The Anabaptist Way: Retracing the Footsteps of our Forefathers

T he Anabaptist Way Retracing the Footsteps of our Forefathers

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BIG PURDY PICTURE

T he Anabaptist Way Retracing the Footsteps of our Forefathers

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The colonnade in the portico outside of the San Batolomeo church building in Caspano (a town associated with Anabaptist Camillo Renato). Here, we are told in the Chronicle of Caspano and the Neighboring Villages, people sat discussing theology, God, and the sacraments.

BIG PURDY PICTURE

A PUBLICATION OF TRUET T McCONNELL UNIVERSIT Y

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Table of Contents VI

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WHAT IS AN ANABAPTIST?

CONRAD GREBEL

RIELIN & SALMEN

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THE GREAT COMMISSION

B ALT HA SAR HUB M AIER

MICHAEL SAT TLER

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THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE

HANS HUT

LEONHARD SCHIEMER

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X LV I I I

THE BELIEVERS’ CHURCH

FELIX MANZ

WA L P O T

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RELIGIOUS LIBERT Y

PILGRAM MARPECK

SOURCES

Editorial Staff PUBLISHER Dr. Emir Caner EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Dr. Michael Whitlock EDITOR Jenny Gregory DESIGNER / PHOTOGRAPHER Adam Roark WRITERS Dr. Emir Caner Dr. Maël Disseau Dr. Jason Graffagnino Dr. Michael Whitlock Dr. Brad Reynolds CONTRIBUTORS Hana Caner Ross Mutimer Cindy Disseau Dr. Gary Jarnagin Director of Financial Development Valarie M. Reeves Director of Marketing and Communications

The Hutterer & Taüfer house in the Village-Museum of Niedersulz, Austria.

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Inside the main building in the Moravian Anabaptist bruderhof settlement in Čermákovice, Czech Republic.

What is an Anabaptist?

I am often asked by TMU students, what

is an Anabaptist? The simplest, most comprehensible, most profound answer I have found is: An Anabaptist is one who truly believes that God speaks in His Word (authority and sufficiency of Scripture), in such a way, that one has immediate access to God and stands individually responsible before Him. As you will read in this publication there is much more to defining Anabaptists. But for the person without degrees in history and/or theology, this definition helps one understand both the importance and meaning of the term Anabaptist. Further, this helps explain why TMU has distinguished herself as a school honoring those who truly believe in soul-responsibility. I would define soul-responsibility as the belief that one is responsible only to God for the decisions of the soul. One is free to believe and obey God’s Word unhindered by man.

This concept of soul-responsibility naturally flowed from the Anabaptist idea that the true disciple of Christ is the one who follows God according to his or her own conscience directed by the Word of God, unhindered by ecclesiastical hierarchy or state authority.

The Reformers would have certainly agreed that one not go through a man to get to God with regard to salvation, but the Anabaptists differed from the Reformers in that they would not limit soul responsibility to salvation. Even after salvation, Anabaptists would affirm that man is not beholden to a priest (or any ecclesiastical hierarchy) to hear from God. Thus, one does not find congregational

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rule in denominations that find their roots in the Reformers (Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican and Episcopal churches). In these denominations, if a group of believers go to God in prayer to seek His guidance with regard to the functioning of the

her emphasis on the Anabaptists, of telling students “Go where God leads you! Don’t go where dad or mom or pastor calls you. Go where God calls you!” And they are! They are going where God is calling them. Thus, TMU students are part of the departure from the

local church, they cannot act upon God’s leading unless their respective elders or bishops approve. The Anabaptists, on the other hand, took soul-responsibility to its logical conclusion. The idea that a person not go through man to get to God, extends beyond the decision of salvation and even to the functioning of one’s life in the local church. Thus, congregational rule is not just a democratic concept, it is a Biblical one.

Additionally, congregational order means believers are accountable to one another in their local churches. The priesthood of all believers does not imply I am an island to myself. Rather, with salvation one should immediately align with a local body of believers for accountability and encouragement. Here, the body of believers love each other, exercise their spiritual gifts, and bear one another’s burdens. As such, Anabaptists viewed the local church as integral to their faith. One could not be a disciple of Christ without the building up of the body of Christ together (Eph. 4:11). The idea that I do not need church is not found in the New Testament.

State-Church and her Reformers. They are in that sense Anabaptists.

So, how does this concept of full soulresponsibility work itself out at TMU? By individuals going to God to discover/know their calling in life. Not to a priest, not to an elder, not to a bishop, but to God. This is why TMU is so distinguishable.

TMU has the richest heritage, because of

The articles contained in this publication are written by arguably the greatest assembly of Anabaptist scholars of any institution of higher of learning. TMU has more Anabaptist scholars on faculty than any Baptist seminary. Dr. Emir Caner’s Ph.D. dissertation focused on the life and writings of Anabaptist Balthasar Hubmaier.

Dr. Jason Graffagnino’s focused on the two earliest Anabaptist catechisms. Dr. Michael Whitlock’s focused on the Anabaptists' understanding of Justification by Faith.

And Dr. Maël Disseau focused on Camilo Renato’s Anabaptist view of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. No wonder, TMU, rightly understands Anabaptism, perhaps more than any other institution, and rightly explains it to her students; so that the students leave here fulfilling their calling from GOD (not man).

Dr. Brad Reynolds

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T he Great Commission

The tower prison at Falkenstein Castle.

From here, in December of 1539, ninety Hutterite brethren were marched to Trieste where they were supposed to be condemned to serve as galley slaves. Their story and especially their conduct during their court trial resulted in the admiration of the local population and favorably impacted the propagation of their ideas in and around Trieste and eventually the Venetian Republic.

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While Christ’s commission is found in

some form or another in all four gospels and in the book of Acts (Mark 16:15-18; Luke 24: 46-49; John 20:21; and Acts 1:8), the most well-known version is found in Matthew 28:16-20. This passage, which appears more frequently than any other text in Anabaptist confessions of faith or court testimonies, was central to the Anabaptists’ faith, for as they would themselves say, “Christ didn’t say to his disciples: go forth and celebrate the Mass, but go forth and preach the gospel.”

To understand the Great Commission, it is essential to understand the structure of the passage found in Matthew. Here, as Jesus speaks with His disciples, He commands them to do one thing: that is to ‘make disciples’ (or as Mark would put it, to proclaim the gospel). One could say that He commands them to spiritually reproduce themselves, for they themselves are referred to as disciples (v. 16), and as such are described as people who are obedient to the commands of the Lord Jesus, whom they recognized and worshiped as God. This, even though they were not perfect, for some did doubt (vv. 16-17). Disciples are to be made of all nations, underscoring God’s sacrificial love for all humanity, and therefore our love for all of His created beings. This Great Commission is enabled by the one who has all authority and is Immanuel, God with us.

This command is supported by three participles (verbal adverbs). We are to make disciples having gone. As the Anabaptists understood very well, our call as Christians is to go wherever God sends us. For some it is across the street, and for others it is across the world. Whether the early Anabaptists traveled due to persecution, for business needs as they exercised their professions, or to start missionary outposts, these “pilgrim people became a great intentional power for spreading the gospel to every creature, and their internal community structure was organized to sustain the enterprise.” They understood, as we should, that wherever He sends us, we are to make disciples.

This presents a holistic perspective on our mission which seeks to reach all people, everywhere, for the gospel.

We also are to make disciples baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Baptism, being the public declaration of an inward change (1 Pet 3:21), is the first act performed by a disciple as he or she believes with his or her heart and confesses with his or her mouth (Rom 10:9). This sign of our union with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection (Rom 6:4), is to come after salvation. Anabaptists therefore pointed to baptism’s position in the Great Commission (following the command to make disciples) as one of the many justifications for believer’s baptism.

As Riedemann would present it: “where Jews or Gentiles wish to come to faith, they must first be taught; and then when they confess their faith, they may be baptized.”

This was not a novel idea; we see in Jerome’s fourth century commentary on Matthew that the early church understood from the Great Commission that: “First they teach all nations. Then they baptize those they have taught with water, for the body is not able to receive the sacrament of baptism before the soul has received the truth of the faith.”

Finally, we make disciples teaching them to observe all that Jesus has commanded us. Inherent to the Great Commission is the prompting to teach one another (Col 3:16) and exhort one another (Heb 10:25).

Within this prompting we also find the eternal propagation of the commission itself. Melanchthon, a magisterial reformer, presented the view of his contemporaries when he claimed that “no one anymore [had] such a general apostolic commission,” yet the Anabaptists rightly understood that “the commission applied to the most simple believer, and claimed him as an evangelist.”

After all, if the eleven were commanded to make disciples and to teach these disciples all that Jesus had commanded, then they would have had to teach them to make

RIGHT | The city of Asolo, Italy, where Tiziano established a vibrant Anabaptist community that became a center of intense missionary activity in the region around Venice.

BELOW | The Alpine region was a center of fervent Anabaptist mission efforts.

disciples, therefore committing the Great Commission to each subsequent generation.

In the Anabaptists’ minds the sword was to be rejected as a means of evangelization, for God calls the “glorious and contagious forthgoing of the inspired community,” armed only with the authority in the gospel, to be His instrument in expanding His kingdom. This led Franklin Littell to claim that “it is not too much to call the Täufer [Baptists] forerunners of the modern missionary movement,” for by their allegiance to Christ’s words and the Great Commission, they not only restored the New Testament church, but also the New Testament’s missionary patterns.

Anabaptists, seek to train a new generation who will live out the Great Commission regardless of the vocation to which God has called them.

Dr. Maël Disseau

Here at Truett McConnell, we, like the

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here is a theological truth taught to the reader of Scripture on the very first page of the Bible: God’s Word is powerful and effective. Genesis 1:3 reveals that God’s Word was the powerful means by which He created the heavens and the earth.

Language was not a human invention. God communicates through His words and even within the Trinity. Genesis 1:26 notes divine intra-Trinitarian dialogue, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.” God created human beings with the capacity for language in order that they might know Him and have fellowship with Him. In Hebrews 4:12, the author informs his readers that the “Word of God is living and active” and that it judges the “thoughts and intentions of the heart” (NASB). As the living Word of God, Scripture continues to be God’s efficacious speech to His people.

During the Reformation of the sixteenth century the cry of Sola Scriptura (Scripture alone) was a primary rallying point. The Anabaptist as well believed that the Bible was the authoritative word of God which provided the true legitimate source for Christian doctrine and conduct. Balthasar Hubmaier wrote in 1524, “Search in Scripture, not in papal law, not councils, not fathers, not schools; for it is the discourse

T he Sufficiency of Scripture View of the courtyard from inside the main building in the Moravian Anabaptist bruderhof settlement in Čermákovice.

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which Christ spoke which will judge all things.”1 Scripture was the true Word of God and was the sole source for Christian truth. Yet, was the Word of God in Scripture enough? Was more needed for Christian belief?

The Lutheran and Reformed of the sixteenth century believed an additional working needed to be added to the Word in order for it to be effective in the hearer. The Spirit must work internally. The Anabaptists also understood that the powerful working of the Spirit was necessary for effect. Balthasar Hubmaier wrote, “We must be born of water and Spirit, that is, through the Word of God . . . which Word is made alive in us through the Spirit of God, without whose working it is the killing letter.”2 However, there is a notable difference. The Reformation notion of Word and Spirit indicates that the Word only has effect in those to whom the Holy Spirit gives faith to believe, whereas for Hubmaier the indication is that the Spirit is always at work in the heart of the hearer of the Word wherever and whenever it is preached. Faith comes through hearing the Word (Romans 10:17). In the concluding paragraph of “Freedom of the Will I” Hubmaier admonishes those who “are waiting also for a special, unusual, and

miraculous drawing of God which he would use with them, as if the sending of his holy Word were not enough to draw and summon them.”3 God’s Word is sufficient.

God’s effective Word is the basis on which Hubmaier contends for the free will of human beings. God draws by His Word and the Word is powerful enough to be believed by all. Hubmaier also writes in “Freedom of the Will I”, “Through it [the Word] God gives power and authority insofar as they themselves want to come; the free choice is left to them.”4 Scripture is the powerful Word of God and the believed Word transforms the heart and life of the believer.

The Spirit is always at work in the Word, because the words of Scripture are the words of the Spirit.

While children have been taught to sing “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so,” in contemporary Christianity, one wonders if the Bible is enough. Often believers look for an additional word from God, a personal word, or a confirming experience. Believers, however, need no other speech by which they hear God. The living Word of God, the Bible, continues to be the powerful speech from God to His people. It is sufficient. Scripture does not merely record times when God spoke, or the experiences of personal encounters with

Him. The words of Scripture are the very words of God Himself. As such, they are powerful. As the author of Hebrews insisted they are “living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword” (NASB). The sufficiency of Scripture means that the Bible is enough for God’s communication to His people.

Another important element was found in the sixteenth century Anabaptist understanding of the sufficiency of Scripture. The Bible, as the sufficient Word of God was intended to be believed and obeyed. While other reformers taught that the commands of God could not be obeyed, the Anabaptists saw them as characterizing the lifestyle that true believers were to live. One primary command that the Anabaptists took to heart was the command to make disciples in Matthew 28:19. Other Reformers viewed the Great Commission as given only to the original apostles; the Anabaptists took Jesus' words at face value and believed the command to make disciples was a command given to all true disciples, and so they endeavored to preach the gospel house to house and village to village, even at great personal cost. For them, the Word of God was enough. The Christians responsibility is to hear, believe, and obey.

Dr. Michael Whitlock 1534 Froschauer Bible displayed in the museum at Schleitheim.

A miniature Gospel of Matthew written in Russian. Russian German Anabaptists, persecuted for their faith under communism, used these miniature books (here shown in a coffee mug) so as to hide the precious Word of God from those who sought to confiscate it.

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Much of the debate of the Reformation in

T he Believers’ Church

the sixteenth century centered on how God justifies the sinner. However, the structure of the medieval Catholic church was such that closely connected to the question of justification, was the issue of the nature of the Church. Is the church the universal hierarchical institution established by Christ on the foundation of Peter? Or, is the church a social institution founded as part of Christian society, so that citizenship and church membership are synonymous? Or, is the church the local body of believers founded by the Spirit and gathered on their common confession of faith that Jesus is the Son of God? In other words, is the church one universal institutional body controlled by the pope, or an institution of Christendom controlled by the state, or the gathered body of Christ under the headship of Christ alone beholden to neither pope nor state? The Anabaptists, compelled by their desire to reclaim the New Testament church, held to the latter, or what has been termed the Believers’ church.

Donald Durnbaugh in his book The Believers' Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism, identifies four characteristics of the Believers’ church: (1) Autonomy, (2) Confessional (as opposed to creedal), (3) Communal, and (4) Voluntary.1 Each of these characteristics are manifest in the Anabaptists’ attempt to reclaim the true New Testament church. In order to better understand the theological core of the Believers’ church perhaps the best procedure is to consider the four characteristics in reverse order from the order that Durnbaugh listed them.

Volunteerism was a major component for the Anabaptists. The simple theological reason is that discipleship demanded it. Discipleship cannot be coerced.

In Anabaptist preaching and writing, discipleship was often associated with gelassenheit (surrender). Surrender to Christ cannot be something that is forced by authority, because true surrender is an internal decision that manifests externally.

Obedience under compulsion of human authority is no obedience when it comes to following Christ. Not even God coerces

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discipleship. Balthasar Hubmaier wrote, “He [God] wants to have uncoerced, willing, and joyous guests and donors, these he loves. For God does not force anyone except through the sending and calling of his Word.”2 True believers are self-surrendered to Christ.

The uncoerced self-surrender to Christ forms the theological underpinnings to believer’s only baptism. Baptism, for the Anabaptists, is the believer’s public confession of faith. Through the water of baptism, the believer, who had willfully and fully surrendered to Christ internally by faith, testifies outwardly to the same.

Further, there is a second direction of the believer’s confession in baptism. Not only is it a public identification with Christ, it is also a public testimony to the congregation that the believer is willing to submit himself to the discipline of the congregation in holding him accountable for living a life proper for a disciple of Christ.

Again, the believer makes the vow willingly, not under compulsion. One could only believe willingly, and only true believers constitute the church. Walter Klassen notes in reference to the Anabaptist understanding of the church, that it is “the gathered congregation of believers who have voluntarily entered it by baptism upon confession of faith.”3

That group of willing disciples that are surrendered to Christ necessarily form a community of Christ in fellowship with Him and one another. That community congregated together is the church. The Anabaptists repeatedly defined the church as a gathered body of believers. The body operates in brotherly love and brotherly admonition. Community was so emphasized within Anabaptist congregations that the Lord’s Supper had a communal focus. The Supper was a pledge of brotherly love and sacrifice. In 1526 Hubmaier, in his catechism explained that in the Supper, believers, by virtue of their participation pledged their willingness “to sacrifice and shed their body and blood for one another” just as Christ had done for each of them. In 1537 Menno Simons wrote that the Supper was “an incitement to brotherly love.”

A further element of the communal nature of the church was communal accountability.

Anabaptist churches sought to maintain a disciplined congregation through fraternal admonition. The believer who voluntarily submitted to the baptismal waters, testified to the congregation in baptism that his desire was to live in concert with the commands of Christ. Through his baptism, the believer placed himself under the loving care of the congregation who committed to hold him accountable in obedience to Christ. The Believers’ church is not a hierarchical or social institution which has a life beyond the members. The church is precisely the members of Christ gathered in love and service to Christ and one another around their common confession that He is Lord.

That common confession forms the church.

In Hubmaier’s catechism he explains that the church is founded “on the oral confession of faith that Jesus is the Christ.”

Hubmaier’s Scriptural source is Matthew 16:18 where Jesus declared that He would build His church on Peter’s confession that Jesus is “the Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matt. 16:16, NASB). The church of Christ is a confessional church. Only those who make confession of their faith in Christ constitute the church. Theologically that principle is referred to as regenerate church membership. Only those born again (regenerated) by the Spirit, are members of the church.

In the context of the sixteenth century that was a core distinction. The Catholic church and the state churches of the magisterial reformers maintained infant baptism, so infants became members of the church. As those infants matured many of them were not true believers yet remained members of the church. In order to justify this, the reformers resorted to Augustine’s contention that the visible church was a mixed body which included tares among the wheat. The Anabaptists categorically rejected that idea and insisted the only legitimate members of the church were true believers, those who with sincere hearts confessed Christ as Lord, the Son of the living God.

In the center of the gathered confessors is the Word of Christ. In the Believers’ church Scripture is the doctrinal expression of the congregation. Bernhard Rothman wrote in his “Restitution” in 1534, “The true Christian congregation is a gathering large or small that is founded on Christ in the true confession of Christ. That means that it holds only to his words and seeks to fulfill his whole will and his commandments.”

Scripture alone is the measure of all Christian truth. Hubmaier referred to the Bible as “the plumb line of holy Scripture.”

And, Scripture was properly read and understood in the believing congregation.

The congregation was under compulsion to the Word of God alone. No higher authority existed then Christ heard through His Word.

The authority of the Word of God read in the congregation underscores the fourth characteristic of the Believers’ church, that of autonomy. The local congregation must have its collective conscience submitted to the Bible. The congregation should be free from compulsion in order to follow their corporate understanding of Scripture. In the Catholic church of the sixteenth century, the pope claimed to have the true interpretation of Scripture, and in the magisterial state churches, often city councils and regional princes held final judgment in determining the proper understanding. Anabaptist congregations believed that since true discipleship was voluntary then they must be free to follow their own understanding of Scripture as the gathered body of Christ free from the compulsion of a hierarchical bishop, or government official. The Anabaptists were the foremost proponents of religious liberty in the sixteenth century.

Because one cannot coerce discipleship, if error and falsehood existed then it was to be overcome with gentleness through the corrective Word of God (2 Timothy 3:17). Believers must be free to read the Bible for themselves, to interpret it in their autonomous congregations, and to obey it without interference.

These four characteristics of the Believers’ church, which were manifested in the Anabaptist churches of the sixteenth century and the centuries following, remain the

hallmarks of the believing churches in the twenty-first century. These characteristics were displayed in the churches of the New Testament and continue to be displayed in traditionally distinct Baptist churches.

Dr. Michael Whitlock

RIGHT | This large meeting room, in the main building in the Moravian Anabaptist bruderhof settlement in Čermákovice, most probably was used for corporate gatherings and prayer.

BELOW | This plaque found in a cave in Switzerland reads: This cave offered persecuted Anabaptists in the 16-century protection for quietness and prayer.

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“G

od wants no compulsory service. On the contrary, He loves a free, willing heart that serves Him with a joyful soul and does what is right joyfully” (Claus Felbinger, Anabaptist missionary and martyr Beheaded, 10 July 1560.)1 The principle of religious liberty is borne from the heart and character of God (Matt.

13:24-30), who desires all men to be saved (1 Timothy 2:4), who states the Greatest Commandment is “to love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:37).

Such love cannot be coerced or it cannot, by definition, be love.

Religious Liberty

Statuette of a twentieth century Russian German Anabaptist displayed at Museum für Russlanddeutsche Kulturgeschichte, in Detmold, Germany.

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One of the earliest writings on religious freedom during the Reformation came from Anabaptist theologian and martyr, Balthasar Hubmaier (c.1480-1528), who, using the Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, wrote in his book, “On Heretics and Those Who Burn Them”, “[Heretics], even though they resist, are not to be destroyed until Christ says to the reapers, ‘Gather the tares first and bind them in bundles to be burned.’”2 Hubmaier maintained rightly that God is the judge of the soul, not man, and certainly not government. Indeed, “Christ did not come to slaughter, kill, burn, but so that those who live should live yet more abundantly.”3

Most recognize the tenet of religious liberty due to the sacrifice of our American forefathers who fought for our independence and freedom. Their sacrifice gave us our first freedom – the freedom of religion – inscribed in the First Amendment of the United States Constitution as “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

Hubmaier contended that Christians must use their only offensive weapon, the Word of God, not a literal sword. And such is the key principle to religious liberty – those who demand a certain religious conformity to the State place their trust in government.

They believe that the State should have the power to change lives, to demand one forcibly surrender their soul and conscience to the mandates of a king, prince, pope, or politician.

This fight did not begin in the Americas, but centuries beforehand in the cities and countrysides of Europe where Christian believers desired to worship and exercise their faith freely without encumbrance from the State. More than 250 years before the Declaration of Independence, Anabaptists, also known as Radicals since they desired to follow God’s Word and their conscience alone, stood sacrificially as opponents, both Catholic and Protestant, demanded religious conformity to popes, princes and councils who were in political and ecclesial power.

But for those who believe in the sufficiency of Scripture, we recognize that it is God and God alone, through His Holy Word, who can make one’s path straight, can bring a dead man to life and change the mind and heart of a sinner. As Hubmaier explained, “But a Turk or a heretic cannot be overcome by our doing, neither by sword nor by fire, but alone with patience and supplication, whereby we patiently await divine judgment.”4

Anabaptists refused to comply with orders that were contrary to God’s Word, a decision that would cost many of them their lives.

These men and women gave their lives in hopes of one day experiencing religious freedom, a dream that would not be realized for generations.

This Turk agrees. Believe in freedom. Stand on God’s Word. Share Jesus Christ. That the whole world may hear His Gospel and that many would receive Him willfully and joyfully as Savior and Lord. Truth is Immortal.

Dr. Emir Caner

The prison castle in Trachselwald, in the Emmental valley of the Bern canton in Switzerland, was used to imprison and torture Anabaptists.

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f one were compiling a short list of important historical figures after which to name an academic school in a university, Conrad Grebel’s (d.1526) name would not be an immediately obvious inclusion on the list. He was born in the late fifteenth century to privilege in a prominent Zürich family. The Grebel family was socially, financially, religiously, and politically well represented. As a member of such a family, he had substantial educational opportunities available to him, yet he never completed his university education.

However, it was through those very studies that he gained the tools which allowed him unhindered access to the powerful gospel of Christ that thoroughly transformed his life.

In 1514 he matriculated at the University of Basel, a small university, yet it was the home of Heinrich Loriti, better known as Glarean, Basel’s most prominent humanist scholar.

Glarean’s influence stirred Grebel’s intellect and gave him a taste for the humanist thought of the day. The Renaissance Humanist movement began in Florence, Italy a couple of centuries earlier, and was characterized by a focus on ancient Greek culture, which many viewed as superior to the more earthy, mundane, unsanitary culture of medieval Europe.

The Italian strain of humanism was less religiously focused and morally loose.

However, the northern European version of humanism, defined primarily by Desiderius Erasmus, was much more Christian focused and morally strict. Glarean was a proponent of the Erasmian humanism. As William Estep notes, “Glarean challenged his students to a thorough scholarship, high moral standards, and to discipleship of Christ.”1 Perhaps such an influence would have been stabilizing for Grebel had he remained at Basel.

After being at the university in Basel only a year, his father, Jacob Grebel, a prominent member of the Zürich city council, secured a scholarship for him at the University of Vienna. Conrad Grebel began his studies in Vienna in 1515. Vienna was a larger more prominent school than Basel, yet it was also more morally relaxed. Vienna was an

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Austrian seedbed for a more Italian flavored humanism.

visit in order to “free my eyes from constant tears, my heart from incessant calamities.”4

Consequently, Vienna stimulated more than Grebel’s intellect, and he became a regular participant in drunken brawls and immoral liaisons. The one positive that Conrad Grebel gained from Vienna was his acquaintance with the physician and geography professor Joachin von Watt, more widely known as Vadian. Vadian would become a lifelong friend to Conrad Grebel, and eventually his brother-in-law, marrying Grebel’s sister in 1519.2 In 1518, the plague, a tragic recurring problem throughout those centuries in Europe, broke out in Vienna and forced Grebel’s return to Zürich.

Conrad Grebel did not return to the

However, something dramatic took place between February and July of 1522. In January of 1519, Ulrich Zwingli, the widely known preacher of Einselden was appointed to the Grossmünster (Great Church) in Zürich. Grebel had already been aware of Zwingli and his preaching and knew him to be a leading humanist scholar. By the summer of 1520, Zwingli had begun a small study group or groups in Zürich for those interested in reading the classical literary works. By the fall of 1520, Grebel, still motivated by his humanist intellect and the humanist call of ad fontes (“to the sources” which was a call to return to the original writings of Greek and Latin classical culture), became part of Zwingli’s group. Subsequently, Zwingli seized the opportunity to direct the minds of those participants to the New Testament.

University of Vienna, but the same year he returned to Zürich, his father was able to secure another scholarship for him to study at the University of Paris, where his teacher from Basel, Glarean, had relocated.

In September of 1518, Grebel travelled to Paris to begin his studies there. Tragically, Glarean’s moral influence was ineffective and Grebel resumed his Vienna lifestyle in Paris. His twenty months in Paris were not fulfilling, and after he was implicated in a brawl that took the life of two Frenchmen, Grebel was forced to return once again to Zürich. After nearly six years of university study, Conrad Grebel arrived back in Zürich a dropout, unhappy, and empty souled.

As one might imagine, his relationship with his parents was strained and post-university life did not improve. In 1522, he gained what seemed to be momentary happiness when he married Barbara, a young woman he referred to as his Holoksome (whole world).

His parents, however, did not approve of her or the marriage. In a letter to Vadian dated February 6, 1522, the day that his marriage to Barbara was formalized, Grebel noted that his mother Dorothea, “sheds tears constantly” in reference to the marriage. 3 Even though by all appearances he was very much in love with Barbara, his turbulent relationship with his parents continued to drive him to despair. In the same letter of February 6, he pleads for Vadian to come

Grebel had acquired some skill in Greek and perhaps in Hebrew while in Paris, and so began reading the New Testament in its original language. The practice of reading the New Testament over the next year and half apparently revolutionized Grebel’s life. The change in Grebel is evident in his letters and in the letters of others as well.

In October of 1522, a humanist scholar from Basel and advocate of the Swiss Reformation, Macrinus, wrote to Zwingli and asked him to “greet . . . Conrad Grebel, who . . . has developed into an exceptional advocate of the gospel.”5

Grebel’s thorough reading of Scripture radicalized his understanding of the Christian life and belief. Grebel, and others, took Scripture as something to be acted upon, not just debated. Their implementation of Scriptural teaching began in rapid succession when joining Zwingli in rejecting the medieval Catholic mass, yet they exceeded Zwingli in denying the city council’s authority in establishing the timeline for the reform of the mass. This initial fissure between Zwingli and Grebel, with his likeminded cohorts, cracked irreparably over the issue of believer’s baptism. A rapid succession of events in

January 1525 culminated in what had been declared earlier in that day as an illegal meeting on the evening of January 21 in the home of Felix Manz. Driven by their obedient reading of Scripture, George Blaurock requested that Conrad Grebel baptize him “with a true Christian baptism upon his faith and knowledge.”6 Grebel did so, and in turn received believer’s baptism himself from Blaurock.

Grebel and the others were now true disciples of Christ and fugitives of the state.

They began a Great Commission ministry of spreading the gospel from house to house, village to village, and they were hunted all the way. Within eighteen months, by the end of summer 1526, Conrad Grebel was dead, a victim of the plague.

In a span of approximately six years Grebel went from a restless nomadic college dropout driven by pleasure, to a sacrificial disciple of Christ carrying his cross as he evangelized those who also looked for fulfillment in their lives. One might wonder what would cause a privileged young man bent on the pleasures of the flesh to turn his back on that privilege and to live a life of suffering on the run. In Grebel’s case, it was a true belief in the gospel of Christ and an uncompromising obedience to the Word of God. Grebel’s studies of the humanities provided him the tools to encounter the effective Word of God through which he was faced with the greatest need of the human condition, namely a relationship with living Lord of creation, Jesus Christ.

Dr. Michael Whitlock The red-light district behind the Grossmünster (the Large Cathedral) in Zürich. Here on January 21, 1525, in the house of the mother of Felix Manz (the illegitimate son of a catholic priest), George Blaurock asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him as a believer.

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The plaque found on this building in ZĂźrich reads: In this house lived, from 1508-1514 and from 1520-1525, Conrad Grebel who founded the Anabaptist movement together with Felix Manz.

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“For in thee, Father, I hope; let me not be

ashamed in eternity.”1

Location in Vienna, Austria, where Balthasar Hubmaier was held and tortured.

“There is no such thing as a stained-glass saint.”2 Perhaps no other statement so concisely and accurately explains the life and ministry of Balthasar Hubmaier (d. 1528), the foremost theologian of formative Anabaptism. Viewing his life chronologically, you could describe the stages of Hubmaier’s life as follows: unknown peasant, Catholic apologist, passionate believer, Anabaptist theologian, disgraced recanter, renewed pastor, influential author, thriving evangelist, faithful martyr.

Born in Friedberg, Germany, little is known of Hubmaier’s early childhood. There are no birth records, no preserved documentation of his lineage. He was a simple peasant raised as a devout Catholic in a land about to undergo a theological seismic shift that will change the landscape of the religious world. Nonetheless, the intellectual acumen of Hubmaier was evident. He exceled academically and, even without financial means, finished his education, ultimately earning his Doctoral Degree in Theology from the renowned University of Ingolstadt.

The unknown peasant was about to embark upon a career that would shine a light upon his oratory and intellectual talent.

The newly minted doctor received his first assignment, cathedral preacher in the prominent Catholic town of Regensburg.

The town was embroiled in a battle between the Jewish quarter, which was financially prospering, and the rest of the town, which was in economic decline and needed to borrow money from Jewish bankers. The high interest rates charged by the bankers fueled an anti-Semitic hatred seething below the surface. Hubmaier, a brilliant communicator, was expected to use his powerful pulpit and to take up the cause of the Catholics against the Jews, something he did with great enthusiasm and zeal. The Jews were quickly driven out of Regensburg and their synagogue was confiscated and remodeled to be the Chapel to the Beauteous Mary.3 Hubmaier was successful

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in his religious crusade – yet there was an emptiness in his heart that none of these religious endeavors or rituals could fill.

The more Hubmaier devoted himself in religious rituals, the less joy he found. Thus began Hubmaier’s search for truth. His journey to Christ was paved through the Scriptures, specifically the Pauline epistles.

Hubmaier received Christ sometime in 1522, as he would write later: “Like others, I was blinded and possessed by the doctrine of men. Therefore, I openly confess before God and all men that I then became a doctor and preached some years among you and elsewhere and yet had not known the way to eternal life. Within two years, Christ has for the first time come into my heart to thrive. I have never dared to preach him so strongly as now by the grace of God. Yield yourselves to God, trust him, build on his Word, and he will not forsake you.”4 Hubmaier was a new creature (2 Corinthians 5:17), brought near by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). Such transformation changed his ministry. Hubmaier immediately announced to his congregation that he was beginning a series on the Gospel of Luke. His passion may have been too great for the Regensburg church and Hubmaier eventually ended up moving to the small border town of Waldshut where he would continue his ecclesiastical reforms towards a New Testament pattern. Changes included the church services spoken in German (no longer Latin), the Lord’s Supper given as a memorial of Christ’s death (not as a sacrament), images being removed, and ministers permitted to marry. At the same time, Hubmaier wrote “On Heretics and Those Who Burn Them,” a trailblazing work on the biblical concept of complete religious liberty (Matthew 13:24-30).

The culmination of Hubmaier’s reforms came on Easter weekend 1525. On Saturday, Hubmaier received believer’s baptism by Wilhelm Reublin. The next day, Hubmaier baptized more than 300 believers, establishing one of the largest believers' churches in Europe. The Catholic authorities

would have none of it! These “rebaptizers,” known as Anabaptists, since they disregarded infant baptism and required baptism subsequent to salvation, must be stopped, and their leader must be punished.

Hubmaier became a wanted man.

Hubmaier left Waldshut, hoping his departure would spare the town from suffering at the hands of the authorities.

He traveled south to Zürich where he was arrested by one of the leaders of the Protestant Reformation, Ulrich Zwingli.

The latter, supported by the magistrates, demanded Hubmaier recant his radical, Anabaptist faith. Hubmaier agreed to recant publicly at the Fraumünster Church, but his conscience would not allow him to do so.

Instead, he stated, “Oh, how I have had great conflict and tribulation last night over what I had permitted myself to say. Now I must say that I am unable to recant.”5 Zwingli was furious! He imprisoned Hubmaier for three months, put him on bread and water rations, and finally placed him on a torture rack to retrieve the needed recantation. Hubmaier was humiliated.

His followers, along with other Anabaptist leaders, were disillusioned. The theological leader of the movement had caved to physical persecution. He had failed.

Hubmaier’s sole supporter and his greatest friend, his wife Elisabeth, stood beside him as he left Zürich and the movement he loved so deeply. However, over the coming months, Hubmaier and his wife found solace and comfort in the homes of Anabaptist friends who refreshed his spirit and gave him needed encouragement. He regained his faith.

In the summer of 1526, Hubmaier entered the town of Nikolsburg, Moravia (modern day Mikulov, Czech Republic). Nikolsburg, under the auspices of the Liechtenstein family, was a city known for granting religious toleration, a town where Catholics, Lutherans, Anabaptists, and others lived and worshiped. Perhaps surprisingly, Hubmaier was asked if he would lead the Anabaptist fellowship assembled there. He

agreed and entered the most fruitful period of his ministry. Over the course of about one year, the Anabaptist church baptized between 6,000-12,000 people, including baptizing Leonhard Liechtenstein. Hubmaier published 17 works on such important topics as free will, religious liberty, believer’s baptism, church discipline, and the Lord’s Supper. Many of his works, even to this day, are unparalleled in their faithfulness to Scripture.

It was not long until King Ferdinand, the brother of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, demanded Hubmaier’s arrest. Hubmaier was taken to Vienna and imprisoned. He and Elisabeth were separated from each other, imprisoned under awful conditions, and tortured. Here, authorities would try to break his spirit and change his mind.

After all, Hubmaier readily acknowledged his inability to handle physical pain and he had already recanted a few years ago.

Hubmaier stood firm regarding his belief in believer’s baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and the believers' church.

On March 3, 1528, Hubmaier was publicly condemned and placed on the torture rack once again. But this time, the Anabaptist found his strength in his Lord and would not waver. One week later, he was led to the stake and burned. One eyewitness described Hubmaier as “an immovable rock in his heresy.” Hubmaier’s final words stated: “O dear brothers, if I have injured any, in word or deed, may he forgive me for the sake of my merciful God. I forgive all those that have done me harm.”6

“As they rubbed sulphur and gunpowder into his beard, which he wore rather long, he said, ‘Oh salt me well, salt me well.’ And raising his head, he called out: ‘O dear brothers, pray God that he will give me patience in this my suffering.’”7

There will be times that a Christian grieves the Spirit of God. There will be times we disappoint those around us. There will be times we give in to weakness and temptation. But there is no such thing as a stained-glass saint. There are, however, true stories of heroic men like Balthasar Hubmaier who, though he was admittedly weak, lived a life based on the principles of Scripture and trust in His Lord. These lives exemplify to contemporary believers that we, too, can live a life fully devoted to Christ. Our lives may be flawed, but our Savior is faithful. Our failures do not have to define us – our faith can. Hubmaier prayed fervently, “Let me not be ashamed in eternity.” He was not.

Now, a distinctively Christian university in the mountains of North Georgia has the privilege of honoring this man of God. Truth is Immortal.

Dr. Emir Caner

Balthasar Hubmaier would have been paraded in the shadows of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna as he was taken to his execution.

After calling out to Jesus one last time, he died. Three days later, Hubmaier’s wife, Elisabeth, was drowned in the Danube River for her faith.

The path of living a life pleasing to God is paved through many trials and tribulations.

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The old “Preacher’s House” in the Anabaptist area in Nikolsburg (now Mikulov in the Czech Republic) where Hubmaier may have lived. Only the original foundation remains.

The opulence of Castle Lednice, the summer residence of Hubmaier’s benefactor Leonhard von Liechtenstein, is in stark contrast with the simplicity of Anabaptist life.

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The Castle in Nikolsburg, which was home to the Liechtensteins.

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H

ans Hut (d. 1527) was a businessman.

He travelled throughout Germany, Austria, and Moravia (the Czech Republic) plying his trade as a bookbinder and seller in the sixteenth century. Through his business he first came into contact with the gospel, and after his conversion continued to be a witness for Christ throughout his travels.

Following the Apostle Paul’s example of tent making, one might say that Hans Hut embodied a “business as mission” philosophy in the sixteenth century.

Hut was born in Haina in Germany sometime in the 1480s. By 1521 he was operating as a bookbinder and a travelling book seller. During the Reformation of the sixteenth century, the ideas of the reformers spread through two primary media. First, and perhaps most significantly, was evangelical preaching. As priests turned reformers, like Luther, Zwingli, and Hubmaier studied Scripture and became convinced of the truth of the biblical gospel, they took to their pulpits to preach that truth to their congregants.

his newborn child baptized. The authorities in Bibra demanded that he baptize his infant or divest himself of his property and leave town. Hut chose to leave.

After leaving Bibra with his wife and

Second, discovery in Europe of offset printing led to an explosion of printed material. The reformers were able to have their writings published and distributed quickly and affordably. Consequently, the ideas of the Reformation spread geographically throughout Europe.

Bookbinding and selling in the sixteenth century would have been a rising business.

Through Hut’s business he came into

Hut’s life. He was reacquainted with Hans Denck and through Denck’s influence, Hut accepted the Anabaptist message. On May 26 Denck baptized Hut. Hut’s mission and preaching indicated a notable change at that point. Hut continued to draw attention to the coming return of Christ and the suffering that true Christians would endure.

However, he no longer focused on an armed uprising but rather on a surrender to Christ.

After leaving Augsburg, Hut apparently

contact with Martin Luther’s writings.

On more than one occasion, his business travels took him to Wittenberg. While there, Hut attended church services and lectures and became interested in Luther’s ideas. However, sometime in 1524, Hut became bothered by Scripture passages that indicated believer’s only baptism. Hut indicated that he could not find satisfactory answers from the Wittenberg reformers.1 Sometime around then, Hut met three tradesmen in Wissenfels in eastern Germany. After his conversation with those laymen concerning infant baptism, Hut returned to Bibra where he refused to have

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five children, Hut probably ended up around Nuremberg where he first met the Anabaptist Hans Denck, who would become important a little later in Hut’s life. In the spring of 1525, Hut was selling books in Germany and ended up in Frankenhausen where he heard Thomas Müntzer preach. Hut had first met Müntzer the year before in Bibra where Müntzer had sought out Hut in order to have a pamphlet published. Müntzer’s preaching was not only theologically radical, but socially radical as well. Müntzer encouraged peasant revolt, and Hut was briefly caught up in the armed uprising. After the tragic ending in Frankenhausen, Hut fled, but continued preaching a radical uprising much like Müntzer until he eventually arrived in Augsburg in 1526.

His arrival in Augsburg would change

returned briefly to his native Haina in the summer of 1526. Hut immediately began preaching there and baptized his first converts. They would not be the last he baptized. As he continued his business travels, now as a way to support his mission, Hut preached the gospel and baptized believing converts throughout regions of Germany, Austria, and into Moravia.

During Hut’s few years as an Anabaptist, he baptized literally hundreds of converts, and was one of the most effective Anabaptist evangelists of the period. As James Stayer notes, “In 1526 and 1527, he became the most successful Anabaptist missionary in south

Germany and Austria.”2

As was typical for Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, Hut’s life as a missionary was short lived. He arrived in Augsburg in 1527 and participated in a meeting of Anabaptist leaders that has now been termed the Martyr’s Synod. Hut was arrested in Augsburg in September and put on trial, at times questioned under torture on the rack, for his Anabaptist faith. During his period of trial and imprisonment, Hut died as a result of a fire in his cell. Nonetheless, the authorities in Augsburg passed sentence on Hut, condemned him, and burned his dead body at the stake on December 7, 1527.

Hut’s missionary travels as an Anabaptist spanned a brief period of about eighteen months. During that short time, however, Hut made every effort to redeem the time he had as a true disciple and witness for Christ.

Dr. Michael Witlock

Inside St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna. Vienna is where Hans Hut had a significant ministry.

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View from the roof of the prison tower in the castle at Nikolsburg where Hans Hut was held by the Liechtensteins, after a disputation with Hubmaier.

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Exterior of the tower where Hut managed to escape, with the help of a friend, by being lowered down the castle wall at night.

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T

he life of Felix Manz (d. 1527), the illegitimate son of a Roman Catholic priest in Zürich, could have been unworthy of notice. Yet, as God would have it, it was full of firsts, amongst which was the penning of what is thought to be the first Anabaptist hymn: “With pleasure I will sing.”

the people whom he passed and praised God for the opportunity to die for the truth. In the background a voice could be heard, the one of his mother urging him to remain true to Christ in this hour of testing. His final words on this earth were: “Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.”

Not much is known of the early life of Felix Manz except that he had had the privilege of an education with training in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; he was known early on as an accomplished Hebraist. In 1522, he joined Zwingli’s circle of New Testament students, but by 1523 he was already starting to be dissatisfied with the nature and pace of the reforms happening in Zürich.

Not much has been left by Manz in ways of writings, yet the little that we have conveys a picture of one focused on his Lord and on Scripture. In his “Declaration and Defense”, he paints the picture of a Christ follower as one: who loves God through Christ, is full of charity, is merciful, is devoid of hatred, and trusts the one “who knows my every distress, and is mighty to deliver.”

During this time, it was in Manz’s home on Neustadt Street, a stone’s through away from the Grossmünster, that the nascent Brethren movement started meeting, and it was here that in 1525 the first believer's baptism took place. In the early days of the movement, Manz and Blaurock mainly focused on converting farmers and artisans in the Zürich area, but eventually they expanded their efforts to the wide region between Lake Zürich and Lake Constance in the north east corner of Switzerland. It was not long before Manz and the others were arrested and imprisoned, first in the castle at Grüningen and then in the Witch’s Tower in Zürich. Yet, after having escaped the latter, Manz returned to minister in the same corner of Switzerland in which he had been ministering. Eventually he was recaptured almost exactly a year later, and while he was soon afterward released, he was arrested again, for the last time, two months later.

On January 5, 1527, only two years after the start of the Anabaptist movement, Manz was sentences to death, and on that cold winter day, he was executed by drowning in the Limmat River making him the first Anabaptist martyr in Zürich. While he walked from Wellenberg prison to his place of execution, Manz proclaimed the gospel to

As Manz was penning his hymn, while imprisoned in Grüningen or possibly just before his death while in the Wellenberg, he probably did not realize that he would be the first among many in a glorious tradition of Anabaptist hymn writers. Like many who would follow him, Manz wrote and sang praises to God the Father and Christ. His hymn, as would many others, also proclaimed radical obedience to Christ and God’s justice toward the unrepentant sinners and grace to the humble. To this day it is immortalized in the Ausbund (a hymnal published in 1563) and in the first three hymns of the Anabaptist Hymnal.

In Felix Manz, therefore, we have the embodiment of what our school of music seeks to produce: Christ followers who proclaim their savior in all humility, centered on Scripture, rejoicing in God Himself and in His grace, and willing to follow Him, wherever He will take them.

Dr. Maël Disseau

The statue of Ulrich Zwingli depicts him holding a sword, symbolizing the continued tie that the Magisterial Reformers had with the state.

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“I Will Delight in Singing” (Mit Lust so will ich singen) Ausbund, No. 6 (18 stanzas) Adaptations appear in Nos. 1 (“With Pleasure I Will Sing”), 2 (“I Will Delight in Singing”), and 3 (“All Praise to Jesus Christ Our Lord”) of the Anabaptist Hymnal 1.

I will delight in singing, In God o’er-joys my heart; For grace He is me bringing, That I from death depart Which lasting ever, hath no end; I praise Thee Christ from heaven, Who dost my grief attend.

2.

Him God to me sending, Example and true light, Who me, e’er my life’s ending, Doth to His kingdom cite; That I with Him have endless bliss, And from my heart may love Him, And all His righteousness.

7.

Christ, then, would I be praising, Who patience shows to all, With friendship us embracing, Moved by His grace withal; His love to all men shows He, too, In likeness to His Father, Which no one false will do.

This memorial plaque on the border of the Limmat river in Zürich, commemorates the drowning of Felix Manz and five other Anabaptists during the Reformation from 1527 to 1532.

9.

Christ no one is co-ercing His glory-world to share; They heaven are traversing Who willingly prepare, Through faith and baptism rightly wrought, Repentance, with hearts holy; For them is heaven bought.

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Panoramic view of Zürich and the Limmat river

10.

Christ, in His blood thus shedding, Which He did willingly, And His great task not dreading, This would He have us see, Us with His holy power endows; For who Christ’s love constraineth, In holy likeness grows.

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12.

Where Christ’s love is abiding, Is spared the enemy, And Christ proclaims this tiding To all who heirs would be; That who shows mercy lovingly And keeps His Lord’s clear teaching, Is glad eternally.

13.

All shall be judged by Jesus Christ, Yet none does He accuse, Who falsely hate the life of love, The Word of God confuse; Until the final judgment day, When those who scorn He will repay, Their hope of heav’n refuse.

14.

All love abides in Jesus Christ.

He knows no scorn or hate.

His servants follow in His steps, And daily demonstrate His life of light, His life of love, His wondrous joy, the witness of A heart compassionate.

15.

Those hate and envy harb’ring, Cannot true Christians be; And those who evil, inj’ring, Fists strike enmity; Before our Lord to kill and thieve, Blood innocent they’re shedding In base hypocrisy.

16.

Thus shall men be apprizing Those who with Christ are not, Who Christian rules despising, With Belial’s kind do plot, Ev’n as did Cain in sin o’erthrow, When God owned Abel’s offering; And hence must suffer woe.

17.

Herewith shall I be closing; Observe, saints, one and all, It is not indisposing To notice Adam’s fall, Who, too, received the tempter’s voice, His God was disobedient, And death became His choice.

18.

So those who Christ withstanding, Whom worldly lust ensnares, Shall likewise find their ending; No godly love is theirs.

So closet here this hymn, indeed; With Christ I am remaining, Who knows and meets my need. Amen.

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B

orn to a noble family in the city of Rattenberg in the Austrian Tyrol, Pilgram Marpeck (d. 1556) followed in his father’s footsteps and became active in the civil, economical, and political life of the city. He most probably began his religious journey as a Roman Catholic, for his later writings show his familiarity with the doctrines of the Trinity, Christology, and councils like Chalcedon, yet he had no formal theological training. In 1520, around the age of 25, after having married Sophia Harrer, Marpeck enrolled in the Brotherhood of Mining Workers and began his career as an engineer. During his tenure in Rattenberg, he held the office of mining director (15251528), a very prestigious position where he represented the king directly in matters of commerce and law. At some point, before the death of Sophia in 1528, the Marpecks had a daughter, Margareth.

Civic duty led Marpeck to be Rattenberg’s representative as he interceded on behalf of a Lutheran pastor, Stephen Agricola. Many speculate that this incident led Marpeck away from the Roman church and its “system composed of ‘human intentions’ that enslaved a person” with human accretions to the gospel, and towards a newfound Lutheran freedom. As he would later narrate in his “Exposé of the Babylonian Whore”, he “came to the truth partly through [the evangelicals’] writing, teaching, and preaching,” but he quickly grew dissatisfied with a lifestyle of fleshly freedom which he observed in many of them.

RIGHT | Ugo Gastaldi, in his Storia dell'Anabattismo, places Marpeck in the Grisons after he fled Strasbourg in 1534.

So, while they were instrumental in liberating him from “the Babylonian captivity,” they failed to lead him “through the narrow gate through which the flesh … could once again be led into the liberty of Jerusalem.” Furthermore, he grew disturbed that those who did proclaim the Biblical message were “persecuted by these teachers, who become their betrayers and executioners.”

It is not known when Marpeck joined the Anabaptist ranks, but it is most likely that he was introduced to Anabaptist preaching in the Inn Valley in early 1527 and was attracted by their “primitivist vision of a

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restored New Testament Christianity.” It is also during this period that Marpeck was pressured to police the miners’ religious affiliations so that the Anabaptists might be apprehended and punished. After protesting this mandate, Marpeck promised to uphold it as part of his office. Two days later, Leonhard Schiemer was beheaded and burned, and five days later in January of 1528, Marpeck resigned from his post. As a consequence, he and his new wife, Anna, were banished from Rattenberg. Between their marriage and their banishment, the Marpecks adopted three orphans of miner(s), who eventually remained in Rattenberg with portions of the Marpeck estate.

It is uncertain what happened in the interlude; some oral traditions have the Marpecks traveling to Moravia and being commissioned by the Moravian brethren to go to “Strasbourg to baptize.” What we know for sure is that Marpeck was listed as a citizen of Strasbourg in September of 1528. Here he used his engineering skills and worked as the engineer of the city’s forests, probably bringing to Alsace some of the Tyrolian engineering methods. This allowed him to build a “water system for the city and wood-floating flumes in the surrounding valleys.” Here, he also became an honored member of the religious community.

Reformers Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer spoke highly of him, initially even referring to him as being “of unblamable conduct.” Strasbourg was a home to many dissenters, such as Caspar Schwenckfeld and eventually Melchior Hofmann, among others. In this setting, Marpeck quickly became prominent among the Anabaptists, eventually holding meetings in his home, and became instrumental in a parting of ways among the dissenters dealing with issues of apocalyptic eschatology and Christology. It was also here where Marpeck refined his theology of the incarnation and “grounded the authenticity of the Anabaptism in ecclesiology, its theology as well as its practice.”

Eventually, though, Marpeck was thrown in prison by Bucer. Given his record as a

public servant and Capito’s intercession, he was freed. In December of 1531, he requested a public debate with the clergy of the city mainly over the issue of infant baptism, which he lost, resulting in the request from the city council that he leave the city. Before departing, Marpeck appeared in front of the council one more time and assured them that he “never had any intentions of changing the political order in Strasbourg, but only desired to have freedom in the spiritual realm.” After a second disputation in January 1532, he eventually left the city.

The following years are usually considered the itinerant years of his life and were most probably spent primarily in Switzerland and Moravia. During this period, cities like St. Gall continued to benefit from Marpeck’s engineering skills which he used working with municipal forests and water supplies.

Eventually, he ended up in Augsburg, where again he was recognized as an asset to the city. Here he continued his Anabaptist work, both with the local congregation and with the pen. He eventually died of natural causes in 1556.

In Marpeck we find an engineering theologian who “was not so much concerned with precise theological definitions as he was with sincere and entire obedience to God, whose will was revealed in Scripture.”

Like an engineer who applies the learned principles of physics and chemistry to his craft, Marpeck took his thirst for theology and applied it as he “sought a church which could provide sustenance for engineers and housewives.” We have in him, therefore, the embodiment of what our school of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics seeks to produce: a Christian leader in the sciences who serves his/her community with his/her knowledge of science, yet stays passionate to the Lord and His church by thinking biblically and living a sacrificial life to enhance the Kingdom of God.

Dr. Maël Disseau

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ABOVE | The Alpine regions of Switzerland, Austria, and Italy provided Marpeck with work as a forestry engineer and with a fertile mission field as a preacher of the Gospel.

RIGHT | TäuferhÜhles like this one were common places of gathering for Anabaptists on the run such as Marpeck and his wife.

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A

mong the Anabaptist women of the sixteenth century, many engaged society in stark contrast from prior eras. Some Anabaptist women served as weavers, teachers, bakers, printers, and even, physicians. Particularly, the events of the time led to changes in the practice of midwifery and the standards concerning that act of service. Martha Rielin and Elizabeth Salmen were two Anabaptist women who ministered as nurse midwives.

In fact, it appears that in many areas throughout Europe, numerous Anabaptist women functioned as midwives. One reason for the apparent large number of Anabaptist midwives was that some of them were willing to declare they had conducted an emergency baptism of an infant that appeared in danger of dying, when in fact, the child may have been healthy and the midwife had not baptized it at all. In such a way, the child was documented as having been baptized when it was not. In addition, Anabaptist women desired to place confidence in their midwives in order to be sure the midwife would not baptize in the case of a sickly newborn child, for the mothers held to believer’s baptism only. Lastly, as matter of argument with local officials, if unordained midwives were authorized to conduct a valid baptism, then why not allow Anabaptist leaders license to baptize adults? This became both a theological and a governmental debate.

Augustine’s influence upon the practice of infant baptism was still being felt during the sixteenth century. Though theologians debated whether an unbaptized child would go to heaven, nervous parents desired surety in the matter. When a child was near death, laypeople were allowed, and even demanded, to perform emergency baptisms.

An anonymous pamphlet dated around 1570 alluded to Anabaptist involvement, or lack thereof, in “emergency baptisms.” Evidently, this “An Instruction for Midwives, How They Are to Baptize in an Emergency” was authored by a paedobaptist to address the Anabaptist midwives’ refusal to participate in such ceremonies. The pamphlet proposed three conditions in which an emergency baptism was to be carried out upon dying

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infants and specifically addressed the “heresy” of the Anabaptists (believer’s baptism). Typical medieval catechisms also contained analogous directives to laypeople regarding emergency baptism requirements.1

Martha Rielin was an Anabaptist midwife from Medelsbach, Germany and was married to Michl. She refrained from going to (Catholic) church for weekly mass and she repeatedly received orders from local government and church officials to cease her practice as a midwife. She received heavy fines for her refusal to comply. Court records from 1574 detailed her impact upon her community: “Martha is still a midwife, even though she is no longer authorized. We have dealt with her often, but to no avail.”2 As early as 1577 and as late as 1578, Martha Rielin was described as an “evil Anabaptist” that was often seen in the community, but refused to witness infant baptisms in the Catholic Church.3 There are no records that indicate Martha Rielin ever gave in to the pressure of the local officials. Apparently, she remained steadfast in her Anabaptist beliefs to the end.

Elizabeth Salmen was another of the Anabaptist nurse midwives. She was married to Jerg and was summoned to appear at the local courts in Stuttgart, Germany because of her actions as an Anabaptist midwife. She was toward the end of her own pregnancy when she was summoned to Stuttgart for a second time, but she did not appear due to her physical condition. Apparently, the court issued a statement in Elizabeth’s absence: “The suspicion exists in this market town that the midwife takes money and says that she carried out emergency baptism on the children of the Anabaptists so that they will remain unbaptized. The pastor and other trustworthy people say that when the child was brought to church it had a quite lively color and healthy scream. Since no one attended the emergency baptism except two wives, one of whom is related to Elizabeth, the observer in the presence of the bailiff and the pastor of Fellbach asked the midwives under oath if they had baptized the child, which they affirmed, ‘for the child was weak at that time.’”4

The court records continued to document “that the midwives cease baptizing infants without specific authorization, and not in the presence of people who are suspected of being Anabaptists. If they violate this rule they will be punished seriously.”5 As was the case with Martha Rielin, there are no records that indicate Elizabeth Salmen ever acquiesced to the courts.

Anabaptist midwives may have considered the deeds of the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah (Exodus 1:15-21) as justification for their own artfulness. They protected the wishes of Anabaptist mothers to not have their infants baptized, and they represented a clear picture of dissent against a theological and governmental system that violated the biblical values of the Anabaptists. These women took Scripture seriously. It drove their decision making as they carried out the call God had placed on their lives.

Our Rielin and Salmen School of Nursing has been named for these two steadfast women. As they ministered to the patients in their care, they were driven by God’s Word in defending their own biblical views and the views of the mothers. Our nursing faculty and students at Truett McConnell University strive to care for people through the living and breathing Word of God. The call to “love God” and “love our neighbor” is ever before us.

Dr. Jason Graffagnino

Truett McConnell women holding a chain in solidarity with persecuted Anabaptist women at the Hutterer & TaĂźfer house in the Village-Museum of Niedersulz, Austria.

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FAR LEFT | Mill stones like this one were often used to execute Anabaptist women, who, like Elizabeth Hubmaier, were tied to them and dropped into a river to be drowned.

LEFT | Pregnant Anabaptist women were often chained to their home so that they could continue to take care of their housekeeping duties during their pregnancy. Once the child was born and the woman was not needed anymore, she would then be executed for her faith.

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ichael Sattler (d. 1527) is most often known for his barbaric execution and for being the major architect of the Schleitheim confession. While he is fondly remembered among the Anabaptists, what is most telling of the grandeur of the person is how those who did not share his convictions thought of him. Bucer and Capito, contemporaries of Sattler who spared no love for other Anabaptists, called Michael “a dear friend of God” and grieved the news of his execution.

Bossert, a twentieth century Lutheran pastor, described Sattler’s life as “noble and pure, true and unadulterated.”

This German Benedictine prior in St. Peter’s monastery, in the Black Forest northeast of Freiburg, probably started being dissatisfied with the unbecoming life of his fellow monks and the teachings of the Roman church as he was studying the Pauline epistles. This eventually resulted in his severance of ties with the monastery and the Roman church. Sometime after his departure from St. Peter’s, Sattler married Margaretha, and the two, who by now had picked up the weaver’s trade, settled near Schaffhausen and lived there from May 1525 to August 1526.

Living only a short distance from Waldshut, Sattler would have been familiar with the works of Hubmaier and Reublin, who some believe was Sattler’s baptizer. Finding himself in the company of the Swiss Brethren in Zürich, on November 18, 1525, he was banished from the canton and asked to take an oath never to return. Approximately a year later, Sattler resurfaced in Strasbourg, but, after a failed attempt at reaching out to the reformers, he eventually left of his own accord and, at the invitation of Reublin, moved to Germany and began to work in Rattenburg and Horb, eventually establishing house churches in the area.

The death of Grebel and Manz had left a vacuum of leadership, and Sattler, having recognized the crisis, took the opportunity at the meeting in Schleitheim in February of 1527, to pen a set of articles. A draft of which he might very possibly have brought with him to the meeting. These seven articles were not intended to be a full doctrinal

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confession, but probably were intended to be more of a “common man’s handbook on Anabaptist distinctives.” Given the articles on baptism, the ban, the breaking of bread, and the pastor, the Schleitheim confession in many ways, presents itself as a sort of church manual. Interspersed in it are three more articles on separation from evil, the sword, and the oath where one starts seeing components of Sattler’s, and the Swiss Brethren’s, convictions about religious liberty.

Upon his return from Schleitheim to Horb, Sattler, Margaretha, and others were arrested by the Rattenburg authorities and imprisoned in the tower of Binsdorf.

Here they were prisoners of the Roman Catholic Austrian authorities who wanted to immediately drown Sattler, due to his importance to the Anabaptist movement.

However, since others wanted to provide an appearance of justice to this ecclesiastical case, a trial was scheduled for May 15 and began May 17, 1527. Having been given their choice of attorneys, Sattler argued that “according to the Word of God … they had no right to go to law over religious affairs,” and declined legal representation.

Simultaneously, while acknowledging the authority of the court, he proclaimed that he did not recognize their jurisdiction and competence in religious matters.

The two day trial charged Sattler with nine charges, eight of which he addressed before the court, some by gladly accepting them and others by correcting the errors of his accusers. After an hour and a half deliberation, the sentence returned: “In the case of the Governor of his Imperial Majesty versus Michael Sattler, judgment is passed, that Michael Sattler shall be delivered to the executioner, who shall lead him to the place of execution, and cut out his tongue; then throw him upon a wagon, and there tear his body twice with red hot tongs; and after he has been brought without the gate, he shall be pinched five times in the same manner.”

Two days later, the sentence was carried out, and after Sattler had prayed for his persecutors, he was bound to a ladder and pushed into a fire so that he might be

burned to ashes as a heretic. While in the fire, he admonished the people around him to repent and be converted and prayed for God to give him the strength to testify to the truth and seal it with his blood. Eight days later, since she would not recant, Margaretha was drowned in the Neckar River.

In Michael Sattler, therefore, we have the embodiment of what our School of Public Service seeks to produce: Christian leaders who understand the concept of religious liberty and the role of government while being known to have a noble and pure character, who are passionate about Scripture, as well as the law, and who are willing to follow their Lord wherever He will take them.

Dr. Maël Disseau

One of the few remaining extant copies of the Schleitheim Confession from the sixteenth century exhibited at the Schleitheim Museum.

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The Swiss town of Schleitheim, where on February 24, 1527 the first Anabaptist synod was held, probably led by Michael Sattler, and where the BrĂźderlich Vereinigung (Schleitheim Confession) was drawn up.

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This wooded path, called The Anabaptist Way, was often traveled by Anabaptists between Schleitheim and Zelgli in the Emmental valley of the Bern canton in Switzerland

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eonhard Schiemer (d. 1528) was reared by devout Catholic parents in Vöklabruck.

Austria, and later Vienna, and became a parish priest in that region. He soon became discontented with his position because of the lack of godliness he saw in his fellow priests. Consequently, he joined the Franciscans, who were noted for their piety, at their monastery in Judenburg, Austria.

After six years among the Franciscans, Schiemer fled the discord and duplicity which he witnessed. With the help of a kind citizen, he obtained clothing and enough money to make his way to Nuremberg, Germany. While there, he learned the tailor’s trade and had the opportunity to interact with some of the city’s radical reformers.

Schiemer traveled to Nikolsburg, Moravia (Czech Republic), in the spring of 1527 and met Balthasar Hubmaier. Both Hubmaier and Hans Hut were ministering in Nikolsburg during that time and Schiemer most likely heard the preaching of both men, Hubmaier in his parish pulpit, and Hut in various informal places throughout Nikolsburg. Schiemer stated that he became a Christian on May 6, 1527. However, he deferred receiving believer’s baptism until after he had left Nikolsburg. He followed Hut and Oswald Glaidt to Vienna where he was baptized just before Pentecost, which occurred on June 9, 1527.

Schiemer left Vienna and traveled to Steyr, Austria, which was known for its openness to radical ideas. While practicing his trade and preaching, he baptized many converts to Anabaptism. Schiemer continued to travel throughout Austria and eventually either accompanied Hut or followed him to Augsburg, where both men participated in the Martyrs’ Synod of August 1527.1 Schiemer became one of Hut’s closest companions.

At the time of Hut’s arrest, or shortly thereafter, the Anabaptist brotherhood made Schiemer a “Leermeister” (“preacher”), and he spread his Anabaptist message throughout the Archbishopric of Salzburg, Bavaria (Austria), and the Tyrol (Italy).

While several Austrian monasteries sought to apprehend Schiemer as a renegade friar,

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he boldly continued to preach in answer to the call that God had placed upon his life. Finally, he was arrested in Rattenburg, Tyrol (Austria), on November 25, 1527, after roughly six months as an Anabaptist. He claimed to have been in Rattenberg only one day prior to his arrest, and yet he signed one of his letters to the local Anabaptists “your unworthy bishop.” From his baptism in early May, until his arrest in late November, Schiemer stated that he had visited twentyeight cities in which he had baptized over two-hundred people.

Germanic lands, and Moravia. At least twelve epistles or sermons (or groups of epistles or sermons) and four hymns have been attributed to Him.

The district judge, Bartholomeus Angst, initially was lenient towards Schiemer. He allowed him to come and go as he pleased and provided him with paper and ink to write as much as he desired. However, after a failed escape attempt, Schiemer’s imprisonment became brutal, including bouts of torture and starvation. Facing imminent death, he gained strength through his reliance on the Lord and proclaimed, “If I did not place all my confidence in the Lord, I would fall; but the Lord is my comfort and my confidence; he forsakes no one who trusts him; therefore, we must not trust in our own strength.”2

“Worldly living starts out joyously and ends in eternal sorrow. But our kind of living begins in sorrow. Then soon the Holy Spirit comes, anointing us with the oil of inexpressible joy. But we need not only wait for God to comfort us. Rather, each Christian can comfort another and speak words of comfort to those in tribulation.

That is why God said through Isaiah, ‘“Comfort, Oh comfort My people” says your God.’(Isa. 40:1).”4

The Innsbruck government convinced Judge Angst to speed up the case against Schiemer, and he was sentenced to death by fire according to the directives of Duke Ferdinand. The method for carrying out Schiemer’s death sentence was mitigated to beheading, followed by burning of his body, which took place on January 14, 1528. The Hutterite Chronicle stated that Schiemer’s “testimony to Jesus Christ” as he faced death was so bold that after “him as many as seventy people witnessed with their blood” in the same place.3 Leonhard Schiemer’s impact on Anabaptism was astounding when one considers the fact that his most influential period took place for approximately seven weeks while he was imprisoned. The tales of much of South German and Tyrolean Anabaptism came from his pen. His writings were collected in a booklet or pamphlet (probably for the local Rattenberg congregation) and distributed widely throughout Switzerland,

Schiemer was known for the encouragement he provided to others through his preaching, his faithful witness and his writings. He wrote on the subject of suffering probably more than any other Anabaptist. While in prison, in the midst of his own torture and suffering, he wrote to other Anabaptists and proclaimed:

Our School of Psychology and Biblical Counseling is named for an Anabaptist martyr who understood pain and suffering.

He also understood inexpressible joy.

Leonhard Schiemer accomplished what we desire of our students: to comfort and encourage the hurting with the healing of the Truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Dr. Jason Graffagnino

In Vienna, the Anabaptists held a meeting in a house on Kärntner StraĂ&#x;e. Here Hans Hut and his circle baptized 50 persons, including Leonhard Schiemer.

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In the town of Nikolsburg (now Mikulov in the Czech Republic), Leonard Schiemer was influenced by the preaching of Hans Hut and Balthasar Hubmaier.

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t the age of ten, Peter Walpot (d. 1578) witnessed the martyrdom of George Blaurock in Klausen, South Tyrol (Italy).

That life changing experience must have spurred the young man to develop into a leader of great stature among his Hutterite Anabaptist brethren. He and his wife, Gredel, served as Anabaptist missionaries in Poland and the Czech Republic in the 1530s and 40s in the face of severe persecution. Peter, the Vorsteher or “leader” of the Hutterite Anabaptists from 1565-78, addressed an assembly of instructors with these words and indicated the seriousness and solemnity that he and his wife Gredel looked upon education: “Dear Brethren: We have thought it good to call you together and discuss with you the work of the office which has been assigned to you in the schools, so that you might exercise more diligence to care for the children who have been entrusted to your care by the Lord and by us and that you may direct their minds to honour and fear God, so that they may be brought up in the nurture of the Lord and may receive from their youth the very best at your hands.”1 In fact, at a time when elementary education across Europe was in deplorable condition, the Hutterite Anabaptists’ level of education and literacy rates were among the highest on the continent. While much of rural Europe was almost entirely illiterate, these Anabaptists produced schools with quality instruction and strict discipline which caused many of the lords and other outsiders to enroll their own children in the Hutterite schools. The quality of the Hutterite Anabaptist education was evidenced through preserved documents of that period.

In a typical Hutterite Anabaptist Bruderhof or “community,” there were customarily two schools: a “small school” and a “large school.” In the small school women began teaching children as young as two years of age “the sacred prayer.” Once the children understood the main aspects of “the prayer” they were challenged to do something useful with their hands, the boys with reading and writing, and the girls with spinning

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and sewing. When the children had learned to read and write, usually around age six, they were transferred to the “large school,” which was under the control of a male instructor, where the level of education became exceedingly advanced. The Hutterite Anabaptist schools served as quasi-boarding schools, in which the institutions provided more than Christian and secular instruction in some places, including bathing the children and providing care for them day and night.

Christian instruction, all to be done “to the glory of God.”3

The twenty-four hour care of children which took place in some of the Hutterite Anabaptist schools, even with the popularity of the schools among the noblemen, led some others to question the legitimacy of those Anabaptist institutions. In 1557 the Lutherans accused the Hutterite Anabaptists of neglect with regard to the upbringing of small children:

For these Anabaptists, the educational institution was seen as a Christian enterprise and one which was carried out through teachers who served out of divine vocation.

Peter Walpot reminded the instructors that the Hutterite children had “been entrusted to [their] care by the Lord” and that they were not only to educate them, but more importantly, they were called to “direct [the students’] minds to honour and fear God.”4

“We know that the way of communal life in Moravia is an immoral one, and it is particularly cruel that they take away the young children from their parents and that they should be brought up all alike in a common school, and that many children die because of hunger and other neglects.

In Summa, such devilish communism is an impossible thing against all nature and law.”2 The Hutterite Anabaptists responded boldly to the allegations of the Lutherans: “You Lutherans should know that our children are dear to us in our hearts before God according to the truth, and that we are most concerned about them. Of that God Himself will bear testimony on the Day of Judgment. Then our slanderers would learn that they have reviled unjustly the way we bring up our children. The children are conscientiously taken care of and educated; it is our endeavor to bring up the children in divine discipline, and to plant in their hearts the right morals and commandments of God.” They went on to give details as to their way of discipline, including teaching the youngsters to pray, table manners, and

It was not until 1775, over two hundred years after the establishment of Hutterite Anabaptist compulsory schools, when children between the ages of six and twelve were required to attend school in the Hapsburg Empire. The Hutterite Anabaptist “small schools” were in operation 270 years before modern kindergartens were instituted in Germany in the late 1830s.

In Peter and Gredel Walpot, we have the namesakes of our School of Education. Our school aims to emulate the message of these Anabaptists: 1) diligence to care for the children who will come under our graduates’ care; 2) passion to direct the minds of the next generation to honor the Lord, and 3) desire to give our very best in all that we do.

Dr. Jason Graffagnino

There are records of the presence of a German school in the town of Schleitheim dating back to 1532.

The museum in town is housed in the old schoolhouse and offers a reconstruction of an old school room.

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Moravian Anabaptist pottery, like this piece, was often purchased by noblemen in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as a status symbol. This particular jug can be found in a collection in the Mikulov Castle in Mikulov, Czech Republic.

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An old school desk displayed in the Hutterer & TaĂźfer house in the Village-Museum of Niedersulz, Austria. Hutterite Anabaptists were pioneers in emphasizing the education of children.

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THE GREAT COMMISSION

CONRAD GREBEL

BALTHASAR HUBMAIER

Disseau, Maël L. D. S. “Segni: Camillo Renato’s Anabaptist View of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper?” Ph.D., Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2014.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

1 Claus Felbinger, “Felbinger’s Confession,” 149, in William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story, third edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), 261.

1 William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth Century Anabaptism, 3rd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1996), 31.

1 William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story, third edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), 93.

Littell, Franklin H. The Anabaptist View of the Church: A Study in the Origins of Sectarian Protestantism, rev. ed. The Dissent and Nonconformity Series, vol. 11. 1958. Reprint.

Paris, AR: The Baptist Standard Bearer, 2001.

2 Balthasar Hubmaier, “On Heretics and Those Who Burn Them,” in H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder, Balthasar Hubmaier, Theologian of Anabaptism (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 61.

2 Conrad Grebel’s numerous extant letters to Vadian provide scholars with the most significant source of insight into Grebel’s life and his involvement in the Zürich reformation.

Simonetti, Manlio, ed. Matthew 14-28. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture, vol. NT 1b.

Edited by Thomas M. Oden. Downers Grove: IVP, 2002.

3 Ibid., 62. This is Article 14.

3 Leland Harder ed. The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents, (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 165.

4 Ibid., 62.

THE SUFFICIENCY OF SCRIPTURE

4 Ibid.

1 H. Wayne Pipkin and John H. Yoder, Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 55.

5 Ibid., 188.

2 Ibid., 431.

3 Ibid., 447.

4 Ibid., 444.

3 John Allen Moore, Anabaptist Portraits (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1984), 167-69.

4 Emir Caner, Baptist History (Cleveland, GA: Class notes, 2016), 68.

5 Caner, 73.

6 William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story, third edition (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1996), 103.

7 Ibid.

THE BELIEVERS’ CHURCH 1 Donald Durnbaugh, The Believers’ Church: The History and Character of Radical Protestantism (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1968, Reprinted Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2003), 5-7.

2 H. Wayne Pipkin, and John H. Yoder, eds.

Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1989), 444.

3 Walter Klassen, Anabaptism in Outline: Selected Primary Sources (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1981), 101.

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6 George Hunston Williams, The Radical Reformation, 3rd ed. (Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2000), 217.

The reference in Williams is quoted from the Hutterite Chronicle.

2 During my doctoral dissertation, I sat down with William R. Estep, the foremost Anabaptist scholar in the 20th century among Southern Baptists, regarding Balthasar Hubmaier. Estep used this statement to explain the life and ministry of Hubmaier. Studying most heroes of the Christian faith, this statement rings true throughout church history.

HANS HUT

FELIX MANZ

PILGRAM MARPECK

1 Herbert Klassen, “The Life and Teachings of Hans Hut,” Mennonite Quarterly Review, 33, no. 3 (July 1959), 178.

Atwood, Preston Lee. “The Martyrs’ Song: The Hymnody of the Early Swiss Brethren Anabaptists.” Artistic Theologian 2 (2013): 64–92.

Klassen, William. Covenant and Community: The Life, Writings, and Hermeneutics of Pilgram Marpeck. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., 1968.

Estep, William R. The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1996.

Marpeck, Pilgram, Walter Klaassen, Werner O. Packull, and John D. Rempel.

Later Writings by Pilgram Marpeck and His Circle. Anabaptist Texts in Translation, vol.

1. Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 1999.

2 Jsmes M. Stayer, “Swiss-South German Anabaptism, 1526-1540,” in A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700, ed. John D. Roth and James M. Stayer (Boston: Brill, 2011), 85.

Marpeck, Pilgram. The Writings of Pilgram Marpeck. Classics of the Radical Reformation, vol. 2. Edited by William Klassen and Walter Klaassen. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2000.

A partial reproduction of a galley ship displayed at the base of the Falkenstein Castle. The Falkenstien Castle was known for hosting captive Hutterite Anabaptist brethren before they were forcibly marched down to Trieste to be condemned to slave labor on galley ships where most of them found their death due to the poor living conditions and the exhaustion of the forced labor.

Yarnell, Malcolm B. The Formation of Christian Doctrine. Nashville: B&H, 2007.

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REILIN AND SALMEN

MICHAEL SATTLER

LEONHARD SCHIEMER

WALPOT

1 William Klassen, “Midwives,” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online (1989), accessed 30 April, 2017, http://gameo. org/index.php?title=Midwives&oldid=92854

Estep, William R. The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism, 3rd ed. Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans, 1996.

2 Gustav Bossert, Quellen zur Geschichte der Wiedertäufer, vol. I, Herzogtum Württemberg (Leipzig, 1930. New York: Johnson Reprint, 1971), 380.

Yoder, John Howard, ed. The Legacy of Michael Sattler. Classics of the Radical Reformation, vol. 1. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1973.

1 The “Martyrs’ Synod” was actually not an official “synod” at all, but rather a gathering place for Anabaptist refugees who had fled from severe persecution in Austria to Augsburg, which was one of the few places where persecution had not been inflicted on Anabaptists. Hut was the main leader of the meetings, and he espoused his apocalyptic expectations, causing both excitement and discord among the local Anabaptists. Many of those present at the August meetings were apprehended and executed shortly afterward. Hut was arrested 15 September 1527 and executed in early December 1527.

See Werner O. Packull, Mysticism and the Early South German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement 1525-1531 (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1977), 118-21.

1 Peter Walpot, “Peter Sherer’s [Walpot] Address,” (1568); trans. Harold S. Bender in “A Hutterite School Discipline of 1578 and Peter Scherer’s Address of 1568 to the Schoolmasters,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 5 (Oct 1931): 241.

3 Ibid., 390, 505, 516.

4 Ibid., 380.

5 Ibid.

2 Leonhard Schiemer, “Leonhard Schiemer's Schriften, ” in Glaubenszeugnisse oberdeutscher Taufgesinnter, ed. Lydia Müller (Leipzig: M. Heinsius, 1938. Reprint, New York: Johnson Reprint, 1971), 76.

3 The Hutterian Brethren, trans. and ed., The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, Vol. 1 (Rifton, NY: Plough Publishing House, 1987), 56.

4 Leonhard Schiemer, “Three Kinds of Grace Found in the Scriptures , the Old and the New Testaments (1527)” in Daniel Liechty, trans. and ed. Early Anabaptist Spirituality: Selected Writings, in Classics of Western Spirituality (New York: Paulist Press, 1994), 94-95.

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2 Robert Friedmann, “Some Further Studies pertaining to the Handbüchlein of 1558,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 29 (Jul 1955): 221.

3 Ibid.

4 Walpot, “Peter Sherer’s Address,” 241.

RIGHT | The Hutterer & TaĂźfer house in the VillageMuseum of Niedersulz, Austria, displays their trade tools in commemoration of the many Anabaptists who lived an agrarian lifestyle.

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