Radical Reformers

To call a group “radical” may appear judgmental by modern standards of tolerance, but that is exactly what the Reformers intended….

The Reformation as Renewal: Retrieving the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, by Matthew Barrett

Anabaptists

In 1527 a group of Swiss Brethren met, and Sattler was the one to lead them in the formation of the Schleitheim Articles, the first of the Anabaptist confessions.

Michael Sattler was a German-born Benedictine monk turned Anabaptist.  Separation was a primary concern for this group; separation from abomination.  And just who had committed abomination?  Anyone who practiced infant baptism, among other transgressions.

Give in to sin’s temptation?  Shunning.  Confronted twice, then admonished before the entire congregation, then banned from the Lord’s Table.  This idea of separation was a hallmark for such groups, distinguishing them from the magisterial Reformers. 

Further, an equally committed pacifism.  They were not to pick up a worldly weapon.  So, why were these pacifist Anabaptists led by Sattler a threat?  The Turks were on the border of Austria.  This idea of pacifism would not do, and it could not be allowed to spread.  But it was worse:

To kill a Turk is to break the fifth commandment.  However, if murder was permitted, then Sattler would not bother trying to kill Turks when others lived who were far more deserving of execution: Christians.

This hostility to Christians could lead to a violent uprising (such an uprising happened, six years later at Münster).  Sattler was executed.  It wasn’t pleasant: first, his tongue was cut out; then, he was dragged behind a wagon until his skin was scraped off; then his body was carved up with hot tongs; finally, he was burned at the stake.  Some of his followers were beheaded, and his wife was drowned.

Balthasar Hubmaier was a student at Freiburg and Ingolstadt.  He would study under Luther’s nemesis: Johannes Eck.  It was Luther that would bring him to the Reformation; he was also influenced by Zwingli.  He would soon enough decide that their reforms were not sufficient – starting with infant baptism.  Being chased and accused, he would recant but later return to his views.

He was a strong defender and supporter of free will – obviously contrary to Luther and sounding more like his old teacher Eck.  Yes, the soul and the body were tainted with original sin, but not the spirit; this remained intact after the fall.  Man could freely and willingly be obedient, choosing the good.

…God may have created you without your aid, but he will not save you without your aid. 

The decision lies with man whether he will cooperate with God.  It followed that infant baptism was not sound.  As free human decision is required for regeneration, and regeneration is necessary for baptism…well, an infant has no such capacity for a free human decision.

Han Hut was a supporter of Müntzer, but as he did not fight alongside, he was eventually set free.  Not that he was against fighting; it was just too soon.  The advance of the Turks on Vienna was a sign – a judgment of God on the Christians – that the time was fast approaching. 

Melchior Hoffman would claim to be the new Elijah, sent by God to establish the new Jerusalem.  Jesus would return in 1533, and enter this new Jerusalem – Strasbourg.  Prior to Christ’s return, his true church (the Anabaptists) would reign over the earth.  everyone else would be put to death. 

But 1533 came and went, and Jesus never returned.

Hoffman would spend the next ten years rotting in prison.

There were others, variations on the same theme: Jan Mathijs announced that he was appointed by God to annihilate the ungodly from the earth; whoever did not join the Anabaptists would be put to death. 

Jan of Leiden would replace him; he was the king of righteousness, chosen by God to establish the New Jerusalem.  Polygamy was the answer to the problem of how to get to 144,000 quickly.  The women resisted, at least until Jan had one of his wives beheaded and trampled in the marketplace in front of the rest of them.

A Catholic-Protestant army would settle this situation; Anabaptist blood ran through the streets of Münster like a river.  Whatever credibility Anabaptists had up until this time ended with this episode.  Civil authorities were worried that these pacifists could turn violent; they were right.

Finally, Menno Simons.  He believed he could hold together a separatist mindset without the violence.  Having begun a Franciscan, he came to wonder if the bread and wine were truly transubstantiated.  He would abandon this idea, along with infant baptism.  Yet, he would hold to nonviolence.

However, he remained hesitant about going public with his beliefs.  When he saw the blood of his brothers, he concluded he could no longer stay out of the public eye.  He committed, even knowing that this could be his end.

He would write many books, clarifying his views and clearing up misunderstandings, all the while hoping to ease the persecutions.  He would plead for religious toleration on issues like infant baptism.  He was a strong supporter of separation – separation from the world.  He also had a Christology out of sync with Chalcedon.  He would defend the Trinity, but he denied that Jesus was of Mary’s flesh.  Mary was a vessel, nothing more.

Mennonites, of course, would multiply – across Europe, Russia, and North America.  When Zwinglians were forced out of London in 1533, it was the Mennonites of Wismar that took them in: love displayed against their former executioners.

The Anabaptists clearly presented a threat to the magisterial Reformers.  The Reformers were after Reform; the Anabaptists seemed more like revolutionaries.  Further, the Anabaptists presented a threat to the civic order: they would not take oaths and they rebelled against the tithe. 

While the Reformers claimed to renew the exiting church, the Anabaptists insisted their new church was the only true church.

Spiritualists

The label identifies those thinkers and societies that protested and dispensed with externals of all kinds and gave highest authority to the internal consciousness of the Spirit.

This is a very broad description, and could include everyone from Karlstadt to Münster.  They agreed with the Anabaptists regarding the corruption of Christendom; their focus was a true internal spiritual change.  They saw that “let’s see what the Bible says” doesn’t solve anything; witness the many proliferations of understanding with the rise of the many strands of Reformers.

This being so, the best option was to cultivate the inner spiritual life on the basis of minimal doctrinal affirmations….

Caspar Schwenkfeld would follow the trail of Luther’s writings.  Just as he convinced his prince to follow Luther and the Reformation, Schwenkfeld would turn on Luther.  By 1526, he could no longer stomach the external means of grace of the Lord’s Supper. 

After all, had not Judas also participated in the Lord’s Supper.

A sole reliance instead on internals; even Scripture was not the ultimate destination (he detested the Anabaptist’s biblicism).  Scripture, too, is merely an external.  Only each individual’s experience of the Spirit within would count.

He would cease to participate in the Lord’s Supper; he would at some point, but only after serious theological shifts were accomplished.  High church ecclesiology was completely an error, based significantly on outward rituals.  As the church was an inward entity, he did not advocate for separatism as did the Anabaptists.

Schwenkfeld’s strongest appeal was to the prosperous merchant class, who saw in his teaching an affirmation of the high culture of the Renaissance.  In the end, he spent his life a permanent wayfarer, not finding a safe place to call home.

Sebastian Franck was also influenced by Luther’s Reformation, and would labor to advance its influence in Nuremberg.  He preached sola fide, but became discouraged when listeners would use this statement as a justification for laziness and immorality.

He held a radical suspicion of tradition.  Unlike the Reformers, who would look to tradition to correct (in their views) the practices and beliefs of the Church, Franck threw tradition out altogether.  While the Anabaptists thought the Church had been lost after Constantine, Franck thought it so after Christ’s immediate apostles.  He would write:

Foolish Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Gregory – of whom not even one knew the Lord, so help me God, nor was sent by God to teach.  But rather all were the apostles of Antichrist. … There is not one of them…who appears to have been a Christian.

These “apostles” of the Antichrist corrupted the church and its sacraments from the beginning.  He, too, would abandon the Lord’s Supper.  Until Christ commanded it, he would abandon all outward ceremonies of the church. 

While banishing all of those that the rest of the Church considered saints, he opened his arms wide to those who would be considered heathen – a strong view of universalism.  Just as there are many Adams who do not know of the first Adam, so are there many in Christ who have never heard Christ’s name.  The Spirit had priority over the letter in every way.  Scripture was good only as a verification of the subjective, inner, conscience. 

Franck would agree with Michael Servetus and his rejection of the Trinity; there was God the Father, who is Spirit.  Everything taught by Luther, Zwingli, and the papists was to be thrown out.  He knew this teaching would lead to the gallows, but this was only proof of his being correct.

Conclusion

The Reformers insisted that they were not abandoning the church catholic but renewing the church from within….

That same Reformation would ignite a spark in many, more radical, ideas.  The Reformers worked tirelessly to avoid being confused with these radical movements. 

The Reformers believed they were renewing Christendom itself, but the radicals spit on the history of Christendom and made the most extreme claim possible: to restore primitive Christianity, Christendom must be abandoned.

Completely separating themselves resulted in no accountability.  They had none of the guardrails of historic orthodoxy.  When were they too radical?  Not radical enough?  Others would test these boundaries.

It was an isolating Christianity, a lonely experience.