Magisterial Reformation vs Radical Reformation

[FireDragon76]

I think you are right but most English Baptists were drawing heavily from the Puritan tradition and Calvinism, whereas contintental Anabaptists were not influenced by Calvinism. John Bunyan is a good example.

 

[Merrily]

I think you are right but most English Baptists were drawing heavily from the Puritan tradition and Calvinism, whereas contintental Anabaptists were not influenced by Calvinism. John Bunyan is a good example.

Possibly Smyth had his 'polity' from Riedemann rather than his theology.

 

[WisdomTree]

I think you are right but most English Baptists were drawing heavily from the Puritan tradition and Calvinism, whereas contintental Anabaptists were not influenced by Calvinism. John Bunyan is a good example.

Well if you think about it, Scotland was officially Calvinist, so it's not too farfetched that it would cross the "border" to England thus start the Puritan (Calvinist) movement within the Church of England. Whereas the Anabaptists were considered radical by Calvinists resulting in their persecution thus couldn't possibly have any Calvinist influence. However, they probably did have some Zwinglian...

 

[Merrily]

Good call.
James 6 of Scotland who became our James 1 brought anti Arminiasm over the border for sure.

 

[FireDragon76]

Well if you think about it, Scotland was officially Calvinist, so it's not too farfetched that it would cross the "border" to England thus start the Puritan (Calvinist) movement within the Church of England. Whereas the Anabaptists were considered radical by Calvinists resulting in their persecution thus couldn't possibly have any Calvinist influence. However, they probably did have some Zwinglian...

Calvinism was the dominant "liberal" theology during the 16th century in England. It's hard to think of it that way of course today, but at the time it was quite radical. The state religion was more of a vague "Reformed" flavor, quasi-Lutheran, though it tried to accommodate some degree of Puritanism, it did not always succeed, and eventually the general tone of Anglicanism drifted towards Arminianism and Liberalism. So anybody that was unhappy with the state religion, Anglicanism, in the UK would gravitate towards Calvinism of a pietistic sort- this is the basis of English Puritanism.

Arminianism at the time of James I was just starting to catch on in the Church of England. In time it would become the dominant ideology, but at the time a predestinarianism that echoed Luther or Calvin was the norm.

 

[WisdomTree]

Calvinism was the dominant "liberal" theology during the 16th century in England. It's hard to think of it that way of course today, but at the time it was quite radical. The state religion was more of a vague "Reformed" flavor, quasi-Lutheran, though it tried to accommodate some degree of Puritanism, it did not always succeed, and eventually the general tone of Anglicanism drifted towards Arminianism and Liberalism. So anybody that was unhappy with the state religion, Anglicanism, in the UK would gravitate towards Calvinism of a pietistic sort- this is the basis of English Puritanism.

Not in comparison to Anabaptism. Also when it originated, Calvinism (which replaced Zwinglianism) was the state religion of most of Switzerland and later the Netherlands, where they were at odds with the Lutherans in Germany. All the Magisterials persecuted the Anabaptists since they were radicals, re-baptizing people (which was unheard of at the time).

 

[hedrick]

Not in comparison to Anabaptism. Also when it originated, Calvinism (which replaced Zwinglianism) was the state religion of most of Switzerland and later the Netherlands, where they were at odds with the Lutherans in Germany. All the Magisterials persecuted the Anabaptists since they were radicals, re-baptizing people (which was unheard of at the time).

I think there were several problems with the State:

* Rebaptism (in part because it implied that the State-sanctioned baptism was false)
* At the time, the Church / State symbiosis was considered essential to both Church and State. Withdrawing from the State church and creating your own looked seditious. Indeed heresy was still considered seditious.
* The anabaptists had gotten involved with the peasant revolt. It certainly wasn't universal, but Luther at least considered the peasant revolts very dangerous.

Of course from today's perspective I'd probably agree with the anabaptists at least as much as with the State churches. But I've already commented that there are significant commonalities with today's mainline churches.

 

[childofdust]

Do you have a source? Some of the Calvinist statements seem odd.

Leonhard Dax's Encounter With Calvinism, 1567/68. Mennonite Quarterly Review, 49 (4), 284-334, by Leonard Gross. Translated, of course. It was not originally in English

The interrorgation was recorded by Dax himself while in prison. He may have skewed things, but the details of the enounters give enough detail to convince me that this is a fairly accurate representation of what was said at the interrogation events (things like the fact that the Calvinist's reasons are given with just as much detail as Dax's responses or that in several places, Dax does not actually answer or address questions asked by his Calvinist interrogator).

This is surely not a quote. Perhaps that's the way the author regarded it, but it is implausible that anyone would say this.

No quotes were used in my post. Those were my summarizations of many pages of dialogue. The first summary was a general summary of the situation in which Dax was imprisoned and threatened with death. The Calvinist supported his actions by saying that he had the authority and power by God to subject people like Dax to imprisonment and perhaps death because they are Anabaptist. Here are two actual quotes from him:

Calvinist:
"You, Leonhard, have been arrested on account of Anabaptism."
"The government is ordained of God zealously to proclaim from God's Word what is right and good. And when they have ascertained this from God's Word, they should by means of their office of government, do away with false worship and hold and impel their subjects and the church to proper worship."

This, of course, is completely contrary to the Anabaptist perspective, in which no true Christian can impel or force others by means of governmental power toward proper Christian behavior.

Given that Calvinists sent people around the world to establish Calvinist churches, this seems an unlikely view.

Here are a few actual quotes:

Calvinist:
"Since appointing ministers in all lands and churches is exclusively an apostolic function, it seems to be nothing but an earthly ambition and human presumption [of yours]."

"You should prove that you and your church have the power and authority to institute churches in all lands and thus to preach in public, like the apostles."

"You assert that the present-day church has the authority and right to do what the apostolic church did. To this I reply that the apostles ordained no one to preach everywhere and establish churches, for that is only God's work; but they ordained certain servants at certain places. This proves that it was solely the task of the apostles to establish churches everywhere, and not the task of other church servants. Therefore, the present church does not have the power and authority to establish and ordain servants in all the lands."

"It remains established that no one has the power to preach in all the world or to send out preachers, but God alone. Other congregations only have the power to choose ministers for themselves, and these ministers are to lead their own congregations and not run to others without a proper call (by proper call, he means "by God himself" since the Calvinist argues elsewhere that what distinguishes an apostle from others is the call by God himself). You must therefore show by means of the Holy Scriptures or with examples from the early church that your church in Moravia or you yourself have the power to send public ministers here and establish churches even if your church were the true catholic church and apostolic church, which I do not grant."

Can you imagine anyone saying this? I can't.

What I gave in that post were summaries of lengthy arguments. The Calvinist's argument was that god never ordained a community of goods among the church, that what we see in scripture was special to that time and circumstance, and that all Christians may keep and enjoy their property so long as they do not misuse it. These were the theological justifications he gave for his church's disparity of wealth and possessions compared to the Hutterites, who shared all things in common.

Any Calvinist saying this would be very confused, since "impartation of God's grace" is the Catholic view, which is certainly not accepted by Calvinists.

Here are a few quotes from the Calvinist:

"In the Old Testament, God revealed that it was his will that his grace and mercy, which he promised them—to children as well as adults—be sealed and confirmed with the sign of the convenant. This will which he revealed in the Old Testament did not change in the New.”

“The new birth is not only acknowledging sin, hating it or desisting from it, and loving truth and righteousness, but also having manifested pardon and forgiveness of sins for the sake of the bitter suffering and death of our Lord Jesus Christ. The elect infants have this merit just as well as the adults, otherwise they could not enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, they as well as adults should receive the seal of the new birth, since they are included in the new birth. This is even clearer in the Acts of the Apostles, where he compares our children with the Jewish children insofar as the covenant of grace and its seal is concerned. Now Jewish children in the Old Testament were sealed by the seal of the covenant in their infancy, wherefore our children should also receive the assurance or seal of the covenant, which is baptism, in their infancy.”

“Who then should be baptised? Those who are in the covenant of the grace of God, or the others who are not in it?”

“Since the children of believers are in the covenant of the grace of God, they should be baptised.”

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

During the medieval period, there were numerous issues with the state of the Church in Western Europe after having gone through a period of moral decline within the upper hierarch of the Roman Church (Curia). As such, the question never was whether there ought to be a reformation, but rather when there should be a reformation and how it should be executed. This of course didn't stop individuals from acting on their own such as Pierre Waldo, John Wycliffe, and Jan Huss, all of whom who were declared heretics either due to their works or their followers' actions, with the execution of Hus resulting in a war in the Holy Roman Empire.

The reformation is considered to have started when an Augustinian Monk, Martin Luther, nailed the infamous Ninety-Five Theses on the door of Castle Church of Wittenburg (Germany), as was the custom at the time. Likewise, Huldrych Zwingli wrote the Sixty-Seven Conclusions which sparked the movement in Switzerland. Unfortunately, the two movement would not be able unite against the Roman Church due to unreconciliable differences in one of their key doctrines, the Eucharist. The matter was not solved by the death of Zwingli, who was replaced by John Calvin, even though Calvin's theology was slightly less "radical" than those of Zwingli's.

During this time, the Henry VIII vigorously defended the doctrines of the Catholic Church against the "heresies" of Lutheranism where he personally wrote the Defence of the Seven Sacraments resulting in him being awarded Fidei Defensor by Leo X, then sitting Pope of Rome. However this friendly relations between England and Rome were not to last due to the troubles with the King's personal life as well as what he viewed as a right as King resulting in the break between the Church of England and the Roman Church.

Though the reformation brought in a lot of changes to the Church atmosphere to both Protestants and Catholics alike, there some things which even the Reformers dared not to change, things such as the dogma of the Trinity, the doctrine of Perpetual Virginity, and the practice of paedobaptism. There those who opposed these however, especially the practice of paedobaptism within the Zwinglian camp. These "radicals" thought that Zwingli did not go far enough with the reformation movement, where they decided that baptism ought to be by believers only thus started the practice of "re-baptizing" anyone who were baptized as an infant, thus starting the Anabaptist movement. Unlike the "magisterials" of the reformers who had the backings of the state, these anabaptists did not since they called for the separation of state and church. Because of this and being labeled "radicals" and "heretics", they were relentlessly persecuted by both Catholics and Protestants alike. Later on, the anabaptist movement will split into several smaller factions as it is seen today.

Good stuff. Just a couple of corrections:

I hate to defend Zwingli, but the Anabaptists weren't Zwinglians who broke off. Balthasar Hubmeier came to Zurich in order to preach anabaptism, and subsequently left after being shot down by Zwingli. Anabaptism should really be considered as its own movement and not a branch of Reformed Christianity.

Also, the Anabaptist movement on the European Continent didn't have nearly as much to do with the later non-Latitudinarian positions in England such as Puritanism and nonconformism as certain Baptist groups would have us believe. Although they were loosely inspired by them, and the Mayflower Pilgrims were more directly inspired by continental Anabaptists, the majority of the non-conforming British parties sprung from debates in seventeenth century England unrelated to the primary four Anabaptist sects.

I guess I also wouldn't want to lump Jan Hus with the other pre-sixteenth century reforming voices, because Hus himself was very conservative in outlook, moreso than Luther, whereas Waldo and Wycliffe were as radical if not more than Zwingli. Big gulf.

Otherwise a fine summary!

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

You'll find very few differences between most modern Mennonites and most Methodists beyond perhaps the peace testimony.
Even the 'continuing' groups such as the Amish and Hutterites factionalise.
Swartzentruber Amish have little in common with Beachy Amish for example and a Bruderhof is a different place than the Hutterite colony just up the pike.
History tends to be written by the victors so the Anabaptists had something of a bad press back in the day, sometimes justified.
Munster was a mess.
Usually though persecution of Anabaptist groups followed the usual inequitable path that it tends towards.

Wow, excellent. You clearly know your Anabaptist sects. I went to Messiah College, which is based in the Brethren in Christ (Mennonite-Wesleyan) tradition, and I'm impressed. To second another, do share.

 

[FireDragon76]

Of course from today's perspective I'd probably agree with the anabaptists at least as much as with the State churches. But I've already commented that there are significant commonalities with today's mainline churches.

The Anabaptist and Mainline perspectives on issues are not entirely congruent- Mainline protestants (and post-Vatican II Roman Catholics) favor freedom, I suspect, more for reasons of liberal interpretation of the traditional Christian respect for the dignity of human beings and the primacy of conscience. Anabaptists, on the other hand, seem to suggest a faith that is not actively chosen is inauthentic, and there is the implication that true Christians must separate from the state- something mainline Protestant and Catholics reject because most favor political activism to protect human rights.

Anabaptists arguably could be the spiritual inspiration for English Baptists and Puritans, although I suspect it is just as much a consequence of Luther's original appeal to conscience, clear reason, and the Bible- radicalized and taken to an extreme. Radicalism, including Puritanism, are tendencies that have emerged throughout Christian history (look at the Montanist heresy in the early church for instance).

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The Anabaptist and Mainline perspectives on issues are not entirely congruent- Mainline protestants (and post-Vatican II Roman Catholics) favor freedom, I suspect, more for reasons of liberal interpretation of the traditional Christian respect for the dignity of human beings and the primacy of conscience. Anabaptists, on the other hand, seem to suggest a faith that is not actively chosen is inauthentic, and there is the implication that true Christians must separate from the state- something mainline Protestant and Catholics reject because most favor political activism to protect human rights.

Good analysis.

Having gone to an Anabaptist college, though, I should note that there is significant debate within the Brethren community as to whether the Anabaptist theology of conscience can incorporate classic and modern liberal perspectives (right and left) so as to allow Anabaptist to participate in modern American political discourse.

Many scholarly elites of the Brethren community at Messiah favored a strong degree of continuity and thus embraced the left-liberal positions of social justice, environmental stewardship, peacemaking, and ethnic reconciliation. A minority of the scholarly crowd accepted a moderate continuity right-liberal position of freedom from government interference in something more like an ethic of personal pacifism, property stewardship, and reconciliation and justice through ecclesiastical institutions. But both faced strong opposition from the wider non-scholarly community both within the quasi-Anabaptist Brethren community and fellow Anabaptist communities in the Lancaster area who held to more traditional Anabaptist views and understood the liberal American order as still essentially outside bounds of Christian activity, not really different from early modern European governments.

But that's a caveat. On the whole, I agree.

 

[Merrily]

Wow, excellent. You clearly know your Anabaptist sects. I went to Messiah College, which is based in the Brethren in Christ (Mennonite-Wesleyan) tradition, and I'm impressed. To second another, do share.

Have you come across the novel 'Q' written by a situationist collective who adopted the name Luther Blisset?
It's tremendously well researched and charts some aspects of early Anabaptist emergence in an absorbing story.
Highly recommended.
I studied at Cranmer Hall ( Durham) where one was ever conscious of the sheer weight of church history and tradition. Hogwarts without the magic and the only women there in my time were either admin, cooks or cleaners. Terribly 'stuffy'. Much improved in latter years though.
Possibly would have preferred Messiah College. I do like Methodists and Mennonites.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Have you come across the novel 'Q' written by a situationist collective who adopted the name Luther Blisset?
It's tremendously well researched and charts some aspects of early Anabaptist emergence in an absorbing story.
Highly recommended.

Awesome. I haven't come across it, but the Amazon page makes it look really interesting. For some time I've wanted to set a telling of the Faust legend in the run-up to Munster, and this sounds like a must-read as historical and literary background.

I studied at Cranmer Hall ( Durham) where one was ever conscious of the sheer weight of church history and tradition. Hogwarts without the magic and the only women there in my time were either admin, cooks or cleaners. Terribly 'stuffy'. Much improved in latter years though.
Possibly would have preferred Messiah College. I do like Methodists and Mennonites.

Maybe we should have traded places. I got really tired of the attitude superior piety cloaked in humility (surely not helped by the atmosphere of academic isolationism), and it pretty much set me on the road from leaving the evangelical Protestant tradition and becoming a traditionalist, evangelical catholic Lutheran.

 

[Merrily]

Well humility wasn't on our syllabus that's for sure.
Durham sees itself as FAR superior to those upstarts at Oxford and Cambridge does not get a look in ( garage mechanics!).
We did have David Jenkins as Bish though and he was rather fun.
Lovely chap.
I'm sure you'll enjoy Q.
Nice to chat.
I'm off to work unfortunately.
Serial tutorials until 5 then teaching 6 til 9.
Hey ho.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Good analysis.

Having gone to an Anabaptist college, though, I should note that there is significant debate within the Brethren community as to whether the Anabaptist theology of conscience can incorporate classic and modern liberal perspectives (right and left) so as to allow Anabaptist to participate in modern American political discourse.

Many scholarly elites of the Brethren community at Messiah favored a strong degree of continuity and thus embraced the left-liberal positions of social justice, environmental stewardship, peacemaking, and ethnic reconciliation. A minority of the scholarly crowd accepted a moderate continuity right-liberal position of freedom from government interference in something more like an ethic of personal pacifism, property stewardship, and reconciliation and justice through ecclesiastical institutions. But both faced strong opposition from the wider non-scholarly community both within the quasi-Anabaptist Brethren community and fellow Anabaptist communities in the Lancaster area who held to more traditional Anabaptist views and understood the liberal American order as still essentially outside bounds of Christian activity, not really different from early modern European governments.

But that's a caveat. On the whole, I agree.

 

[hedrick]

The Anabaptist and Mainline perspectives on issues are not entirely congruent- Mainline protestants (and post-Vatican II Roman Catholics) favor freedom, I suspect, more for reasons of liberal interpretation of the traditional Christian respect for the dignity of human beings and the primacy of conscience. Anabaptists, on the other hand, seem to suggest a faith that is not actively chosen is inauthentic, and there is the implication that true Christians must separate from the state- something mainline Protestant and Catholics reject because most favor political activism to protect human rights.

I assumed both of us were following the example and teachings of Jesus. I guess I'd respect others even if I wasn't Christian, because I think the Christian way of life leads to the best life. But I get respect for others from Jesus. As far as I can tell, so does the liberal tradition, though for many there it has become disconnected from its source.

I don't know the anabaptists well, but my understanding was that they were also following Jesus' example, more than deriving their values from some abstract such as authentic faith.

I think you're using "separate from the State" ambiguously. There are several ways in which we might separate from the State:

* Rejecting the State's coercive power when applied to religion. Aside from the question of whether Jesus would support it, I think history suggests that it tends to corrupt Christianity. Again, I thought the anabaptists agreed with both motivations.

* Rejecting participation of Christians in the State. I support that, as indeed most Christians do. This is an area where I believe many anabaptists do not agree with me. Is that "political activism?" Most Christian groups are politically active on issues that concern them. I don't think the mainline folks that I know are any more active than other Christians. There are, unfortunately, limits to how useful the State can actually be in implementing Christian ideals, and dangers to depend too much upon it.

 

[drstevej]

The best work on the Radical Reformation is George Williams, The Radical Reformation.

Both English Calvinist Baptists and English General Baptists have roots in separatist Puritanism. The General Baptists had significant contact with Dutch Mennonites while in Holland but their soteriology is not distinctly Mennonite nor Arminian. I did my dissertation on this topic.

 

[WisdomTree]

Good stuff. Just a couple of corrections:

I hate to defend Zwingli, but the Anabaptists weren't Zwinglians who broke off. Balthasar Hubmeier came to Zurich in order to preach anabaptism, and subsequently left after being shot down by Zwingli. Anabaptism should really be considered as its own movement and not a branch of Reformed Christianity.

Also, the Anabaptist movement on the European Continent didn't have nearly as much to do with the later non-Latitudinarian positions in England such as Puritanism and nonconformism as certain Baptist groups would have us believe. Although they were loosely inspired by them, and the Mayflower Pilgrims were more directly inspired by continental Anabaptists, the majority of the non-conforming British parties sprung from debates in seventeenth century England unrelated to the primary four Anabaptist sects.

I guess I also wouldn't want to lump Jan Hus with the other pre-sixteenth century reforming voices, because Hus himself was very conservative in outlook, moreso than Luther, whereas Waldo and Wycliffe were as radical if not more than Zwingli. Big gulf.

Otherwise a fine summary!

Thanks! For someone who knows jack all about the Radical Reformation, I take that as a great compliment.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

The best work on the Radical Reformation is George Williams, The Radical Reformation.

Both English Calvinist Baptists and English General Baptists have roots in separatist Puritanism. The General Baptists had significant contact with Dutch Mennonites while in Holland but their soteriology is not distinctly Mennonite nor Arminian. I did my dissertation on this topic.

Exactly the book I'd recommend, though I must confess I haven't read it cover to cover. Also glad to see I wasn't too far off in seeing the connection between Baptists and Anabaptist being rooted in contacts in Holland. I was referring earlier specifically to the Mayflower Pilgrims; I take it the contacts between the General Baptists were more extensive? And I was under the impression that General Baptists were defined over-against Particular Baptists specifically by being Arminian; could you clarify where I'm misunderstanding?

Just d/led your dissertation and see you went to WTS. Awesome. I thought about going there and checked out the campus a few years back. Hope I get to read your dissertation at some point.