Celebrating 500 Years of Anabaptism

“The Martyrdom of Felix Manz” was the title of a blog post I made in January 2013. In that post, I noted that on January 21, 1525, “a group of people met in the house where Felix lived with his mother, and they formed a new faith fellowship” based on baptism after an open confession of faith in Jesus.

Today and in the weeks/months ahead, the 500^th anniversary of that January 21^st gathering is being widely celebrated by Anabaptists around the world. 

Anabaptist World Inc. is a “journalistic ministry serving the global Anabaptist movement.” Danielle Klotz, the Executive Director of that ministry, calls this month’s edition of that magazine a “special issue for a big milestone.” And indeed, a 500^th anniversary is a big milestone.*¹  

The combined membership of all Anabaptist churches comprises a very small percentage of Christians worldwide. According to the centerfold of the publication just mentioned, the “approximate number of baptized Anabaptist church members around the world is 2.13 million.”

Only 22 countries have more than 10,000 Anabaptist church members, and surprisingly, Ethiopia is the country with the most, nearly 515,000. The U.S. is next, with 456,000. It can be argued, though, that Anabaptists have had influence through the centuries that outstrip their relatively small membership.

Anabaptists are “the most radical reformers” in Protestant Christianity. The quoted words are the title of a major article in the above-mentioned magazine. The author, Anabaptist scholar Valerie G. Rempel, avers, “Appealing to scripture alone, Anabaptists broke with tradition to follow Jesus literally.”

The Protestant Reformation began in 1517 with the ideas and activities of Martin Luther in Germany. In 1518, soon after becoming the priest of Grossmünster, the prestigious church in Zürich (Switzerland), Ulrich Zwingli began a similar reformation of the Roman Catholic Church there.

Both of those reformation movements, however, preserved the basic rituals of the Catholic Church. The sacrament of infant baptism was deemed especially important. But the Jesus-followers who met in sight of Grossmünster Church on 1/21/1525 could find no biblical support for such baptism.

Felix Manz and Conrad Grebel were young men who agreed with Zwingli’s reformation activities, but they thought his work was too slow. So, rejecting infant baptism (which they denied as being true baptism), the small group gathered in Manz’s home performed and accepted “believer’s baptism.”

Their “radical” reformation put them at odds with both the religious and civic leaders in Zürich —and they were soon considered heretics by both the church and the state. Manz was executed by drowning on January 5, 1527, and in the following years, thousands of Anabaptists were imprisoned or killed.^*2

From the beginning the Anabaptists emphasized discipleship. They believed that following Jesus meant living according to his teachings as found in the Gospels.*³ Jesus’ command, “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:43) was taken literally. To kill in the name of Jesus was unthinkable.

There are many differences among Anabaptists today. Progressive Mennonite churches, such as the one I am a member of, are far different from the various conservative Mennonite groups and the Amish. But from the beginning until the present, pacifism has been a core belief of all types of Anabaptists.

As I wrote in a blog post in 2012 (see here), “I decided while still in high school that pacifism is the position I should espouse because of being a follower of Christ.” So, I was long a “closet Anabaptist” until joining Rainbow Mennonite Church in July 2012.

The Southern Baptist Convention (that I was closely related to for nearly 50 years) as well as the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship (that I was later a part of for over 10 years) agree with the Anabaptists on believer’s baptism, and until SBC’s swing toward fundamentalism, on the separation of church and state.

But neither of those Baptist groups endorses pacifism, and the former especially has traditionally emphasized the New Testament writings of the Apostle Paul (and the “Roman road”) even more than the four Gospels. They tended to proclaim the Gospel about Jesus more than the message of Jesus.

Currently, 500 years after its beginning, the Anabaptist understanding of the Christian faith is still badly needed—and maybe more so in the U.S. now than ever because of the growing emphasis on Christian nationalism in this country.  

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*¹ Dawn Araujo-Hawkins is one of the nine members of Anabaptist World’s Board of Directors. She is a member of Rainbow Mennonite Church, where June and I are also members.

*² The name “Anabaptist,” meaning “re-baptizer,” was initially used in derision of the first participants in the “radical reformation” which began in 1525. For more detailed information (and a couple of pictures) about the beginning of Anabaptism, I highly recommend “Five Centuries of the Radical Reformation” (see here), the Jan. 16 Substack post by Thinking Friend Brian Kaylor.

Also, John Longhurst, an Anabaptist journalist who since 2003 has been the faith page columnist for the Winnipeg Free Press (the oldest newspaper in Western Canada), is the author of the informative Jan. 18 column, “2025 marks the 500th anniversary of Anabaptism.”

*³ Although Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran, his best-known book, known in English translation as The Cost of Discipleship, was first published in German (1n 1937) under the title Nachfolge, which literally means “following.” Since its publication in English translation in 1948, it has been highly appraised by Anabaptists as well as by many in other Christian denominations.

 

 

The Subversive Act of Baptism

“Subverting the Culture of Contempt” was the title of my 12/20 blog posting, and I am pleased that earlier this week EthicsDaily.com (see here) re-posted a slightly edited version of that article. This article is about a different, even more important type of subversion. 

Common Views of Baptism

There are, of course, a wide variety of views about baptism within Christianity. The most common view is that baptism is a sacrament that seals a recently born baby into the bonds of the Church.

The Roman Catholic Church, the Anglican Church, and many mainline Protestant denominations (such as Lutherans, Presbyterians, and many Methodists) practice infant baptism. In such cases, baptism is a rite chosen by Christian parents and the Church, a rite that may or may not later be affirmed by the child through Confirmation.

Other Protestant churches, such as all those in the baptist (lower case “b” intentional) reject what in theological discussions is sometimes referred to as pedobaptism. The alternative form of baptism is usually called believer’s baptism, also known as credobaptism.

Even baptisms of the latter type, however, are often of elementary or middle school children who are mainly doing what is expected of them by their parents and Sunday School teachers. Such baptisms are no more subversive acts than are those who receive infant baptism.

New Testament Views of Baptism

In New Testament times, baptism was of adults who were confessing their faith in Jesus as Savior and their allegiance to him as Lord. But the main difference between then and now, especially in Europe and the Americas, is that the term Lord was problematic.

In the Roman Empire of that time, Caesar wanted/expected to be called Kurios (Lord), so to confess Jesus as Lord was, well, a subversive act.

Consequently, for many decades after Jesus’ death and resurrection, the persecution of Christians was not specifically for their religious beliefs but primarily because of their political stance: calling Jesus Lord instead of Caesar.

That all changed, of course, after the baptism of Emperor Constantine in 337 A.D. His baptism was not a subversive act; rather, it seems to have been based on his earlier decision to embrace Christianity for military reasons.

The non-subversive form of baptism, then, was predominant in European Christianity from the fourth century until the sixteenth century when a small group of Swiss subversives sought to re-institute believer’s baptism. They came to be called Anabaptists and began the baptist movement.

And, yes, those Anabaptists were persecuted by both Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Help from Brian Zahnd

Some of you may remember my 9/5/17 blog article about Brian Zahnd and his powerful book Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God (see here). Brian’s new 2019 book is titled Postcards from Babylon, and I highly recommend it.

From early in his first chapter, Zahnd stresses that “the only way to truly follow Jesus is to be countercultural.” Then he begins the concluding paragraph of that chapter with these powerful words:

It’s not the task of the church to "Make America Great Again." The contemporary task of the church is to make Christianity countercultural again.

That task can be fulfilled, partly, by making baptism again what it was meant to be in the beginning: commitment to Jesus Christ above all others.

Zahnd declares, “I am betrothed by faith and baptism to Christ alone and Christ can have no rivals” (p. 42).

That is the basic reason baptism is subversive: by the act of baptism the Christ-follower rejects all the isms that demand allegiance: capitalism, militarism, and primarily nationalism. And that is the reason Brian also avers that “from the moment we are baptized into the body of Christ we become expatriates in the land of our birth” (p. 51).

So, I appeal to all you Christians: let’s make baptism subversive again!

The Inexplicable Case of Tetsuya-san

This past Sunday (May 20) was a very special day for Tetsuya Miyahara. He was baptized that morning at the Josei Baptist Church in Fukuoka City, Japan. What makes Tetsuya-san’s baptism especially meaningful is that he was a convicted murderer, released just six months ago after 18 years in prison.

Tetsuya-san’s Inexplicable Crime

In the wee hours of a March morning in 2000, Tetsuya-san made his way to the second-floor bedroom of an acquaintance and slit her throat as she lay sleeping on the futon next to her nine-year-old daughter.

The murdered woman was a widow who worked as an acupuncturist to support her daughter. And to make matters worse, she was blind. Tetsuya-san had often assisted the woman, shopping for her and providing transportation for her and her daughter.

Tetsuya-san had worked as an insurance salesman, and it seems he had used the woman’s ID and hanko (seal used in Japan on official papers) to borrow money from her insurance.

Apparently, the motive behind his inexplicable crime was the fear that his illegal actions were going to be exposed.

Tetsuya-san was subsequently arrested and first incarcerated in the detention center in Saga City, where the crime occurred. That is where I first met him sometime in 2001. (Saga is about 40 miles south of Fukuoka City where I lived.)

Tetsuya-san’s Inexplicable Conversion

Back on July 25, 2010, I posted (here) a blog article titled “The Amazing Story of Tetsuya-san”. As I wrote then, Mrs. M, a Japanese woman whom June and I had known for more than 20 years at the time, went to visit Tetsuya-san, mainly because she knew his parents.

Tetsuya-san asked Mrs. M. to bring him a Bible, which she did. Then she asked me to go with her to visit him, which I did. In just a few weeks he had written a confession of faith in Jesus. Part of what he wrote then, in 2001, was included in the confession of faith he read before the congregation at Josei Church last Sunday.

Through the years I visited Tetsuya-san many times—first in the Saga detention center (as mentioned), then in the detention center in Fukuoka, which was very near Seinan Gakuin University (SGU) where I taught. After his sentencing, I visited him repeatedly in the Oita Prison, just over 100 miles away.

Oita Prison

During each of the five times I have been back in Japan since retiring in 2004, I have gone to visit Tetsuya-san. The last two or three times he was in Saga Juvenile Prison, where he had been transferred to work using the barbering skills he had acquired as a prisoner in Oita.

During all of those years in prison, as was plain from my visits with him as well as from the many letters I have received from him, he was reading/studying the Bible and learning more and more about the meaning of the Christian faith.

Through the years, Tetsuya-san has especially studied the letters of the Apostle of Paul, who described himself as the “chief of sinners” (1 Tim. 1:15).

Fukuoka Josei Church

Tetsuya-san was released from prison in December; soon afterward he attended a Christian church for the first time. Since January he has attended the Josei Church every Sunday—and has sent me emails each week reporting on his experiences there. 

The baptismal service Sunday was conducted by Dr. Yoshiki Terazono, my long-time friend, former colleague in the Dept. of Theology at SGU, and my successor as chancellor of Seinan Gakuin.

It was with great joy I read the email Tetsuya-san wrote Sunday evening telling about his baptism that morning, a public testimony to his inexplicable conversion.

The Martyrdom of Felix Manz

Felix Manz is not exactly a household name for most people, although he is widely known in Anabaptist circles. (The family name is sometimes spelled Mantz, as in the name of the library named in his honor at Bethel College in Newton, Kansas).

A man of strong faith and conviction, Manz was martyred 486 years ago today, on January 5, 1527. On that fateful day, Felix was bound, taken to the middle of the Limmat River in the heart of Zurich (Switzerland), and executed by drowning.

Felix Manz was born around the year 1498, the son of one of the priests at the magnificent Grossmünster Church in Zurich and the priest’s concubine, who lived (at least later) in her own house on Neustadt Lane very near the church.

By Oliver Wendell Schenk, 1972

Ulrich (Huldrych) Zwingli became the head priest at Grossmünster at the end of 1518 and soon began to preach about reforming the Catholic Church. The young man Felix Manx became one of Zwingli’s ardent students. But by 1524 Felix, and a few others such as his good friend Conrad Grebel, became increasingly dissatisfied with Zwingli, whose reforms did not go far enough, they thought.

Finally, a group of people met in the house where Felix lived with his mother, and they formed a new faith fellowship on the basis of baptism following an open confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Grebel baptized an older man, George Blaurock (c. 1491~1529) and then he baptized Grebel and the others gathered there that day, January 21, 1525.

The group called themselves the Swiss Brethren—but their opponents, mainly Zwingli and the leaders of the Grossmünster Church as well as the Zurich city council, derisively called then Anabaptists (re-baptizers). In March 1526 the city council passed an edict making re-baptism punishable by drowning.

On January 5, 1527, Manz was sentenced to death, “because contrary to Christian order and custom he had become involved in Anabaptism.” About 3 p.m. that afternoon he was taken by boat onto the Limmat River, which runs not far from the front of Grossmünster Church. His hands were bound and pulled below his knees and a pole was placed between them—and then he was shoved into the river to die by drowning.

Manz was the first person to be martyred by Protestants. Some referred to his watery death as his “third baptism.”

In 2004 the Evangelical-Reformed Church of Zurich had a six-month commemoration of the 500^th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Bullinger (1504~75), Zwingli’s successor as the head priest of Grossmünster. On June 26, that Church confessed their sins of the sixteenth century and asked for forgiveness by the descendants of those first Anabaptists.

That evening, a historical marker was unveiled on the bank of the river when Manz was matryred 477½ years earlier. June and I were quite moved when we visited that spot and saw the marker in May 2005. (In the picture, the marker is on the lower left, and the “twin towers” of Grossmünster Church can be seen in the background.)

The issue for Manz the other early Anabaptists was not just the rejection of infant baptism. The larger issue was the question about the nature of the church and the meaning of Christian discipleship. Those are topics that still merit serious consideration today.
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Jan. 8 -- Bob Carlson, a fellow member of Rainbow Mennonite Church and good friend, shared the following picture of the historical marker pictured, but unreadable, above: