Transcript The Radical Reformation The Free Church Movement General Characteristics Moral reformation/discipleship  Christian primitivism/biblical literalism  Eschatological/Apocalyptic expectations  Anti-liturgical and lay-oriented  Free Will  Freedom.

The Radical Reformation
The Free Church Movement
General Characteristics
Moral reformation/discipleship
 Christian primitivism/biblical literalism
 Eschatological/Apocalyptic expectations
 Anti-liturgical and lay-oriented
 Free Will
 Freedom from state control (Free Church)
 Religious Toleration
 Communal economic practices
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Three Major Types
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Anabaptists
– Some revolutionary types
– But mainly evangelical
 Discipline as an order of the church
 Adult baptism of believers
 primitivists
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Spiritualists
– Mystical; inner light revelations
– Schwenfelder and Frank
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Anti-Trinitarians (anti-Chalcedon)
– Anti-creed; rejected early councils
– Primary leader was Faustus Socinus
Conrad Grebel (1498-1526)
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“Father of Anabaptism”
Education
– Trained at Basel; Erasmian humanist (1514)
– Studied in Vienna; enamoured with the Italian
Renaissance (1515-1518); immoral period
– University of Paris (1518-1520)
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Came to Zurich in 1520
– Studied under Zwingli, particularly Greek classics
(e.g., Plato)
– Began to study Hebrew, exegesis and preaching
– Conversion experience in 1522, openly defended the
Reformation and sought ministerial position
Grebel and Zwingli Disagree

At the second disputation (October 1523), Grebel argued
for faster reformation but Zwingli wanted to move more
slowly.
– Heated exchanges over the mass and images.
– Zwingli was trying to work with the council, but Grebel wanted
move without them.
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Grebel became the leader of the radical group which
now corresponded widely with Reformers (including
Luther). About 15 men regularly met to study the Bible,
pray and seek direction from other emerging Reformers.
At the third disputation (January 17 1525), the council
condemned “anabaptism” (baptizing again adult
believers who had been baptized as infants). The council
demanded the baptism of all children.
The Council Decree
It is therefore the earnest commandment, order
and warning of these our Lords that no one in
town, country or domain, whether man, woman
or girl, shall henceforth baptize another.
Whoever hereafter baptizes someone will be
apprehended by our Lords and, according to this
present decree, be drowned without mercy.
—Zurich City Council, March 7, 1526
The First “Baptisms”
On January 21, the council prohibited Conrad
Grebel, Felix Manz and George Blaurock from
conducting home Bible study meetings.
 That evening, however, fifteen people met in the
house of Manz’s mother in Zollikon, a suburb of
Zurich.
 Blaurock, a former priest, asked Grebel to
baptize him and then Blaurock baptized the rest
by pouring water on their heads.
 After baptism, they broke bread together as a
new fellowship of believers.
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Zurich Decision
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On January 30, Blaurock and Manz, along with others, were
imprisoned in Zurich. Fined, they were eventually released in late
February but they continued preaching. Blaurock even baptized a
friend the day after his release.
Five hundred people were baptized in St. Gall near Zurich in April
1525 in response to Grebel’s preaching.
The city council held another disputation (Zurich’s fourth) from
November 6-8, 1525 that was attended by 900 people. Grebel,
Blaurock and Manz advocated believer’s baptism. The council
decided against them, and they were imprisoned indefinitely on a
diet of bread and water. They were sentenced to life imprisonment
on March 6, 1526. However, on March 21 they escaped and
renewed their ministries in secret.
On March 7, 1526 the penalty for conducting “rebaptisms” became
death by drowning.
The Death of the Leaders
Felix Manz was recaptured and was the first
Anabaptist executed in Zurich. On January 5,
1527, Manz was tied down with weights and
thrown into the river Limmat, drowned because
of his baptismal theology.
 Grebel died of the plague in 1526, but Blaurock,
who was beaten and exiled by the Zurich
authorities after Manz’s drowning, ultimately
suffered martyrdom in Innsbruck, Austria, in
1529.

Limmat River with the Two
“Munsters”
The Place Where Manz
was Drowned
Why Such a Radical Reaction?
The difference between Grebel and
Zwingli was more than baptism.
 It was the nature of the church.

– Is the church a covenanted community of
regenerate disciples—a voluntary community
– Or, Is the church linked with the State, that is,
is the church co-extensive with the State?
 Consequently, the Anabaptist movement was
treason to the State.
Peasants War—Another Reason
1524-1525—the revolt affected the
regions of southern and central Germany
as well as parts of Switzerland and
Austria.
 At its height, it may have involved as
many as 300,000 peasant insurgents with
100,000 dead over the two years.
 It was brutally defeated by the various
ruling States.

“Twelve Articles of the Black Forest”
February 1525
The right to choose their own pastor
Church tithe to be used for pastor and poor
 Freedom from serfdom as redeemed in Christ
 Freedom to hunt and fish in God’s good creation
 Freedom to cut wood
 Freedom from excessive services imposed by the Lords
 Call for services rendered by agreement for payment
 Call for rent control
 Freedom from inheritance taxes
 Stop the appropriation of community land by Lords.
 Stop the incessant making of new laws
 Willingness to subject all demands to the “Word of God”
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Thomas Muntzer (1489-1525)
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Born in central Germany, he was ordained a priest in
1513 and studied with Luther from 1517-1519 in
Wittenburg and became a Lutheran pastor in Saxony in
1520.
Expelled from Zwickau, he traveled to Prague and within
Germany. He opposed infant baptism, even before the
Swiss Brethren did. He also affirmed a Zwinglian
understanding of the Lord’s Supper.
Only July 13, 1524 he delivered his “Sermon to the
Princes”.
He settled in Muhlhausen and raised a peasant army of
8,000 that was defeated in May 1525. Munzter was
beheaded that same month.
Peasants Revolt
With major armies warring in Italy (the
Hapsburg-Valois war of 1521-1525), peasants
drew up their grievances and pressed them in
their local communities.
 Peasants claimed the authority of the Word of
God, some claimed direct leading of the Spirit
(Zwickau Prophets), and some established
communal theocracies (e.g., Muhlhausen).
 Princes opposed and when the troops returned
the peasants were slaughtered (5,000 died at
Muhlhausen).
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Reformation and the Revolt
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Catholic Princes blamed Luther and the other reformers
for the revolt.
Some reformers were involved: Zwickau Prophets,
Muntzer led an army, and Hubmaier helped draft the 12
Articles.
Luther
– Critiqued the princes for their oppressive practices and for
suppressing preaching
– But backed the princes in their use of violence to put an end to
the revolt
– Luther believed the peasants confused gospel preaching and
human rights—the gospel must not be furthered by the sword.
– Authored “Admonition to Peace in Response to the Twelve
Articles”
Michael Sattler (1495-1527)
After the deaths of Grebel and Manz, Sattler
emerged as the leader of the Swiss Anabaptists.
 Sattler was educated at Freiburg and became a
monk at a monastery near there where he rose
to the rank of Prior before leaving in 1523—the
same year he married.
 He joined the Swiss Brethren in 1525. He
travelled in southern Germany for most of the
year avoiding arrest.

Schleitcheim Confession (1527)
Sattler returned to Swizterland in February 1527
and presented a “confession” to an assembled
group of Brethren leaders at Schleitcheim (in the
canton of Schaffhausen).
 It was important enough that both Zwingli and
Calvin responded to the confession.
 It became the most significant communal
statement of belief by the Swiss Brethren in the
16th century.
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Theology of the Confession
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Baptism: “Baptism shall be given to all those who have learned repentance
and amendment of life, and who believe truly that their sins are taken away
by Christ, and to all those who walk in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and
wish to be buried with Him in death.”

Ban: The ban shall be employed with all those who have given themselves
to the Lord, to walk in His commandments, and with all those who are
baptized into the one body of Christ and who are called brethren or sisters,
and yet who slip sometimes and fall into error and sin, being inadvertently
overtaken. The same shall be admonished twice in secret and the third time
openly disciplined or banned according to the command of Christ. Matt. 18.
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Lord’s Supper: Therefore it is and must be (thus): Whoever has not been
called by one God to one faith, to one baptism, to one Spirit, to one body,
with all the children of God's church, cannot be made (into) one bread with
them, as indeed must be done if one is truly to break bread according to
the command of Christ.
Theology of the Confession
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Separation
– Separation from apostate bodies of Christians
– Separation from governments
– Separation from sin and the world of evil.
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Pastor: “This office shall be to read, to admonish and teach,
to warn, to discipline, to ban in the church, to lead out in
prayer for the advancement of all the brethren and sisters, to
lift up the bread when it is to be broken, and in all things to
see to the care of the body of Christ, in order that it may be
built up and developed, and the mouth of the slanderer be
stopped. This one moreover shall be supported of the church
which has chosen him, wherein he may be in need, so that he
who serves the Gospel may live of the Gospel as the Lord has
ordained.”
Theology of the Confession
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Sword:
– Governments are used by God to punish evil and protectg
the good.
– Christians, however, do not participate in governments as
they are dedicated to the kingdom of God.
– Christians are pacifists and do not serve in the
government.
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Oath: “Christ also taught us along the same line when He
said, Let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for
whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil. He says, Your
speech or word shall be yea and nay. (However) when one
does not wish to understand, he remains closed to the
meaning. Christ is simply Yea and Nay, and all those who seek
Him simply will understand His Word.”
Sattler’s Martyrdom
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Sattler was arrested in Horb, Germany on May 17, 1527
and tried at Rottenburg where he was tortured and
burned at the stake on May 21, 1527.
Here are some of the charges against him:
– Secondly, he has taught, held and believed that the body and
blood of Christ are not present in the sacrament.
– Thirdly, he has taught and believed that infant baptism does not
conduce to salvation.
– Fourthly, they have rejected the sacrament of extreme unction.
– Fifthly, they have despised and condemned the mother of God
and the saints.
– Sixthly, he has declared that men are not to swear before the
authorities.
– Ninthly, he has said that if the Turks should invade the country,
no resistance ought to be offered them;
Anabaptist Theologian
Balthasar Hubmaier (1481-1528)
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Born near Augsburg, Germany, in 1503 he enrolled at
the University of Freiburg where he studied under
Johannes Eck and earned the M.A. in 1511.
He studied and then taught at Ingolstadt University
where he earned the Doctor of Theology degree in 1515.
In 1516 he became the Cathedral preacher at
Regensburg.
– He led an Anti-semitic persecution there—expelling the Jews,
burning their synagogue and replacing it with a church dedicated
to Mary
– It became a pilgrimage site due to claimed miracles and
Hubmaier became embroiled in a controversy between the city
council and the bishop.
– As a result, he became the pastor of a small church in Waldshut
in Germany on the Rhine between Basel and Zurich during 1520.
The Reformer
Hubmaier read Erasmus and the fathers while in
Waldshut. He also started reading Luther and
Oecolampadius.
 When invited back to Regensburg, he spent the
winter there but was converted to Lutheranism
and returned to Waldshut early in 1523.
 In 1523 he visited Zwingli in Zurich, and he
sided with the Reformation in the October 1523
disputation.
 Hubmaier joined the Grebel Bible study group
and maintained relationships with this radical
movement.
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Waldshut, 1524-1525
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Hubmaier began to implement reforms in Waldshut
– He gave the communion with both bread and wine.
– He married in 1524.

Hubmaier submitted to adult baptism on April 15, 1525.
– On Easter Sunday, April 16, 1525, Hubmaier baptized 300 adults
from his parish church at Waldshut.
– He published his first book in defense of adult believer’s baptism
in May 1525.
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The Austrian army occupied Waldshut (during the
Peasant’s Revolt) in December, 1525 and Hubmaier fled
to Zurich.
– He was arrested in Zurich and forced to recant under torture.
– Upon release he fled to Moravia and renounced his recantation.
Moravia, 1526-1528

Under his leadership, Nickolsburg in Moravia became a
center for the Anabaptist movement.
– Some estimate 12,000 Anabaptists in the city.
– The Zurich printer Froschauer had emigrated to the city and
published Hubmaier’s books.
– The city was protected by Leonhard von Liechtenstein and
Moravian nobility.

After the defeat of King Louis of Hungary and Bohemia
by the Turks, Austria sought the arrest of Hubmaier on
political charges related to the Peasant’s Revolt.
– The Moravians turned him over to King Ferdinand of Austria.
– He was eventually tried and burned at the stake in Vienna.
– His wife was drowned three days after her husband died.
Hubmaier’s Theology
Rejected Zwingli’s predestination and advocated
free will in much the same way that Erasmus
did.
 He was not a pacifist and believed Christians
should pay “war taxes.”
 His baptismal theology shaped future Anabaptist
thought:

– The church is a voluntary community that lives in
tension with the world.
– The believer respond’s to God’s regenerating grace by
entering into covenant with God through baptism as
an act of discipleship
Dutch Anabaptism
Melchoir Hoffman (1495-1543) was the original
agent of Anabaptism among the Dutch.
 Hoffman was born in upper Franconia in Bavaria,
Germany. As a layperson, he became attracted
to Luther’s teaching in 1520.

– As a lay preacher, he was quite successful but he
became iconoclastic.
– He was sent to counsel with Luther in 1525.
– Living in Denmark in 1529, he adopted a Zwinglian
understanding of the Lord’s Supper and began to
speculate on millennial theories.
Hoffman’s Travels
Hoffman was banished from Lutheran territories, so he
came to Strasbourg to seek alliance with Bucer.
 Strasbourg was also resistant to his millennial
speculations but was especially hostile to his emerging
Anabaptist tendencies. He joined the Anabaptists in
Strasbourg in 1529.
 Hoffman traveled to East Frisia in NW Germany near the
Netherlands where he baptized 300 adults and
established churches from 1530 to 1533.
 He returned to Strasbourg in 1533 where he prophesied
the imminent return of Christ to that city where a new
era would begin in the New Jerusalem of Strasbourg.
 Hoffman was eventually imprisoned, though released on
occasions, where he died in 1543.
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Munster, Germany
Two of Hoffman’s
disciples, Jan van
Matthijs and Jan van
Leiden, believed that
Hoffman had
identified the wrong
time and place—they
believed it would be
Münster in NW
Germany (near the
Netherlands).
The Münster Theocracy
Münster had, since 1530, been undergoing a
Lutheran-style reformation with its leader
Bernard Rothmann moving in Anabaptist
directions.
 They went to Münster and within weeks had
baptized 1000 adults.
 The Anabaptists seized the city and ruled it for
18 months (February 1534 to June 1535) as
they awaited the return of Christ.
 They ruled the city as a new Davidic kingdom—
practiced polygamy and violently suppresed
opponents.
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Anabaptist Leaders
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The town was besieged
by its expelled bishop and
eventually retaken.
The city was originally
9,500 in 1533 but was
only 4,000 in 1534.
The Anabaptist leaders
were tortured, executed
and their bodies hung in
cages from the Steeple of
St. Lambert’s Church.
Anabaptists and Münster
Münster represents a minority
millennialist, violent strain of Anabaptism
which sought the overthrow of the State.
 The main Anabaptist groups are pacifists
who seek separation from the State as in
the case of the Swiss Brethren.
 Another Anabaptist stream is that of
Hubmaier where the State is good and
Christians should support it.
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Menno Simons
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Born to dairy farmers in
Witmarsum, Netherlands, he
distinguished himself as a Latin
scholar.
In 1524 he was ordained and
appointed priest in Pingjum,
the village next to his father's
farm.
Reading some Reformation
literature (Luther and
Erasmus) because he was
having doubts about
transubstantiation, he began
to read the Bible for himself in
1526 at the urging of those
authors.
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Map of the
Netherlands
Development of a Reformer
Soon rejected transubstantiation and had
increasing doubts about the Roman Catholic
church but also some of the views of the
Reformers.
 By 1528 he was known as an “evangelical”
preacher though he continued as parish priest.
 When in 1531 a Dutch tailor, Sicke Freerks in
Leeuwarden, was beheaded because he had
been re-baptized as an adult, Menno objected
and began to restudy the issue.
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Turning Point
In 1531, he became the village
priest in his home parish at
Witmarsum.
 In 1532 Anabaptists were present
in his hometown and encountered
the first Münsterites emissaries in
1534.
 He wrote tracks against the
Münsterites though not rejecting
their Anabaptism (Menno’s brother
was killed at Münster).
 Dirk Philips, who formed the
center of the peaceful Melchiorite
movement and perhaps baptized
by Hoffmann himself, sought out
Menno after his conversion and
both baptized and ordained him
after January 1536.
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Simon’s Ministry
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While Luther at least could exercise a ministry in a
friendly political environment, Menno's ministry had to
be clandestine on account of political hostility.
In 1542 the Holy Roman emperor Charles V issued an
edict against him, promising 100 guilders reward for his
arrest. One of the first Anabaptist believers to be
executed for sheltering Menno was Tyaard Renicx of
Leeuwarden, in 1539.
Menno died a natural death after 29 years of ministry as
an “underground” Anabaptist minister in the
Netherlands.
Mennonite Theology
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Believer’s baptism—symbolic of regenerative
faith
Zwinglian understanding of the Lord’s Supper.
Free Will—rejection of the Magisterial
understanding of Election.
Covenanted Community of Disciples led by an
ordained Pastor who administers the sacraments
of baptism and the Lord’s Supper.
Discipleship as the central dimension of the
Christian life.
Pacifist theology
Mennonites
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“Mennonite” was a term first used by opponents in 1544.
It describes the North German and Dutch Anabaptists.
– The “Amish” Brethren are a sect of the Swiss Mennonites that
objected to “compromises” made by other Mennonites (1690s).
– The Swiss and Mennonite traditions evolved separately but they
also held common beliefs that mutually nurtured each other.
– The root of these common beliefs are probably Erasmian
humanism and the Zwinglian reformation.

Mennonites began to enjoy freedom of practice in the
mid-17th century and many emigrated to the British
colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries.