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| John of Leyden |
Some think that English Baptists owe much to some European Baptists who originated within the European Reformation movement. Others believe English Baptists owe little, if anything, to European Christians. How did this happen?
In the Europe of the 1500s, the first to re-baptize Christian believers were found in Southern Germany and Switzerland. Thomas Muntzer in 1521, had proposed a radical reformation of church and society. He supported peasants in Mulhausen, South Germany, in a revolt against their political leaders, which would have meant the separation of church and state, a revolt which Martin Luther opposed. Muntzer lost his life in the tragic aftermath of the revolt. In Zurich, Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz felt the reformer Zwingli was too timid, and they began a ‘church’ in their own home. In 1524 they pressed for a ‘confessing church’, which would admit only adults who personally declared their faith in Christ, and they made a public stand for adult, believer baptism. Grebel believed the church consisted only of those who made such a confession. In an early attempt to set up the church as ‘a gathered fellowship of believers’, this community would then receive the Lord’s Supper in someone’s home.. The whole matter came to a head in Zurich in 1525 when the civic authorities banned believers’ baptism, and in1527 the civic authorities arrested Manz, who was tied to a bedstead and publicly drowned in Zurich’s River Limmat. A church was emerging which offered a new ethic of love and non-resistance. Balthazar Hubmaier, another Anabaptist, published a defence of toleration in matters of religion, titled Concerning heretics and those who burn them, in which he claimed that persecution was an invention of the devil.
In Europe there were, according to Dr Morris West, three kinds of Anabaptists, who had one thing in common, they did not fit into the suppositions of either Catholics or Protestants about the unity of Church and State. Evangelical Anabaptists put Scripture at the centre of their lives, recognising it as authoritative for humanity, and capable of interpretation by the Holy Spirit. To such believers alone the benefits of the Lord’s Table to be given. The Anabaptist Spiritualists put all their emphasis on the direct, personal inspiration of the Holy Spirit. They played down the ‘church idea’ and had no interest in the sacraments. There were Anti-Trinity Anabaptists, who denied the understanding of God in three persons. These groups drew large numbers of people, because their personal commitment to being ‘living saints’ was very attractive. They were essentially Bible Christians of a precise kind. When opponents said they had Zwingli’s word on a situation, they would reply they had God’s Word on it! They claimed the Roman Catholic model of the Church was completely at variance with the Bible. They argued for the restitution of the New Testament Church, not the reformation of Rome. [See W M S West, in A Gilmore [ed.], Christian Baptism, Lutterworth Press, 1959, pp.223-272]
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| Anabaptists burned at the stake |
Anabaptist political involvement in Europe resulted in a disaster which haunted Baptists for three centuries. It happened when a group of Dutch Anabaptists arrived in Munster seeking sanctuary. Once there, they convinced the leader of the group they joined in the city that infant baptism was wrong. The Bishop of Munster disagreed, but died before he could enforce his will, and in 1534 the Anabaptists won an election in the city as many more refugees flooded in. The city authorities surrounded Munster with an army. In the fighting that followed the Anabaptist leader, Jan Matthys was killed and John, of Leyden, took control. He proclaimed himself King, officially advocated polygamy on the basis of Old Testament precedents, and proclaimed Christ’s ‘return’ was imminent. The end came when a deserter betrayed the city’s defences to the besieging army. The ensuing slaughter was total. This incident made ‘Anabaptist’ a by-word for social anarchy and political dissolution. Some who escaped with their lives were then led by a former Roman Catholic priest, Menno Simons, and his name was later given to the successor communities which to-day are known as Mennonites, a significant community in the Europe and America.
The one English Baptist group that became involved with Dutch Anabaptists were those who, under Elizabeth I, had split from the Church of England to set up ‘separatist’ churches that ignored the ‘parish’ structures of England. Persecution took them to Geneva and Holland. In Holland their leader, John Smyth, and his friend Thomas Helwys, submitted to believers’ baptism, and established the first English Baptist Church on Dutch soil. Eventually Helwys and Smyth agreed to part, with Helwys and some of his friends setting up the first English Baptist church in Spitalfields, London in 1612.
Although many Baptists rejected the Anabaptist tag, in the light of Munster, a number of Baptists looked favourably on some of their other ideas. English Baptists led by Helwys adopted what is called an Arminian view, others from a Puritan background took a Calvinistic view of Christianity. What is the difference? To understand this, you need to answer to this question: When Jesus died upon the cross, did his death mean that all people had the potential to be delivered from their sin and receive forgiveness? Or: when Jesus died upon the cross was salvation only on offer to those who God had, in his wisdom, predestined to eternal life? We shall consider this question in our next article.
ROGER HAYDEN
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