Anabaptist Studies

This paper will take an historical and narrative approach to address the restorative justice movement and its resonance with overarching biblical themes of justice and community. It will do so bycomparing the histories and assumptions of both the restorative justice movement and the criminal justice system. Finally, early Anabaptist experience will be examined as a way to see how thebeginnings of the restorative justice movement may have been conceivable centuries later.

RESUMEN: Este artículo tiene por objetivo traer sobre la mesa de rememoración de los 500 años de la Reforma algunas notas sobre el lugar del anabautismo, especialmente dentro de las dinámicas sociopolíticas de la época, más concretamente en su rol de expresión de diversas voces postergadas por los poderes religiosos oficiales del momento (sean católico-romanos como luteranos). De aquí indagaremos, sólo a modo de ejemplo, parte del discurso de Menno Simons con respecto a diversas contingencias sociales, para desde allí inducir algunas reflexiones sobre la dimensión política de su teología.

ABSTRACT: This article aims to bring some notes on the place of Anabaptism, especially within the socio-political dynamics of its time, more specifically in its role as expression of different voices postponed by the official religious powers of that moment (whether Roman Catholic or Lutheran). From here we will explore, just as a brief example, part of the discourse of Menno Simons regarding to various social contingencies, and from there to induce some reflections on the political dimension of Anabaptist theology.

Every kingdom has its own culture and values. The problem in Christianity is that it does not have the culture and values of the Kingdom of God. Christians remain sunken into being part of the kingdoms of men, whose leadership and culture now only deal in good sounding baloney. Christians do not realize that God calls us to both be available to the world, while being differentiated from the kingdoms of men. We've reverted to talk, empty concepts and thinking we're being truth. It is time to reassert what sets apart from the kingdoms of men and their leadership and the mere talk they deal in. This section is an attempt to reconnect circuitry and reverse polarity in these details to the point where we once again can become that Kingdom of God set apart.

This study offers a new perspective on the question of how the Upper German Anabaptist traditions of the 16th and 17th centuries became part of the Mennonite denominational family. In modern scholarship, it is a commonly accepted usage to apply the group name “Swiss Brethren” to early Swiss Anabaptism starting with the circle around Conrad Grebel and Felix Mantz in Zurich who introduced the practice of believers’ baptism in January, 1525.

This usage is relatively recent. There are no contemporary Swiss sources which employ the group name “Swiss Brethren” in connection with the nascent Zurich Anabaptists or the early dissemination of Anabaptism in Switzerland. It was not before 1538/39 that the name “Swiss Brethren” first appeared in the sources, but referring to a group in Moravia and southwest Germany rather than in Switzerland. The modern usage of the name as referring to the Zurich and early Swiss Anabaptists goes back to Ludwig Keller (1885). It was introduced to Mennonite historiography by John Horsch and effectively popularized by Harold Bender and John Howard Yoder.

Based on a detailed analysis and contextualization of 141 sources which (possibly) bear evidence of the group name “Swiss Brethren”, dating from the 1530s to c.1618, the present study suggests to abandon the commonly accepted identification of the “Swiss Brethren” with the Anabaptist groups on Swiss territory or with a specifically Swiss tradition within Upper German Anabaptism. Instead, the bits and pieces of information contained in the analyzed sources adumbrate the picture of an expanding underground denomination, its leadership and its organizational structures which included periodical general synods and regional conferences of ministers and elders.

While it is highly probable (but scantily documented) that this clandestine Anabaptist church included congregations in various regions of Switzerland from the beginnings, its geographical focuses seem to have been Moravia, Württemberg, the Palatinate and the Alsace. From 1555 on, part of the Lower Rhenish Melchiorite-Mennonite Anabaptist congregations joined the Swiss Brethren communion, with Cologne and Aachen as important urban centers and even with some outposts in the Netherlands.

An entry in the online German-language MennLex encyclopedia project (originally from 2012; published in 2020). The article considers how Swiss Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites can be analyzed in terms of the historiographical model of confessionalization, if that concept is understood in a heuristically flexible way. The English version is a pre-publication text. Please consult and cite the German version (link included).

In Dietrich Bonhoeffer's writings, Martin Luther is ubiquitous. Too often, however, Bonhoeffer's Lutheranism has been set aside with much less argumentative work than is appropriate in light of his sustained engagement with Luther. As a result, Luther remains a largely untouched hermeneutic key in Bonhoeffer interpretation. In Bonhoeffer's Reception of Luther, Michael P. DeJonge presents Bonhoeffer's Lutheran theology of justification focused on the interpersonal presence of Christ in word, sacrament, and church. The bridge between this theology and Bonhoeffer's ethical-political reflections is his two-kingdoms thinking. Arguing that the widespread failure to connect Bonhoeffer with the Lutheran two-kingdoms tradition has presented a serious obstacle in interpretation, DeJonge shows how this tradition informs Bonhoeffer's reflections on war and peace, as well as his understanding of resistance to political authority. In all of this, DeJonge argues that an appreciation of Luther's ubiquity in Bonhoeffer's corpus sheds light on his thinking, lends it coherence, and makes sense of otherwise difficult interpretive problems. What might otherwise appear as disparate, even contradictory moments or themes in Bonhoeffer's theology can often be read in terms of a consistent commitment to a basic Lutheran theological framework deployed according to dramatically changing circumstances.

Table of Contents
0. Introduction: An Argument for Bonhoeffer Interpretation
-Taking Luther’s Ubiquity Seriously
-What is ‘Lutheran’? Issues of Definition and Method
-Arguing for the Lutheran Character of Bonhoeffer’s Thinking

1. On the Way toward Christocentrism
--Karl Holl: Luther’s Religion of Conscience
--Christ or the Conscience?
--Conscience against Conscience
--Meager Christology
--Justification as the Unconditional, Effective Word of Christ’s Personal Presence as the Church

2. Christology in Conversation with Barth and the Lutheran Tradition
-Once more, Barth and Bonhoeffer on whether the Finite is Capable of the Infinite
-The History and Pre-History of the (in)capax Phrases
---This Man Is God
---This Is My Body
---The Finite is Capable of the Infinite
-Barth’s Rejection of the capax and the Majestic Genus
---The Finite is Not Capable of the Infinite
---The Common Actualization of Divine and Human Essences in Christ
-“The is may not be interpreted any further”: Bonhoeffer’s Christology

3. Caricatures of the Two Kingdoms
-Denials of Bonhoeffer’s Two-Kingdoms Thinking
-From Luther’s Two Kingdoms to the Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms
---The Two Kingdoms in Luther’s Theology
---Church and State from a Lutheran Confessional Perspective
---Church and State in Confessional Comparison
---The Twentieth-Century Doctrine of the Two Kingdoms
---Troeltsch and the Niebuhrs

4. The Twofold Form of Christ: Bonhoeffer’s Two-Kingdoms Thinking
-Early Two-Kingdoms Thinking
---“The Nature of the Church”
---“Lectures on Christology”
---“Thy Kingdom Come!”
---“The Church and the Jewish Question”
-The Two Kingdoms in Discipleship
-Late Two-Kingdoms Thinking
---“Protestantism without Reformation”
---“Heritage and Decay”
---Green, Rasmussen, Hauerwas
---“Ultimate and Penultimate Things”

5. Anabaptists and Peace
-Bonhoeffer’s Non-Commitment to Nonviolence
-The Doubly Curious Association of Bonhoeffer with Anabaptism through Yoder
---Yoder on Bonhoeffer
---Bonhoeffer on Anabaptists
-Bonhoeffer on Peace
--Peace and Preservation
--Orders of Preservation
--The Sermon on the Mount as Concrete Commandment
-Peace in Bonhoeffer and Anabaptists
-Interpreting Bonhoeffer on Peace
-Ecumenical Lutheranism and Lutheran Ecumenism

6. Lutheran Resistance Resources
-Luther to Hitler
-Lutheran Subservience and Bonhoeffer’s Resistance
-Luther on Resistance to Authority
-The Interims, Flacius, and the Magdeburg Confession
-Formula of Concord X
-Bonhoeffer and Lutheran Resistance Resources

7. Struggle and Resistance
-Resistance through the Confession of the Ecumenical Church
---Status confessionis
---Threats to the Gospel from outside: The State that Disregards its Mandate
---Threats to the Gospel from Inside: Heretical Legalism
---Confession, ‘the Jews,’ and Race
-Resistance through the Suffering Obedience of the Discipleship Community
---The Second Battle of the Church Struggle
---Cheap and Costly Grace
---Justification
-Resistance through the Responsible Action of the Individual
---Between Compromise and Radicalism
---Active Resistance
-Conclusion: A Lutheran Theology in Accord with Reality

Decoration on ceramics can be viewed as internal history, as the functional equivalent of the Anabaptist annalistic record. A significant part of the large Anabaptist archive survived in the so-called chronicles (240 are known today) that functioned as history books and have been transmitted to every new generation. As a result of the aggressive Habsburg policy against religious minorities, the Anabaptist communal organization was dissolved in 1685. A sudden decrease in written record followed. Around this date, the continental chinoiserie style appeared on Anabaptist ceramics. After careful visual analysis, these ornaments become narratives alongside the chronicles. Ceramics helped to keep the collective memory and Anabaptist identity alive. Both the texts and the ceramics were part of the same successful strategy of identity preservation; this rich heritage held together the Anabaptist communes from the sixteenth century to the present.

Anabaptist environmental theologies and ethics could and should do more to engage issues of environmental racism and environmental justice. Since most Anabaptist environmentalisms center on efforts to witness to God’s peace within creation, a failure to address ecologies of racialized violence undermines the tradition’s core theological values. This essay identifies three main varieties of contemporary Anabaptist environmentalism: agrarian virtue, bioregionalist discipleship, and eschatological eco-pacifism. It explores how each variety frames the natural environment within an account of Anabaptist faith and life, considers why and how problems of environmental racism elude that frame, and offers initial suggestions for how advocates and practitioners might sharpen each version in participatory dialogue with movements for environmental justice.

In 1968 a Mennonite pastor and peace worker named Edgar Metzler published a short booklet in the popular “Focal Pamphlet” series published by Herald Press – a series that includes other more widely read works by Mennonite historians and theologians like Harold S. Bender and J. Lawrence Burkholder. The brief preface on the inside cover gives some indication of its purpose and audience in the context of the American Mennonite experience during the late 1960s:

"This pamphlet is prepared to stimulate the Christian’s peace testimony. Christians need constantly to return to the Bible to discover the message of the gospel. This message must be translated into living terms by every generation. The S. F. Coffman Peace Lectures are sponsored by the Committee on Peace and Social Concerns of the Mennonite Church. They are financed by an individual who has an interest in the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ as it relates to the social needs and the international tensions of the world in which we live."

Metzler’s text is situated amidst the international tensions alluded to above, particularly racial tensions and violence in the United States during the Vietnam War era. The pamphlet is titled Let’s Talk About Extremism, but what the author means by the term “extremism” calls for explanation, some of which the author provides in the first section of the text below.

Although other pamphlets in the series were more widely read, Let’s Talk About Extremism has only been cited a few times since it was published – most recently in a survey of definitions of radicalism and extremism. The lack of scholarly or public engagement with the text in the years since it was published is a problem that I hope to remedy in this edition.

In short, the argument of the pamphlet is that how we think about the relationship between extreme or opposed positions – whether they are political, religious, social, or a combination of all three – matters deeply. For Metzler, ways of thinking and knowing, or what scholars call “epistemologies,” are just as important for the Christian peace witness as more visible manifestations of violence like killing or war. Whereas Metzler refers to “extremism,” today we tend to refer to the problems he addresses by using the term “polarization.” In response to these problems, Metzler calls his readers to consider how hard oppositions between liberals and conservatives are clarified when we think about not only what we think, but also how we think, and how we express what we think.

But rather than staying within the bounds of the liberal-conservative opposition, Metzler enjoins his readers to reframe their vision of extreme positions by measuring ways of thinking against a different standard, asking: “Is this way of thinking closed or open?” Drawing attention to the presence of closed-mindedness at all points on the political spectrum (a pattern recently explored by Francois Cusset), Metzler advocates for openness. Against racist, nationalist, and religious prejudices, Metzler values a kind of open-mindedness that is able to listen to the other, take in new information, and charitably engage with “extreme” perspectives. By contrast, the closed mind is reactive, reliant on questionable second-hand sources, and unable to be moved. This is not to say, however, that Metzler advocates for a kind of passive middle way that sits between extremes and attempts to remain neutral on matters of justice. Rather, Metzler helps his readers to avoid the pitfalls of both polarization and neutrality.

One further benefit of how Metzler frames his argument for openness is that he leaves open the question of how this openness is authorized or validated. For Metzler himself, it is the peaceful figure of Jesus Christ who is the model for a more open epistemology. But Metzler leaves open the possibility of taking on his perspective without confessing Christian faith. Metzler’s resistance to oversimplification, selectivity, black and white thinking, appeals to fear, authoritarianism, and so forth, are critical values that can resonate with the priorities of Christians and religious ‘nones,’ secular and confessional Mennonites, and anyone who is concerned with the problems of our shared world. For this reason, perhaps anachronistically, I would characterize Metzler’s work as “postsecular” – where “postsecular” names a way of thinking that challenges the claims to superiority made by both religions and secularities.

One final point that makes Metzler’s work important today is his critique of conspiratorial thinking. His conversation with an alienated congregation member, as described in the final pages of the pamphlet, is a model for how to openly and critically engage with those who are given to conspiratorial thinking, while seeing through the content of such arguments to the narratives of rejection and victimhood that lie beneath. In a time when conspiracy theories are becoming more influential, concomitant with a decline in public trust and trust in expertise, I think it is essential to consider Metzler’s reminder that beneath the “extreme” positions of those who believe in conspiracy theories is often a common human desire to be heard and recognized. Again, this is not to say that Metzler’s work is a resource for those who would, in the name of ‘free speech,’ give an open platform for hate (for example, the conspiracism and violence of far-right groups). Instead, his concluding comments point to the deeper social roots of present political problems, and provide practical ways of challenging violent ways of thinking.

Neo-Anabaptist and other similar churches that advocate pacifism and social justice often struggle with traditional portrayals of the atonement. Views that portray the need for violence to bring about the salvation of the world are understandably troublesome to Anabaptist sympathies. In particular, the traditional portrayal of penal substitutionary atonement (PSA), where Jesus is described as receiving the punishment of God intended for sinners, is repugnant to most modern writers of Neo-Anabaptist thought. In developing a robust soteriology that reflects the nonviolent convictions so central to the Anabaptist hermeneutic, Neo-Anabaptists have embraced what has been called a "nonviolent atonement. 1 " Considering the Anabaptist commitment to nonresistance and social justice, this attraction is understandable. Tethered to this nonviolent hermeneutic, however, is an identification with the primitive church. Close to heart of Anabaptist thought is a perceived identity to the persecuted church that lived before the Constantinian synthesis of the fourth century. Since the birth of the movement in the 16 th century, down to the blogs and conference halls of the iconoclasts and radicals of today, patristic historiography has played an epistemological significance in the development of the Anabaptist hermeneutic. 2 Attempts to connect this patristic identity with Anabaptist soteriology have often generated faith expressions that fall outside of the norm. Debate over patristic atonement theory is nothing new. At least since the Middle Ages, gifted writers such as Peter Abelard have reframed and scrutinized the patristic accounts of the atonement. In the twentieth century, a significant challenge to patristic atonement theory occurred in response to the book Christus Victor, written by Gustaf Aulén. In his book, Aulén presents a cleverly written revisionist history of atonement theory. Aulén's thesis repudiates the idea that penal substitutionary atonement played any significant part of the patristic thought or literature of the early church, especially among the Greek fathers. Significant to this study, Aulén presented a historiography of patristic atonement theory that he described as nonviolent or "benevolent." 3 Aulén presented this patristic historiography in sharp contrast to what he saw as the violent metaphors found in later theories of the middle ages, created by men such as Anselm of Canterbury. Stemming from an intuition to root their epistemology in a nonviolent patristic historiography, Anabaptist writers followed the lead of Gustaf Aulén with tenacity. Progressing through the twentieth century, Neo-Anabaptists worked out their soteriology incorporating "nonviolent" atonement models with a historiography identical or at least very similar to that of Aulén. The vocabulary surrounding the rejection of PSA grew over the 20 th century, starting from suspicion in the 1950s, and growing to include labels such as "divine child abuse 4 " by the end of the century. Significant to this study, every major work done in defense of a "nonviolent" atonement theory did so by incorporating an epistemology that leaned heavily on a patristic historiography similar to that presented by Gustaf Aulén.

Although the Anabaptists are not explicitly mentioned in the Heidelberg Catechism, it is generally acknowledged that the catechism influenced by the debates with the so-called radical reformation. This paper assesses Zacharias Ursinus’ Commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism and the report of the 1571 Frankenthal disputation in order to get a clearer picture of this influence. It concludes that the implicit polemics against the Anabaptists regard the relationship between the Old and the New Testaments and Christology.
The spirituality of the Heidelberg Catechism stresses the continuity between creation and recreation, between ‘Paradise Lost’ and ‘Paradise Regained’. Over against the restitution of the church it advocates its reformation and instead of a new creation it expects the redemption of the fallen world from the power of sin and death.

Different historical and socio-political circumstances often were the cause of migration, especially in the countries of Southeastern Europe. Migration was also triggered by religious persecution of particular religious minorities by different political systems, one of them being the Nazarenes. The Nazarenes were founded by a former Reformed minister Samuel Fröhlich around 1830 in Switzerland, but they soon expanded to Central and Eastern Europe. Because of their pacifist beliefs and refusal to swear and to take an oath a large number of the Nazarenes were condemned to severe prison sentences. Defending their religious identity and escaping religious persecution, thousands of Nazarenes started to emigrate especially during the First World War and in the interwar period to North America. In North America they joined the Apostolic Christian Church (Nazarene), which was the official name of the Nazarene community in the United States and Canada. The material presented in this paper results from empirical research, conducted in Serbia and the United States, on the history of the Nazarene emigration to North America. The aim of this paper is twofold: to analyze how early migration is remembered by the Nazarenes today and how the Nazarenes, as a religious minority from Southeastern Europe, became a transnational religious community that developed in several branches. The paper shows how religion could be a 'channel for migration' and how immigrants used religion in processes of migration.

Transl. ed., bio and a foreword by Vladislav Y Petrusevich

Учебник сравнительного богословия, изложенного в анабаптистко-
меннонитской традиции, наиболее близкой по своим понятиям к традиционному
славянскому евангельскому движению. Книга предназначена в качестве учебного
пособия для учащихся и преподавателей Библейских курсов и семинарий, а
также всех читателей, интересующихся богословием и более глубоким изучением
Священного Писания.

INTRODUCTION: The Amish are a rapidly growing, North American Christian denomination that descends from the 16th-century Anabaptist movement in Germanic Europe. Because of their conspicuous socioreligious practices, the Amish have been of interest to social scientists, medical and genetic researchers, and linguists. This entry includes a brief overview of Amish history and demographics in the United States. It continues with a description of Amish beliefs and practices and the interest the community holds for social science researchers.

History: The Amish formed in the late 1600s as an Anabaptist branch in the Swiss–German–French border region. These were a new wave of converts who challenged the established Swiss Brethren (Mennonite) churches’ laxity toward the Dordrecht religious articles agreed on with the Dutch Mennonites in 1632. Points of difference included the ...

This book examines John Calvin’s sense of vocation.

1) It begins with an analysis of thinking on prophecy in early, medieval, and Reformation theology.

2) It finds Calvin within a non-mystical, non-apocalyptic prophetic tradition that focused on scriptural interpretation.

3) It argues Calvin believed his prophetic authority was the same as Isaiah and Jeremiah, and suggests that he may have held himself to be infallible in matters related to Christian doctrine.

4) It argues that starting from about 1555, Calvin began to conceive the idea of encouraging one of the French 'lesser magistrates' (the princes of the blood royal) to rise up in armed conflict against the sitting French king with the aim of taking the throne.

5) Thus, it argues that when that did happen in 1562 when Louis of Condé gathered troops in Orléans and declared their intentions to liberate King Charles IX from the evil councillors surrounding him, this had Calvin's fingerprints on it -- Calvin was to a significant degree responsible for this turn of events.

6) Calvin pursued this plan, I argue, as one of a number of approaches to winning France for the gospel. In this way, the volume explores Calvin's sense of vocation and the impact this had on his political thought.

Painted around 1628, possibly earlier, Rembrandt’s painting of Suffer little children to come unto me is currently in a conditional twilight zone, since it is halfway through a restoration, in which later overpaintings are to be completely removed. Although the present owners want to bring the painting back to its original state, it is highly questionable what will emerge under the paint layers: a complete painting or a non finito painting riddled with holes like an Emmental cheese. The striking attention given to the figure of St Paul, in the centre of the repainted composition could point to a work that was iconographically attuned to the preferences of Protestant buyers. The popularity of the subject in art proves that teaching the principles of faith to children as early as possible was considered extremely important, but also expresses fear that the smallest children would be excluded from salvation on the basis of the sola fide principle (faith as a condition for justification and sanctification) because they would not yet fully comprehend the rudiments of the Christian belief.

Resumen El protestantismo se aplica a un amplio y heterogéneo sector del cristianismo moderno y contemporáneo que hunde sus raíces históricas y espirituales en la que, tradicionalmente, se conoce como "reforma del Siglo XVI". Es así, como dentro de ese diverso sector del cristianismo surge el movimiento anabaptista (el que vuelve a bautizar). El presente trabajo tiene como objetivo examinar y analizar el movimiento anabaptista durante el contexto de la reforma protestante, visualizando sus principales características y su desarrollo en Europa, bajo una perspectiva político-cultural mediante la revisión de fuentes secundarias. Palabras Claves: Reforma protestante, protestantismo, anabaptismo, bautismo, historia de la religión.

How have Anabaptists and Mennonites followed the Spirit in mission? How might we follow the Holy Spirit in mission? Articles in this issue address these question through examination of Anabaptism and the Pentecostal-Charismatic movement; early charismatic expressions among Russian Mennonite Brethren; Spirit-empowered witness and the church in South Africa; Anabaptist inspiration for the church in postmodern Britain; and the story of the Meserete Kristos Church in Ethiopia. The issue also features poetry and book reviews.

Salvation is central to the Church’s identity, yet its nature is seldom discussed in local contexts. Moreover, when it is discussed, its relationship to discipleship is ambiguous at best or completely unrelated at worst. At the same time, in the unraveling of Christendom in the West, the doctrine of the missio Dei has been influential in helping the Church to revisit a number of theological concepts, especially a theology of the Church -- ecclesiology. The interest of this project was therefore the exploration and articulation of a soteriological vision rooted in the missio Dei and its relevance for discipleship. The fields of missio Dei/theology of mission, missional ecclesiology, and Anabaptist theology were chosen because of their shared relevance to the issues in view and the Ecclesia Network. The result of this dimension of the project was a missional soteriology of discipleship distinguished by its participational, communal, and (re)creational characteristics.

More than simply wanting to develop a new missiological theory, however, the concern of this project was for the contextual implications of such a vision for the Church in North America. The Ecclesia Church Network was chosen as a context for field research as a particular, networked expression of the Church that sees mission, the missio Dei, as central to its identity. Through the use of research methods that engaged the Ecclesia at organizational, pastoral, and local church levels, a theological ethnography was developed and used as a basis for the formulation of contextual proposals related to the missional soteriology of discipleship that emerged. These proposals include ways for Ecclesia to raise the issue of soteriology, the possibility of published resources, launching communities of practice, developing a praxis-based curriculum, and the creation of an online platform for use across the network. In each case, these proposals were set forth as strategic ways to advance the witness of Ecclesia from the perspective of a missional soteriology of discipleship.

Continuing the study of the Kingdom of God, as a now-reality, we look at the parables. The proximity of servile terminology, which represents the follower of Christ, is found in conjunction with the Kingdom of God in many of Christ’s parable. This illustrates a connection. It illustrates who God wanted us to be as His kingdom in contrast to the kingdoms of the world.

This section exposes a fatal error in modern church teaching which sends a believer into a trajectory of enslavement to the state, rather than following Christ. No one can serve two masters… This study is quite stark and shows that we’ve been given the shallow end of the gospel: get saved and go to heaven. But the gospel of the kingdom of God is a much different animal.

This essay examines how early Anabaptists used patristic literature and creeds to defend their practices of baptism, the Lord’s Supper, and community of goods, as well as their doctrinal stances on Christology and the Trinity. They used patristic literature to claim that they stood in a stream of faithfulness that reformers and Catholics had largely abandoned. They appealed to many different patristic authors and obscure canons of councils, sometimes reading primary sources. Yet they did not separate their ethics and theology by developing a separate history of nonviolence. Instead they embedded their views on violence and nonviolence within their apologetic stances on worship and doctrine. Theology and ethics were inseparable for the Anabaptists.

*** In 2023 I have updated the entry to include a pre-publication version of my essay. ***  For a further sample from the text, including an excerpt by Hartmut Lehmann, see the attached link or go to the publisher's website (look for the "Leseprobe" tab on the Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht website). The papers in the volume are from a conference held in Sept. 2016 at the German Historical Institute in London.

This thesis argues that the Anabaptist tradition in its contemporary North American and British congregational form has rich liturgical and eucharistic resources to support the growth and development of the nascent Anabaptist movement in Britain and to offer the church more widely. Emerging from primary ethnographic research in four congregations, it provides a thick account and analysis of Anabaptistic eucharistic practices with special attention to their potential in nurturing congregational discipleship. The ethnographic chapters are situated by reference to the lack of ecclesial form to the Anabaptist witness in Britain and a persuasive case is made for the centrality of embodied practice in the development and nourishment of Anabaptistic ecclesial forms. Drawing richly on the data from two North American Mennonite congregations and two British Anabaptist inspired congregations, a distinctive Anabaptist Eucharistic approach, along with its potential and challenges, is presented. An explanation of the background to recent interest in historic traditions is given with a critical engagement with one popular model. Ultimately, an Anabaptist model of liturgical renewal is presented, exemplified and demonstrated from the ethnographic research with further Anabaptistic liturgical guidelines given for the advantage of communities concerned to create or develop their practice along such lines.

This candidate’s thesis is that the sixteenth-century Anabaptists, and by historical extension the Free Church movement, generally speaking, have come closer than anyone else to reflecting a well-rounded and balanced approach to biblical hermeneutics especially by way of consistent application in kingdom life.

In this thesis, I examine both how theology is conceptualized and how it is embodied in performance. Focusing on the Hutterites, an Old Order Christian communal group, I explore the interplay between history and tradition on the one hand and cultural adaptation and dynamic change on the other. Although Hutterites are often stereotyped as aloof sectarians who want nothing to do with secular society, I explore the rich and multifaceted world of Hutterite musical production, showing that the boundaries between sacred and secular are much more porous and variable than often admitted.

Through an in-depth examination of Hutterite choral singing in Manitoba, I show how individual Hutterites express their agency, engaging with past doctrine and their current cultural surroundings to fashion a performative life that makes sense out of both--what I call "performing salvation."

Minority groups throughout history have often used their experiences with persecution to define their own identities. The Anabaptists of the sixteenth century were just such a group. Targeted by both Catholic and Protestant authorities, thousands of Anabaptists made the ultimate sacrifice by becoming martyrs for their faith. The manner in which the Anabaptists responded to this martyrdom provides a crucial insight into their deepest beliefs. While Anabaptist theologies of martyrdom came in a host of different forms, they universally reflected the unique belief of radical discipleship. The presence of this notion of radical discipleship in Anabaptist theologies provides a link which shows a much more unified group theologically then previously thought.*

What is Christian mission? Is it verbally sharing the gospel in order to convert non-believers? Is it social justice ministry aimed at realizing God's shalom on earth as it is in heaven? Is it some mixture of both, or something else entirely? Contributors to the current issue of Anabaptist Witness engage these crucial questions through theological, biblical, and personal reflections on ministry in a wide variety of settings. While most contributors agree that mission involves all of life, disagreements are evident over the specific shape of mission practice. Still, there seems to be an emerging consensus that mission involves vulnerable encounters with others. We hope that this issue will help you answer the question, What is mission?

While the Anabaptist movement was still fl uid in the early 1520s, it soon crystallized into factions with sharp differences. Although the Moravian Anabaptists never succeeded in creating common doctrines and practices, the Central and East European experience was not merely a marginal part of the great Anabaptist story. Out of these divergent tendencies grew a strong sect that survived exile through a radical social experiment. Hutterite colonies, settled in a hostile environment, fl ourished for a long period while other sects disappeared within a few years. The factors that determined the advance and survival of the Hutterites point beyond religious motives. This social experiment was dependent on the integrated social structure enabling them to cope with an aggressive environment without assimilating. Various epochs of the Hutterite history show that communal life was never a uniform and perfect experience, but variants of the structure persisted in the colonies as they evolved in their local circumstances.

Written in 1954 but unpublished in his lifetime, Robert Friedmann’s Design for Living asks that pertinent existential question: how should we live? Drawing on literary, philosophical, and theological sources, Friedmann’s answer begins with a critique of utilitarian ethics and popular apathy, and proceeds through an existential preparation that ascends in confessional style to the question of the meaning of human life, culminating in a fourfold set of principles: regard, concern, service, and love. Along the way, Friedmann’s critical eye remains clearly fixed on his object of study—lived experience, and not abstract principles detached from day-to-day life—and he intentionally guides his reader step by step up the mountain of spiritual and ethical inquiry in a deliberate and serious attempt to educate the heart, mind, and soul. At once accessible and scholarly, while troubling our contemporary divide between religion and the secular, Design for Living presents a rare vision of human meaning and purpose that will appeal to scholarly and public readers alike.

This dissertation has been 64-11,37 5 microfilmed exactly as received HUNTINGTON, Abbie Gertrude Enders Huntington, 1926-DOVE AT THE WINDOW: A STUDY O F AN OLD O R D E R AMISH COM M UNITY IN OHIO [with] APPENDIXE S. Yale University , P h .D ., 1957 Anthropology. Reproduced with permission o f the copyright owner.

Thomas Müntzer was one of the most controversial figures of the dawning years of the Reformation in Germany and an important figurehead in the 1525 German Peasants’ War in Thuringia and Saxony (Bloch 1969; Gritsch 2006; La Rocca 1988; Martinuzzi 2016; Matheson 2012; Politi 2011). Theologian; deeply rooted in German Medieval mysticism; humanist scholar; learned in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew; Biblicist; reformer; pastor; prophet; and revolutionary, Müntzer’s turbulent life has inspired the work of philosophers, artists, and writers but also political movements and individual thinkers. As a contemporary of Luther, he took part in the great transformation of the Church, started in 1517 in Wittenberg, by seeking his own shade of reform based on the notion of direct revelation of God and the active role played by man in his own salvation, in sharp contrast with Luther’s fundamental ideas of sola Scriptura and sola fide. In the first half of the 1520s, the two reformers competed for the political support of the dukes of the Electorate of Saxony. When it became clear that the authorities would stand aside Luther’s Reformation, Müntzer joined the peasant and burger revolts in Thuringia and Saxony. After the 1525 massacre of Frankenhausen, Müntzer was captured, tortured, and then executed alongside other leaders of the so-called peasant revolution.