Anabaptism was essentially a movement within a movement. Every other major split of the Reformation (Lutheranism, Calvinism, Anglicism, etc) was essentially a centralized religion unto itself. Anabaptism, however, was a broad movement of people who wanted to break from Catholicism but found no satisfaction among the mainstream dissidents. Therefore, when speaking of Anabaptism one speaks of a mishmash of several things: religious movements, radical theologians, charismatics proclaiming themselves prophets, and seminal events. Because of its very character, there could be no centralized theology or broad popular movement. Even that which is most identified with the remaining descendents of Anabaptism (the extreme pacifism of the Amish and the Mennonites) cannot be universally applied to the formative Anabaptists. In fact, two of the most violent and militant incidents of the early Reformation, the Peasant’s War and Muster Rebellion, were carried out by Anabaptists.
However, the crazier elements in the early stages of Anabaptism eventually self-destructed, and what prevailed was one of the purest forms of organized Christianity since the early Church. Their non-violence, their radical and anarchic views toward society and cultural mores, and their willingness to separate themselves from the world of material things aligned them as the true heirs of the spiritual wealth of Jesus Christ and the Desert Fathers.
What I’ll Research Because of Researching This: Petr Chelcicky, a fourteenth century theologian and anarchist who was a forerunner of Anabaptism, who I had read about before in Tolstoy’s “The Kingdom of God is Within You” but whose name I kept forgetting.
No comments:
Post a Comment