Lecture 23: Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation

Anabaptists and the Radical Reformation .......................................

Lecture 23

We’ve been looking at two major Protestant traditions, the Lutheran

tradition and the Reform tradition. Now we’re going to turn to a third

tradition, a third branch of Reformation or Protestant theology that is

usually labeled the Anabaptist Tradition. It is sometimes also called the

left wing or radical Reformation.

T

he Anabaptists are a group of 16th-century Protestants who took the

radical step of rejecting infant baptism. The label “Anabaptists,”

meaning “re-baptizers,” was originally given to them by their

opponents, because they baptized people who had received baptism as

infants in other churches. Since the Anabaptists did not recognize infant

baptism as valid, they did not think they were re-baptizing but rather giving

people a genuine Christian baptism for the ¿ rst time.

The Anabaptists had several related reasons for rejecting infant baptism.

They did not ¿ nd it in scripture. They did not think it should be given to

those who had no faith of their own. They did not believe it was a means of

grace or regeneration.

The ¿ rst Anabaptists saw rejection of infant baptism as the next step to take

in the reform initiated by Zwingli in Zurich. For Zwingli no external thing or

sign has spiritual power. For Zwingli infant baptism is a covenant sign like

circumcision in the Old Testament.

The Anabaptists can be thought of as taking a step further away from

Catholicism, beyond the Reformed. They are a low church, averse to the

sacramental theology and liturgical practice of the high churches, which are

again closer to Catholicism. On a left-right spectrum, they are the left-wing

of the Reformation, with Lutherans (closest to Catholics) on the right wing,

and the Reformed in the center.

The Anabaptist movement began in Zwingli’s Zurich in the 1520s but also

took root in Holland in the 1530s and in Germany. The Dutch Anabaptists, led