The Radicals

One result of Luther’s doctrine of the priesthood of all believers

Tell people that they can interpret the Bible for themselves and they will.

Different terms used by historians

Radicals: Those that go to the “root” of the matter

The martyr’s Church

The Left Wing of the Reformation

Fundamental tension:

The socially comprehensive church, whether Catholic or Protestant, was not found in the New Testament which, after all, contains the writings of the leaders of a Jewish sect.

The radicals picked up from the New Testament its marks of sectarian distance:

Apocalyptic language and thought

Appeal to the individual

Believer’s baptism or Baptism by the spirit

Separation of church from state and/or society.

Martrydom as a sign of real faith.

Thomas Muentzer (1489-1525)

The first radical

Came to disagree with Luther early on.

Like Luther, he was a skilled Biblical exegete

Deep sympathy with the people vs the princes or the merchants

Course of his career:

1520 he became pastor at Zwickau where he became involved with the Zwickau

prophets

1521 he went to Prague where he issued his Prague Manifesto that called for a religion that stressed experienced over the knowledge gained from books. Expelled

from Prague

1522-1524 Became Pastor at Alstadt

noted for his liturgical reforms

translated the Psalms for worship

stressed the bitter Christ

preached his famous sermon before the princes of Saxony in which he called for the destruction of the godless

Luther became alarmed and denounced Munzter in an open letter to the Princes.

1525: he joined the peasants at Frankenhausen, was defeated, and was bneheaded

The battle was a massacre with almost 6000 killed

Engels claimed him as an example of early socialism

The Anabaptists:

Misnamed.

The word, Anabaptist, means rebaptizer. The term was applied to these people to justify their execution under a law that prohibited rebaptism that had originally been pasted against the Donatists

They believed in the baptism of believers only. The real baptism is the inner baptism of the Spirit but Water Baptism follows public profession of faith

Life must change before Baptism

Origins:

Traditionally, Lutheran historians traced all Baptist history from Thomas Muenzter to the great battle at Muenster

Like all issues in Baptist history, this is very disputed. The most common viewpoint today is that of Packull, Klaus Deppermann and James M. Stayer, “From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins” Mennonite Quarterly Review, XLIX:2 (1975), 83-121.

Part of the historical problem is that the basic Anabaptist stance is not intellectually

distinctive. If one reads the New Testament through sectarian, rather than established church eyes, one reaches many of the fundamental conclusions that the Anabaptist reached. Likewise, the issues that divided them: pacifism, the ban, the rof the Spirit, apocalyptic are less clearly marked in the one text that we know all Anabaptists used.

The Swiss Brethren:

Began with a prayer and Bible study group around Zwingli that included Conrad Grebel (1498-1526m), Felix Manz (1498-1527m), Georg Blaurock ( -1529m).

By 1524 they were in some tension with Zwingli and a public disputation was held

In January 1525. They lost and all infants were ordered to be baptized. They were in contact via letters with Thomas Muntzer and with Andreas Carlstadt, Luther’s former

ally.

On January 25, Conrad Grebel baptized Georg Blaurock and the movement began

Laws were immediately passed against the Brethren. Manz was among the first caught, and he was sentenced to death by drowning in the River Limmat. His wife

was also drowned. Blaurock was later executed by the Catholics in Austria.

The Brethren were in contact with other Radicals.

Michael Saddler (c.1490-1527)

Banished from Zurick in 1525

Led a meeting of Anabaptist at Schleitheim that adopted a famed Confession of

Faith that included the ban and pacifism. Clergy were not to be paid

His pacifism was radical, according to Williams. He wrote:

If the Turks should come, we ought not to resist them. For it

is written: Thou Shall not Kill. We must not defend ourselves

against the Turks and other persecutors. If warring were right,

I would rather take the field against so-called Christians who

persecute, capture, and kill pious Christians than against the Turk

South German Movement

Hans Denck (1495-1527)

He was expelled from Nuremberg for his radical views in 1525. he told the

City council:

I confess that I am a poor soul, subject to every weakness of body and spirit. For some time I thought I had faith, but I have come to see that it was a false faith. It was a faith that could not overcome my spiritual poverty, my inclinations to sin, my weaknesses and my sickness. Instead of that, the more I polished and adorned myself on the outside (with my supposed faith) the worse became my spiritual sickness on the inside. . . . Now I see clearly that I cannot keep on in this unbelief before God, so I say: Yes Lord! In the name of the Almighty God whom I fear from the bottom of my heart, I want to believe. Help me to believe.

Denck saw Baptist as an outward symbol of an inward mystical baptism. He did not stress the ceremony or any ceremony. Nor did he believe that the Bible was the Word of God.

The Word of God which is alive, strong (Heb. 4:12), eternal, and free. The Word of God is free from the elements of the world. It is God himself. It is Spirit and not letter, written without pen or paper so that it can never be erased.

As a result of this, salvation is not bound to Scripture, even though Scripture may help one on to salvation (2 Tim. 3:16). We need to understand, scripture cannot possibly change an evil heart, even though it may make it more learned. A godly heart, on the other hand, in which the little light of God shines, can learn from all things. We see then, how the Scriptures help those who believe toward salvation and holy living. But to those who believe not, they serve only for their condemnation. . . .

If salvation depended only on reading the Scriptures or hearing them preached, many illiterate people, and many towns to whom no preacher has come, would be lost.

Baptized the even more radical Hans Hut

Denck died of the plague in Basel. He had been earlier expelled as an Anabaptist Pope from Strassbourg

The Mess at Muenter

City of 15000 near present day Holland

Bernard Rothman (1495-1535) became an Anabaptist in 1534 and expelled the Lutherans

Many in town were followers of Melchior Hoffman (1495-1543)

Apocalyptic spiritualist who believed that Christ would return in 1533 to

Strasbourg

Baptized in 1530

Believed that Strasbourg would become the new Jerusalem.

Imprisoned in Strasbourg, he died in that city.

In 1534, the Bishop moved against the city which was an openly Anabaptist

town

Jan Mathijs ruled for six months until his death

Replaced by Jan of Leiden

Had himself crowned the King of Righteousness

Introduced polygamy and ended commercial relationships

1535: the City falls. All are executed

Menno Simons (1496-1561)

Turned Dutch and Low German Anabaptist to Pacificism.

Deeply influenced by the more peaceful of the followers of Melchior Hoffman

Turned the movement towards pacifism and a Christian humanism based on the Sermon on the Mount

Spiritualist Leaders

Mystics

Often people seeking a private faith

Tended to emphasis the way of experience

Caspar Schwenckfeld (1489-1561)

Came from the nobility

Very influential in winning Silesia for Protestantism

Came to see the sacraments as unimportant

Spend much of his life in hiding

Strong advocate of the separation of church and state

For this reason one ought to live in great humility before both God and men, and with regard to the things of the Gospel and of faith, he ought to proceed most cautiously, with no one condemning, banning, or judging anyone else. No one should take away anyone else's Christian freedom, nor let his conscience be entangled by any man-made articles of faith, nor let the Spirit of God (Who inspires whomever and whenever He will) be hindered in any way at all, as has happened in the past, when all our faith, happiness, and prosperity rested on one man, on account of which we were subjected to misery and unspeakable want. Every Christian, both teachers and students, should, rather, pay strict attention to the works and manifold gifts of God everywhere manifest with great reverence (for in this matter God desires complete mastery); he must use with thanksgiving the things which have been so graciously given to him, if he wishes to praise God and be of service to his neighbors. Let him seek only for the honor of God in them; by this means he will be able to further piety and God's honor among men, if he takes care of them as God gives him to do so, remembering always that God is an Almighty, Perfect, Omniscient God now and always, while we men are poor, weak, and unknowing. Indeed, if these things would obtain among all Christians, the learned and the unlearned, indeed, among all to whom the Lord Christ has granted His gifts, it might be comfortingly hoped that we should have less controversy, error, and disunion, and that God might give us more peace, love, unity, and truth, that we might dwell together for a long time in the love of Christ. May it be so!

Christ’s flesh was a celestial flesh

Sebastian Franck (1494-1543)

The real church was not Catholic, Lutheran, Zwinglian, or Anabaptist but a truly spiritual church

Friend of Servetus and Schwenckfeld

“In 1531, his most important work, the Chronica, Zeitbuch und Geschichtsbibel, largely a compilation on the basis of the Nuremberg Chronicle (1493), and in its treatment of social and religious questions connected with the Reformation, exhibiting a strong sympathy with heretics, and an unexampled fairness to all kinds of freedom in opinion. It is too much to call him "the first of German historians"; he is a forerunner of Gottfried Arnold, with more vigor and directness of purpose.” http://www.nndb.com/people/607/000094325/

Anti-trinitarian

Although many of the spiritualist were non-trinitarian, they were not anti-trinity

The anti- Trinitarians believed that the Trinitarian teaching was a block to true religion and that the trinitarian doctrine was neither true or biblical.

Michael Servetus (1511-1553)

De trinitatis erroribus: 1531

Dialogorum de Trinitate 1532

Christianismi Restitutio. (1553)

Strongly denounced infant baptism as “ an invention of the devil, an infernal falsity for the destruction of all Christianity" ( bainton, Ibid., p. 186.)

Lelio and Fausta Socinus (1534-1604)

Went to transylvania and to Poland

Believed that Christ should be adorned but prayers should not be addressed to him