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 A 1685 illustration byJan Luyken, published inMartyrs Mirror, ofDirk Willems saving his pursuer, an act of mercy that led to his recapture, after which he was burned at the stake nearAsperen in the present-dayNetherlands |
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TheRadical Reformation represented a response to perceived corruption both in theCatholic Church and in the expandingMagisterialProtestant movement led byMartin Luther and many others. Starting in Germany and Switzerland in the 16th century, the Radical Reformation gave birth to many radical Protestant groups throughout Europe. The term covers Radical Reformers likeThomas Müntzer andAndreas Karlstadt, theZwickau prophets, andAnabaptist groups like theHutterites and theMennonites.
In Germany, Switzerland and Austria, a majority sympathized with the Radical Reformation despite intense persecution.[1] Although the surviving proportion of the European population that rebelled against Catholic,Lutheran andReformed Churches was small, Radical Reformers wrote profusely, and the literature on the Radical Reformation is disproportionately large, partly as a result of the proliferation of the Radical Reformation teachings in theUnited States.[2][page needed]
Old Order Anabaptists andConservative Anabaptists have interpreted the heritage of the Radical Reformation to include "straightforward interpretation of and obedience to biblical commands regarding nonresistance and swearing of oaths, outward separation through dress, head coverings for women, permanence of marriage, submission, church discipline and two-kingdom theology."[3]
Some early forms of the Radical Reformation weremillenarian, focusing on the imminent end of the world. This was particularly notable in the rule ofJohn of Leiden over the city ofMünster in 1535, which was ultimately crushed by the combined forces of the CatholicBishop of Münster and the LutheranLandgrave of Hesse.[4] After theMünster rebellion, the small group of theBatenburgers continued to adhere to militant Anabaptist beliefs. Non-violent Anabaptist groups also had millenarian beliefs.
The early Anabaptists believed that their reformation must purify both theology and the lives of Christians, especially their political and social relationships.[5] Therefore, the church should not be supported by the state, neither by tithes and taxes, nor by the use of the sword; Christianity was a matter of individual conviction, which could not be forced on anyone, but rather required a personal decision for it.[5]
Many groups were influenced byBiblical literalism (like theSwiss Brethren),spiritualism (like the south German Anabaptists) and mainly absolute pacifism (like the Swiss Brethren, the Hutterites and the Mennonites from northern Germany and the Netherlands). The Hutterites also practicedcommunity of goods. In the beginning, most of them were stronglymissionary.
Later forms[clarification needed] of Anabaptism were much smaller and focused on the formation of small, separatist communities. Among the many varieties to develop were Mennonites,Amish, and Hutterites.
Typical among the new leaders of the later Anabaptist movement, and certainly the most influential of them, wasMenno Simons, a Dutch Catholic priest who early in 1536 decided to join the Anabaptists.[6] Simons had no use for the violence advocated and practiced by the Münster movement, which seemed to him to pervert the very heart of Christianity.[6] Thus, Mennonite pacifism is not merely a peripheral characteristic of the movement, but rather belongs to the very essence of Menno's understanding of the gospel; this is one of the reasons that it has been a constant characteristic of all Mennonite bodies through the centuries.[6]
The Anabaptists of the Radical Reformation continue to inspire current community groups such as theBruderhof and movements such as Urban Expression in the UK.[7][8]
Though most of the Radical Reformers were Anabaptist, some did not identify themselves with the mainstream Anabaptist tradition. Thomas Müntzer was involved in theGerman Peasants' War. Andreas Karlstadt disagreed theologically with Huldrych Zwingli and Martin Luther, teaching nonviolence and refusing tobaptize infants while not rebaptizing adult believers.[9]Kaspar Schwenkfeld andSebastian Franck were influenced byGerman mysticism and spiritualism. In 17th-century England, the tumultuous climate of theEnglish Civil War andEnglish Revolution saw the emergence of several movements that were influenced by or could be considered part of the Radical Reformation, such as theEnglish Dissenters. One of these dissenting groups that developed along convergent lines with the continental Radical Reformation was theReligious Society of Friends, commonly known as Quakers, led byGeorge Fox andMargaret Fell, among others.[10]
In addition to the Anabaptists, other Radical Reformation movements have been identified. Notably,George Huntston Williams, the great categorizer of the Radical Reformation, considered early forms ofUnitarianism (such as that of theSocinians, and exemplified byMichael Servetus as well as thePolish Brethren), and other trends that disregarded theNiceneChristology still accepted by most Christians, as part of the Radical Reformation. With Servetus andFaustus Socinus,anti-Trinitarianism came to the foreground.[11]
The beliefs of the movement are those of theBelievers' Church.[12] Unlike the Catholics and the more Magisterial Lutheran and Reformed (Anglican,Zwinglian andCalvinist) Protestant movements, some of the Radical Reformation abandoned the idea that the "Church visible" was distinct from the "Church invisible."[13] Thus, the Church only consisted of the tiny community of believers who accepted Jesus Christ and demonstrated this by adult baptism, called "believer's baptism".
While the magisterial reformers wanted to substitute their own learned elite for the learned elite of theCatholic Church, the radical Protestant groups rejected the authority of the institutional "church" organization, almost entirely, as being unbiblical. As the search for original Christianity was carried further, it was claimed that the tension between the church and theRoman Empire in thefirst centuries of Christianity was normative,[clarification needed] that the church is not to be allied with governmentsacralism, that a true church is always subject to be persecuted, and that theconversion of Constantine I was, therefore, theGreat Apostasy that marked a deviation from pure Christianity.[14]
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