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.

 

 

My First Sermon: Reflecting on November 1954

On a Sunday evening in November 1954, I drove the 13 miles from the farm where I lived with my parents and little sister to the Baptist church in the small town of Worth, Missouri. There I preached my first sermon. I was 16 years old and a senior in high school.  

LKS (1954)

Why would a boy be asked to preach? Those of you from many other Christian faith traditions likely think it strange that a boy who had celebrated his 16^th birthday only three months earlier would be asked to preach in a church worship service.  

Although not common, neither were such instances rare in the Baptist tradition. Regardless of age or lack of theological education, those who had felt “called” by God to be preachers/pastors were usually affirmed by their home church as well as by nearby churches with which they were associated.  

Back then, most Baptist churches had worship services every Sunday morning and evening. The attendance on Sunday evening was usually far less for the morning service. Probably only 20~25 people were there for that Nov. ’54 evening service at Worth Baptist Church. 

As a high school senior, of course, I had no formal theological education. But for more than eight years, every week with very few exceptions I had attended Sunday School, Sunday morning & evening worship services, and Wednesday evening prayer meetings. That was beneficial Bible/theological training. 

What would a boy preach about in his first sermon? Joe Wolven, my good friend and “best man” at June’s and my wedding in 1957, also started preaching when he was in high school. His first sermon was based on Genesis 1:1, and he titled it “In the beginning, God.” That seems quite appropriate. 

The biblical text for my first sermon, though, was Matthew 16:24-26. I have no memory as to why I chose that text and have been unable to find the brief notes I typed out to use for my mostly unscripted sermon.  

Here are those words spoken by Jesus as recorded by Matthew: 

Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul? (KJV).

It seems a bit strange to me now, but I titled the sermon based on those words, “Self-Discipline for Growth.”*¹  

Last week, I read these words: “In speaking of self-control, one is easily misunderstood. It should not be associated with a destructive repression, but with a constructive expression.”*² I am quite sure my sermon was about the latter (and I equate “self-control” and “self-discipline”).  for

Even for quite some time before preaching that first sermon, I sought to live a purpose-driven life. Prior to receiving what I felt sure was God’s “call” to be a preacher/pastor (in Aug. 1952), my main purpose in life was to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ—and that purpose necessitated self-discipline. 

Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life (2002) was a highly successful and influential book.*³ Recently, I took a look at that book again. For the 23^rd day of his 40-day program, the prominent California pastor wrote, 

Spiritual growth is not automatic. It takes an intentional commitment. You must want to grow, decide to grow, make an effort to grow, and persist in growing. Discipleship—the process of becoming like Christ—always begins with a decision.

Although I was preaching as a high school boy nearly 50 years before Warren’s bestselling book was published, I am quite sure I said something similar in that 1954 sermon. And I still believe that that is true for all who claim to be Christians, regardless of age. 

As I continued to grow through the years, my understanding of what it means to be a disciple deepened and broadened. But the driving force of my life for the past seventy years (and more) has been, and still is, doing my utmost to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

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*¹ I have the sermon title, Bible passage, and date (Nov. 54) recorded in My Pastoral Record, a splendid gift from June not long after we were married in 1957. That record book also indicates that I preached 17 more times (in my home church and seven others) before starting college in September 1955. The last sermon recorded in that book was number 1,112—and that was in June 1976. I regret that I did not continue keeping the record of sermons preached, which would be far more than double that number. 

*² James Allen, Book of Meditations and Thoughts for the Day: For Every Day of the Year. I know almost nothing about Allen (1864~1912), but this year I have enjoyed reading his helpful book, which was published the year after his death. The words cited above were some of his “thoughts” for November 14.  

*³ The Purpose Driven Life was on the New York Times Bestseller List for over 90 weeks. It is reported (see here) that 50 million copies of it had been sold in more than 85 languages by 2020. 

 

What Does “Jesus Is Lord” Mean?

Earlier this month I wrote about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his highly influential book The Cost of Discipleship, published in a new translation in 2001 as just Discipleship. Bonhoeffer’s emphasis was upon following Jesus as Lord. But what does that mean?

For most of my life I have generally agreed with those who said that the most basic, and most important, “creedal” statement for Christianity is simply “Jesus is Lord.” All people who could sincerely make that profession, and only those who make that profession, should be considered Christians.

In my Jan. 30 blog article I mentioned that I had started reading Frederic Rich’s book Christian Nation (2013). I have now finished it, and I can’t remember when I have read a novel that has been as disturbing, and thought-provoking, as it.

In Rich’s novel, John McCain and Sarah Palin are elected in 2008, and within a year or so McCain dies (of natural causes). Soon under President Palin there is a move to make the United States into a Christian nation as envisioned by her and those of the Christian Right who agree with her.

The movement toward the Right’s concerted attempt to establish a theocracy is greatly aided by terrorist attacks on 7/22/2012, which are much worse than the attacks of 9/11/2001. Those attacks also facilitate Palin’s reelection in 2012.

Four years later Palin’s successor is her principal advisor, the fictional Steve Jordan. He starts his inaugural speech in 2017 by declaring, “I submit America to Christ.” He then establishes a commission to draw up plans for a specific legislative program to implement his vision of a Christian nation.

Michael Farris, who is a real person (see this link to the Wikipedia article about him), was appointed chair of that commission, which included people whose names you know: John Ashcroft, Rick Perry, James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Ralph Reed, and David Barton, among others.

The third section of the completed Farris Report is titled, “This nation devoutly recognizes the authority and law of our Lord Jesus Christ.” One provision of that section states, “Only persons who have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their savior shall serve as federal judges.”

Maybe you can see why this caused me to think deeply about what it means to confess “Jesus is Lord.” Those seeking to establish a Christian theocracy in the U.S. use their belief in Jesus as Lord to lord it over people who are not Christians or who do not agree with their interpretation of Christianity, which I don’t.

Here is why I strongly disagree with them: proclaiming Jesus as Lord never means coercing other people. According to the biblical records, Jesus never coerced anyone to follow him. Accordingly, those who are disciples of Jesus should never seek to coerce anyone to follow him—or to follow explicit “Christian” laws enacted by those who think they are following Jesus.

In Christian Nation, though, blasphemy, all abortion, homosexual activity, adultery, extra-marital sexual activity, and even labor unions are made illegal. Moreover, all American citizens are forced to live under the government’s interpretation of Biblical law—a kind of Christian Sharia.

All of this may seem so fictitious as to be completely implausible. But I think we have to consider the fact that, in the words on the dust jacket of Christian Nation, it could happen here.

The best chance of it beginning to happen here soon is for Ted Cruz to be elected the next President. If he wins the nomination, which is still quite possible, I’ll write then about why I think that.  

Honoring the Memory of Bonhoeffer

Although I have long admired him greatly, quoted him in sermons and chapel talks, and included him in university/seminary lectures, up until now I have not written about Dietrich Bonhoeffer in any of my previous blog articles (and this is my 499^th one).

Today, though, on the 110^th anniversary of his birth on February 4, 1906, I am happy to post this article in honor of Bonhoeffer’s memory.

As most of you probably know, Bonhoeffer was hanged by the Nazis in a German prison in April 1945, just weeks before the end of WWII in Europe. He was 39 years old, the same age as Martin Luther King, Jr., who was assassinated on an April evening 23 years later.

Bonhoeffer was born into an upper middle-class family and could easily have become a medical doctor or a lawyer. Instead, he chose to become a pastor and a theologian. And then he chose to become one of the leaders among the small percentage of Christians in Germany who stood up in opposition to Hitler and the Nazis.

Before Hitler’s rise to power, though, Bonhoeffer spent the academic year of 1930-31 as a student and teaching fellow at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. For six months during that year he regularly attended the Abyssinian Baptist Church and sat under the preaching of Pastor Adam Clayton Powell (1865-1953).

Bonhoeffer, who turned 25 during the year he was in New York, was significantly influenced by his experience of attending that predominantly African American church in Harlem.

In January 1933 Adolf Hitler, Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (or Nazi Party), was appointed Chancellor of Germany. Bonhoeffer, who was still just 26 at that time, soon began to oppose the fascism of Hitler and joined with Martin Niemöller, Karl Barth, and others to form what came to be known as the Confessing Church.

These anti-Nazi Christians in Germany drafted the Barmen Confession in 1934. They sought to make it clear that Jesus Christ was the Führer, their leader and the head of the Church, not Hitler.

Later that year, Bonhoeffer went to London to become pastor of a German-speaking church there. In 1935, though, he returned to Germany to become the head of the Confessing Church’s seminary.

In September 1937 that seminary in Finkenwalde was closed by the Gestapo and by November, 27 pastors and former students of Bonhoeffer were arrested.

That same November, Bonhoeffer published his most widely read book, Nachfolge (“following after”), which in 1949 was published in English as The Cost of Discipleship. In it Bonhoeffer sought to elucidate what following Jesus really means.

 

The first chapter of the book is titled “Costly Grace,” and there Bonhoeffer rejects what he terms “cheap grace.” That term was one he had heard in New York. Before Bonhoeffer was born, Rev. Powell had used the phrase “cheap grace” to refer to the dominant forms of religion that tolerated racism, sexism, and lynching in one form or another.

For Bonhoeffer, “cheap grace” was what he saw among the “German Christians” who accepted Hitler’s fascism. But he came to see that for him discipleship meant to stand up for the Jews and to oppose Hitler—and he even joined in plotting to kill Hitler in order to save Jewish lives.

Because of his anti-Nazi activities, Bonhoeffer was arrested and imprisoned in April 1943. Two years later he was executed.

Bonhoeffer wrote in Nachfolge, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” That, indeed, was the cost of discipleship for him.

Remembering Søren Kierkegaard

He was an odd guy in many ways. He was out of step with, and way ahead of, the times in which he lived. And he was a constant irritation to the religious establishment of Denmark, the country in which he lived his entire life.

Søren Kierkegaard is the one of whom I am writing. He was born two hundred years ago, in February 1813, and died at the young age of 42, on November 11, 1855. (This is the third month in a row to write about a significant Christian thinker/doer of the past; in September I wrote about Albert Schweitzer, and last month it was Jonathan Edwards.)

When I was a junior at William Jewell College, I remember hearing about Kierkegaard for the first time. My interest in him grew over the next several years—so much so that my doctoral dissertation was titled “The Meaning of ‘Paradox’: A Study of the Use of the Word ‘Paradox’ in Contemporary Theological and Philosophical Writings with Special Reference to Søren Kierkegaard.”

When I was writing my dissertation, I was mainly interested in Kierkegaard’s brilliant thinking. But soon after beginning my teaching career in 1968 I read the (to me) captivating book Kierkegaard and Radical Discipleship: A New Perspective (1968) by Vernard Eller, the outstanding Church of the Brethren scholar. (That stimulating book can be found online here.)

Reading Eller’s book led me to read again Kierkegaard’s last writings, collected in a book entitled Kierkegaard’s Attack Upon ‘Christendom' 1854-1855 (1944; new edition, 1968). That volume is a hard-hitting collection of criticism not of Christianity but of Christendom, institutionalized Christianity as seen in the state church of Denmark (and, by implication, elsewhere).

In the year he died, Kierkegaard expressed his opposition to Christendom like this: “The religious situation in the land is:

Christianity (that is, the Christianity of the New Testament—and everything else is indeed not Christianity, least of all by calling itself that), Christianity does not exist at all . . . .

So in a sense, Kierkegaard was a fundamentalist—but not in the sense of emphasizing the sine qua non doctrines of Christianity as did the fundamentalist movement in the first quarter of the twentieth century. Rather, he emphasized that real Christianity must include “radical discipleship,” to use Eller’s words.

Kierkegaard’s writings included philosophical/theological works such as Philosophical Fragments (1844) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Frag-ments (1846), psychological/theological books such as Fear and Trembling (1843) and The Sickness unto Death (1847), and devotional/theological writings such as Works of Love (1847) and Practice in Christianity (1850).

For you who would like to read more of Kierkegaard’s challenging thinking, I highly recommend the excellent book Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Søren Kierkegaard, which is available as a free e-book at this link.

The first half of that book, selected and edited by Charles E. Moore, is a summary of SK’s key ideas, and then roughly the last half is a collection of excerpts and aphorisms arranged topically. Reading “Provocations” greatly helps us to understand Kierkegaard better. But more importantly, it helps us to grasp more fully what it means to be a true Christian.

Long before Bonhoeffer wrote his noted book about Christian discipleship, Kierkegaard stressed the necessity for Christians to follow Jesus faithfully. In his words, “Christ comes to the world as the example, constantly enjoining: Imitate me. We humans prefer to adore him instead” (Kindle, loc. 3426).

Even though he died 158 years ago, not only is Søren Kierkegaard still well worth remembering, his thought-provoking writings are worth reading, pondering, and embracing.

Happy Kiju, Glen Stassen!

Noted Baptist ethicist/theologian (and Thinking Friend) Dr. Glen Stassen was born on February 29, 1936. (I’m not revealing any secrets, for he has included his birth date on his Facebook page.)

Even though there is no February 29 this year, Glen was still born 77 years ago, which means that this would be a time of special celebration if he were Japanese (or in Japan). One’s 77^th birthday in Japan is called kiju, which literally means “joyful longevity.”

So, please join me in wishing Dr. Stassen a Happy Birthday at this auspicious time in his life.

After serving for 20 years as an ethics professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Stassen joined the Fuller Theological Seminary faculty in 1997 and is now the Lewis B. Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics there.

Glen is the author of several books, and he is particularly known for his emphasis on “just peacemaking.” His book Just Peacemaking: Transforming Initiatives for Justice and Peace was published in 1992, and since then he has edited two other books (published in 1998 and 2008) on the same theme.

In addition to his birthday greeting, I am writing this to recommend Dr. Stassen’s new book, A Thicker Jesus: Incarnational Discipleship in a Secular Age (2012).

Academics have been using “thick” and “thin” to talk about interpretations and arguments at least since anthropologist Clifford Geertz’ used those terms in his book The Interpretations of Cultures (1973). A “thick” interpretation gives more than the basic information about a culture, or a person; it emphasizes historical context.

Accordingly, Dr. Stassen states the purpose of his new book: "Mainline churches need a clearer and deeper theology and ethics, and theology needs to focus on a thicker Jesus. . . . Evangelical churches and seeker-friendly churches need a thicker Jesus to guard their members against being coopted by political ideologies . . .” (p. x).

In the second chapter, then, he writes about how incarnational discipleship embraces “a thick, historically-embodied, realistic understanding of Jesus Christ” (p. 16).

The climactic eleventh chapter, “War: Jesus’ Transforming Initiatives and Just Peacemaking’s Initiatives,” elaborates on his ongoing emphasis.

The book ends with “one remaining question: Will you join in the apostolic witness to a thicker Jesus—in the tradition of incarnational discipleship?” (p. 221).

A Thicker Jesus is a significant book, one that deserves to be widely read. And carefully considering its contents should be especially helpful to all who are concerned with what it means, or should mean, to be a follower of Jesus in world today.

In this secular age when Jesus is often sentimentalized, commercialized, and trivialized in various ways, it is gratifying to have Dr. Stassen publish this significant book emphasizing a thicker Jesus.

And in this age that often presents a very thin interpretation of what it means to be a follower of Jesus, it is helpful to have this new book, in the tradition of the Anabaptists and also of Bonhoeffer (who is rather extensively treated), emphasize the meaning and importance of incarnational discipleship.

So, again, happy kiju, Glen. And thanks for this new book and for your ongoing emphasis on the challenge of just peacemaking. Many happy returns!

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: