions are not limited at all to the case of Anabaptist Münster, but in fact shape unhelpfully the way scholars conceptualize more generally the relationship between dissenting "sects" and established "churches." "Thinking outside the cages" of polemically derived conceptualizations can form the basis for cross-disciplinary research on believers under siege.

*** UPDATE: I have now included a complete text of the essay in a pre-publication version. Please consult the published text before citing. *** This paper focuses on the largely negative memory of Anabaptist rule at Münster in scholarship and pop culture. The book from which the essay comes is available on Kindle for under $5. Go to https://www.amazon.com/European-Mennonites-Challenge-Modernity-Centuries/dp/1889239097. For images related to the essay, see http://wke.lt/w/s/Uv0QV.

Every year reportedly more and more school age children are facing bullying from their peers due to having a mild form of Autism known as Asperger's Syndrome.  This paper will explore various ways to recognize and combat bullying all within an Anabaptist peacemaking perspective.

Part of the German-language Mennonite encyclopedia project (MennLex V). About 18th-century bourgeois associationalism, and the roles that European Mennonites played in them. Pays particular attention to Mennonites and Freemasonry. This text is a pre-translation English version. Please consult and cite the finished German text online or in print.

This book is about Roger Williams (ca. 1603-83), who was banished from the colony of Massachusetts Bay for advocating freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, Native American rights, and related matters.  He founded the town of Providence in what became Rhode Island on the basis of full liberty of conscience and complete separation of religion and government.  For additional information, see the uploaded PDF and links.

The book is available in paperback and Kindle e-book editions at Amazon websites throughout the world.  The paperback is also available at some other websites and bookstores.

See also my YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOlUZaehYk7WmwW8v9oBMzQ) about Roger Williams, including an interview (https://youtu.be/mGRl5lIbdYY) with me about this book.

For Errata and Supplemental Comments, see the separate document uploaded at https://www.academia.edu/13798228/Errata_and_Supplemental_Comments_to_The_First_American_Founder_Roger_Williams_and_Freedom_of_Conscience.

Alan E. Johnson

This article examines the utopian vision present in the eponymous work by Thomas More and in the early Anabaptists. In the light of the discussion on the power and dangers of utopian thinking in liberation theology it seeks to show how More struggled with the tension between the positive possibilities of a different world and the destructive criticism of the present reality. A similar tension is found in early Anabaptist practices, especially in terms of their relationship to the state and their practice of commonality of goods. The article shows that all attempts to reduce visions of a better world to a particular setting end up as ideological.

Die Meserete Kristos Kirche (MKK) in Äthiopien, deren Name in der Verkehrssprache des Landes auf Christus als Fundament der Kirche (1. Kor. 3, 11) hinweist, ist schnell zu einer der größten mennonitischen Gemeinschaften weltweit mit 310.877 getauften Mitgliedern und über zweitausend Gemeinden mit 1126 Zentren herangewachsen, in denen weitere Gemeindegründungen vorbereitet werden. Sie ist Teil einer evangelikalen Bewegung, die sich von weniger als einem Prozent der Bevölkerung in den 1960er Jahren zu ungefähr neunzehn Prozent heute entwickelt hat.

• Maxwell Kennel, “Introduction: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Mennonite Political Theology.”

This special issue of Political Theology collects four exemplary contributions that showcase the interdisciplinary breadth of political theology done by and about Mennonites. Although there are many ways to conceptualize political theology from within established academic disciplines – including Christian political theologies that use theopolitical terms to refine and advance theological terms and ecclesial aims, and self-consciously secular political theologies that analyze powerful confluences of theological and political concepts – my approach to framing this special issue is to suggest that Mennonite Political Theology is at its very best when it is interdisciplinary and pluralistic. The great benefit of political theology is that it can include under its auspices both normative theological projects with constructive aims and critical projects that cast suspicion upon normativity itself, all while allowing scholars to work with the depth of theological and religious concepts without necessarily conforming to predetermined visions of theology or the political.

• Susanna Guenther Loewen, “The Personal is Political: The Politics of Liberation in Mennonite-Feminist Theologies.”

Susanne Guenther Loewen’s essay “The Personal Is Political: The Politics of Liberation in Mennonite-Feminist Theologies” provides the reader with a thorough evaluation and extension of Mennonite-Feminist Theology that demonstrates its political and liberative character. A theologian and pastor on the leading edge of the feminist turn in Mennonite theology, Guenther Loewen follows her dissertation on Dorothee Sölle and nonviolent atonement and builds upon the work of foundational Mennonite feminist theologians like Lydia Neufeld Harder with her unique voice – especially in her forthcoming work on peace theology and sexual violence. In her essay, Guenther Loewen demonstrates how the personal and political comingle at intersections between Mennonite and feminist identities. Drawing from Malinda Berry’s shalom political theology and Doris Janzen Longacre’s theopolitical cookbook and simple living guide, Guenther Loewen shows how traditional women’s work around food and home  has consequences for the pursuit of peace and justice  that patriarchal political theologies pass over.

• Daniel Shank Cruz, “Mennonite Speculative Fiction as Political Theology.”

Daniel Shank Cruz’s essay “Mennonite Speculative Fiction as Political Theology” also cooks up suggestive and experimental readings of queer Mennonite literary works that demonstrate their theopolitical and theapoetic character. Building upon his ground-breaking work in Queering Mennonite Literature: Archives, Activism, and the Search for Community, Cruz’s essay shows religious resonances within speculative fiction, and follows the works of Casey Plett, Sofia Samatar, and Miriam Toews to find acts of resistance that embody Mennonite values like peace and community. Considering Mennonite speculative fiction, in which being ‘in the world but not of the world’ becomes something ‘out of this world,’ Cruz shows how a Mennonite literary ethics is really quite queer and ideally suited for apocalyptic times.

• Russell Johnson, “Building Peace in a Culture War: Christian Witness in a Polarized Society.”

Russell Johnson’s essay “Building Peace in a Culture War” then provides a constructive account of how Mennonite ethics, broadly construed, can contribute to the clear and present need for political depolarization. Gathering insights from his dissertation on communication ethics and nonviolence and addressing the social and cultural conflicts that define American political life, Johnson’s essay treats polarization as a power and principality that calls out for theological remediation. Insisting that dissenting voices be heard rightly, while challenging the persistent resentments that underpin partisan politics, Johnson’s article seeks to prepare the ground for a peace that privileges liberation, justice, and reconciliation.

• Hans Harder, “Between Bourgeois Existence and Violence,” (1979). Trans. Vic Thiessen.

Lastly, we provide a translation of a controversial sermon by the German Mennonite literary figure Johannes (Hans) Harder, titled “Between Bourgeois Existence and Violence.” Translated by Vic Thiessen, and appearing here for the first time in English, Harder’s sermon gives the reader a glimpse into the tensions that Mennonite pacifists sought to address in postwar Germany. Delivered at the funeral of a Mennonite terrorist – Elizabeth von Dyck, a member of the Red Army Faction who was shot dead by police on May 4, 1974 – Harder’s sermon problematically navigates between the poles of apathetic bourgeois class privilege and revolutionary violence. As I point out in my introduction to the sermon, Harder’s work is complicated by his involvement and complicities with the Nazi SS, and his legacy remains a matter of controversy and mystery that is currently being examined by Mennonite scholars who have undertaken a reckoning with historical connections between Mennonites and Nazism.

*** This is a monograph with 3 authors. ***  The book provides a revised narrative and analysis of the poorly understood episode of Anabaptist rule in Münster by focusing on its pre-history, and by treating sources (especially anti-Anabaptist ones) with caution. Whenever possible, the book's conclusions are based on a wide range of sources, with a preference for those from insiders -- particularly Bernhard Rothmann. The book builds on the best of recent German-language scholarship (e.g., Karl-Heinz Kirchhoff and Ralf Klötzer), and one of its overall goals is to act as an antidote to histories (e.g., Norman Cohn's _Pursuit of the Millennium_) that give 16th-century polemics too much uncritical credence.

In this essay, three authors (Alexander Lawrence Ames is the third author) examine the context and materials culture of Swiss Anabaptist Bookbinding in America. Essay includes comparisons to Swiss Anabaptist bookbinding in Jura Switzerland.

Over the last 35 years, researchers from the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology at the University of Kansas have been working with Mennonite communities to better understand evolutionary patterns of fission-fusion in relationship to their genetic history and population structure. In this study, short tandem repeat (STR) markers from the nonrecombining region of the Y chromosome (NRY) provided increased resolution of the molecular population structure for these groups. NRY is known to be informative for determining paternal genetic ancestral patterns in recently derived human populations. Mennonites represent a branch of the Anabaptist movement that began in northern and central Europe in the 16th century and maintain a well-documented migration and genealogical history. Provided this historical information, we investigated the genetic relationship of 15 NRY STR loci within five Mennonite communities from Kansas (Goessel, Lone Tree, Garden View, and Meridian) and Nebraska (Henders...

In Afrika leben mehr täuferisch-mennonitische Christen als auf irgend einem Kontinent sonst. Weit über eine Million getaufte Kirchenmitglieder in siebenundzwanzig Ländern bekennen sich zu Jesus Christus in verschiedenen Kulturen, wirtschaftlichen und politischen Systemen.

This paper presents the results of a survey of college courses taught on the Amish. It is based on a series of interviews with instructors at other institutions of higher learning whose courses focus on the Amish, an examination of their syllabi, and analysis of student writing from the course I teach at the University of Missouri-Columbia. The survey was designed to ascertain the goals of professors who teach a class about the Amish and how they best achieve their course objectives. Secondly, the survey explored what attracts college students to a course about the Amish, and what prior knowledge, and preconceptions they bring with them. My survey found that all professors relate themes and values about the Amish to the lives of college students, but there are subtle differences in how these connections are expressed by instructors in the classroom through various course activities. This paper should serve as a resource for people who want to incorporate information about the Amish ...

An analysis of how Hermann von Kerssenbrock deploys supernatural vs. materialistic explanations of the events of the Münster Rebellion as portrayed in his "Narrative of the Anabaptist Madness." (Forthcoming chapter in "The Science of the Supernatural in Early Modern Europe," edited by Kathryn A. Edwards)

The Anabaptist movement of the sixteenth century has long captivated historians interested in the radical and popular elements of the Reformation. While the lives and thought of magisterial reformers like Martin Luther and John Calvin have been studied in detail, the theological predecessors of modern groups like the Mennonites and Hutterites have been largely neglected. This is in part due to deep-rooted and continuous debates in historical and theological communities over which historical figures should be included under the banner of "Anabaptist."  Using the lenses of theology, sociology, culture, and
even economics, historians have offered a number of competing definitions which hinder future research. This paper aims to reframe this debate by discarding, for the moment, the typical lenses of theology and ecclesiology usually employed in analyses of the movement. By instead placing the various people and groups identified by this discordant historiography into a spatial context, and examining the spatial practice through which the theological ideas and practices of Anabaptism arose and spread, a far more coherent view of Anabaptist origins emerges.

Over the last 35 years, researchers from the Laboratory of Biological Anthropology at the University of Kansas have been working with Mennonite communities to better understand evolutionary patterns of fission-fusion in relationship to their genetic history and population structure. In this study, short tandem repeat (STR) markers from the nonrecombining region of the Y chromosome (NRY) provided increased resolution of the molecular population structure for these groups. NRY is known to be informative for determining paternal genetic ancestral patterns in recently derived human populations. Mennonites represent a branch of the Anabaptist movement that began in northern and central Europe in the 16th century and maintain a well-documented migration and genealogical history. Provided this historical information, we investigated the genetic relationship of 15 NRY STR loci within five Mennonite communities from Kansas (Goessel, Lone Tree, Garden View, and Meridian) and Nebraska (Henders...

*** 2023: For more about the subject of Dutch Mennonite artists and Mennonites in Dutch art, see the work of Nina Schroeder!*** To view my posts, see the links included with this entry. The blog posts (Tumblr and WordPress) highlight portraits of 5 families from the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam and the Amsterdam Museum.

An encyclopedia article on a long-lived and influential early modern Hamburg Mennonite merchant and preacher. Available in print and online (see link provided)

For English readers: see my 2006 short essay in _Preservings_, and my 2001 book _Obedient Heretics: Mennonite Identities in Lutheran Hamburg and Altona during the Confessional Age_. Roosen is a main source of evidence and a main subject of _Obedient Heretics_.

See the links included with this entry to visit the original posts. The posts are about the confrontation between supporters of adult baptism and the defenders of state authority that took place at a monastery near Bolsward, Frisia, around Easter 1535. The events were related to the siege of Anabaptist Münster. For more on this episode in Reformation history, see De Bakker, Driedger, and Stayer, _Bernhard Rothmann and the Reformation in Münster_. (see link included with this entry).