{"id":6731,"date":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2025\/01\/01\/baptism-as-revolution\/"},"modified":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-01-01T00:00:00","slug":"baptism-as-revolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/2025\/01\/01\/baptism-as-revolution\/","title":{"rendered":"Baptism as Revolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

This year marks 500 years since a largely forgotten act of defiance helped birth modern religious freedom.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Baptism as an act of political revolution? It certainly was viewed as such 500 years ago in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, where Anabaptist leader Conrad Grebel and his companions debated with Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli the question of infant baptism. Today the rite of baptism is generally viewed as a highly personal decision, to be made either by consenting adult or guiding parent. The form or method or age of the participant is understood as a private religious matter, one that has no real meaning or impact on our civil order.<\/p>\n

But such was not the case in early-\u200bsixteenth-\u200bcentury Europe, where the choice to not<\/i> baptize one\u2019s infant could draw civil punishment, up to and including exile. In the eyes of civil and ecclesiastical leaders, infant baptism was the glue that kept community of the church and the state together. It was the linchpin that ensured that all subjects of the civil community were also members of the church. This connection allowed religious leaders to rely on civil leaders to enforce the beliefs, teachings, and morality of the church on all members of the community.<\/p>\n

The perceived importance of this ecclesiastical-\u200bcivil connection meant Grebel and Zwingli carried out their debate with vigor and seriousness. They squared off before the city council of Zurich on January 17, 1525. Unfortunately for the Anabaptists, the council ruled in favor of Zwingli and infant baptism. It ordered the Grebel group to cease their activities and directed that any unbaptized infants must be submitted for baptism within eight days. Failure to comply with the order, the council declared, would result in exile from the canton.<\/p>\n

Grebel stood firm. He had an unbaptized infant daughter, Issabella, yet he refused to submit to the council\u2019s ruling. The group met again secretly on January 21 in the home of Felix Manz. There, a former priest, George Blaurock, requested rebaptism from Grebel on confession of faith. Blaurock, in turn, baptized a number of those also present at the gathering.<\/p>\n

In this little episode church historians have seen the beginnings of the free church movement. As one put it, \u201cthe decision of Conrad Grebel to refuse to accept the jurisdiction of the Zurich Council over the Zurich church is one of the high moments of history, for however obscure it was, it marked the beginning of the modern \u2018free church\u2019 movement.\u201d1<\/sup> The fact that this protest took place over infant baptism\u2014the linchpin of the connection between church and state\u2014made it all the more significant. The church was being clearly defined as a separate body of committed believers who could not be controlled by the state.<\/p>\n

Toward Free Will Theology<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lying heavy over these events in Zurich was the influence of another Anabaptist, Balthasar Hubmaier, who was not present at the January meetings but whose writings in good part guided the disputation. Hubmaier was trained as a priest, and his skillful engagement with the issues had already earned him removal from Zurich. But he had committed his arguments to writing, and his <\/span>On The Christian Baptism of Believers<\/span><\/i> served as the foundation of the arguments of Grebel and the others.2<\/sup> Hubmaier\u2019s influence was felt beyond the issue of adult baptism, as he had articulated a theological framework of grace and freedom in which freely chosen adult baptism made sense, but also had implications for a range of matters, including civil and religious freedoms.<\/span><\/p>\n

Hubmaier, along with an Anabaptist colleague, Hans Denck, articulated an Anabaptist theology of free will and human choice that predated the contributions of free-will theologian Jacob Arminius by about 80 years. It stood in contrast to the theologies developed by magisterial Protestant leaders Martin Luther and John Calvin, which emphasized the bondage of the human will. While Calvin and Calvinism has come to be most closely associated with theologies of determinism, Luther also emphasized the inability of the human will to choose either goodness or God. These determinist theologies generally emphasized the importance of a guiding community, rather than the freedom of the individual. Both Luther and Calvin had significant roles for the prince or magistrate in the guidance and oversight of the church, and both Lutheranism and Calvinism developed generally as state churches\u2014hence the name magisterial reformers.<\/p>\n

But Anabaptism, with its emphasis on human free will and choice, developed differently.<\/p>\n

In 1526 Anabaptist Hans Denck, no doubt provoked by the Luther\/Erasmus debate over the will that had occurred the previous year, set out his own views on human freedom. The title of Denck\u2019s work reveals his true concern\u2014<\/span>Whether God Is the Cause of Evil<\/span><\/i>. In this book Denck dealt with the problem of evil and free will. He avoids Luther\u2019s wholly captive will and Erasmus\u2019s humanist\/Pelagian will. He argued that \u201csalvation is <\/span>in<\/span><\/i> man but not <\/span>of <\/span><\/i>man,\u201d and that while man naturally could not choose to oppose evil, he did have the capacity to submit to God. Thus, evil was a result of man\u2019s chosen failure to submit to God and could not be attributed to God.3<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Hubmaier wrote similarly on human nature and salvation.4<\/sup> He likewise believed in a fall, and in a sinful human nature and soul.5<\/sup> But he asserted that \u201cwhomever denies the freedom of the human will denies and rejects more than half of the Holy Scriptures.\u201d6<\/sup> Not only did all people have the capacity to choose God, but once this choice was made, they gained the ability through Christ\u2019s power to choose good. \u201cEnlightened by the Holy Spirit, [the soul] now again comes to know what is good and evil. It has recovered its lost freedom. It can now freely and willingly be obedient to the spirit against the body and can will and choose the good.\u201d7<\/sup><\/p>\n

Freedom for the \u201cTurk or Heretic\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The views of Hubmaier and Denck on human free will came to generally characterize the views of the evangelical Anabaptists, including those in Austria and the Netherlands, where Menno Simons articulated similar views. These evangelical Anabaptists represent an early Protestant free will heritage that is as early as Luther\u2019s teachings on the topic, and predate Calvin\u2019s writings by more than a decade.8<\/sup> The theology of free will articulated by Hubmaier, Denck, and others very early on served as the basis for arguing for civil and religious freedoms. This included freedom not only for Christians but also for Jews and Muslims. As early as 1524, Balthasar Hubmaier, wrote one of the earliest Reformation statements on religious liberty. Entitled <\/span>Concerning Heretics and Those That Burn Them (Von Ketzern und ihren Verbrennern)<\/span><\/i>, the work argued that heretics should be \u201covercome with holy knowledge\u201d and the arguments of Holy Scripture. If they do not respond, he wrote, to \u201cstrong proofs or evangelical reasons, then let them be, and leave them to rage and be mad.\u201d9<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\n

Hubmaier acknowledged the right of the \u201csecular power\u201d to put to death \u201ccriminals who injure the bodies of the defenseless.\u201d But the godless who do not \u201cinjure body or soul\u201d should be left unmolested.10<\/sup> He advocated religious freedom as a universal principle, arguing that it should be extended to both the \u201cTurk or a heretic,\u201d who will not be won by \u201csword or fire but alone with patience and prayer.\u201d In a sad irony, Hubmaier himself was burned for heresy about three years later in Vienna.11<\/sup><\/p>\n

Hubmaier\u2019s beliefs in principled toleration, however, lived on within the Anabaptist movement. In the year prior to Hubmaier\u2019s death, other Anabaptist leaders, guided by Michael Sattler, set down their distinguishing list of seven beliefs at Schleitheim in 1527. The sixth, and longest, belief had to do with the civil sword and the inappropriateness of using it to enforce religious beliefs.12<\/sup><\/p>\n

Enduring Legacy<\/strong><\/p>\n

Because of their small numbers and generally outlawed status, it has been generally considered that the Anabaptists had little direct intellectual influence within Europe. While their influence was likely modest, one commentator overstates the case in saying that the Anabaptist \u201cespousal of [religious liberty] was stillborn.\u201d13<\/sup> Small though it was, the influence they did have was important.<\/p>\n

The Anabaptists were the only organized Protestant movement in the Netherlands until the 1550s, when the Reformed churches became more active.14<\/sup> Menno Simons, the great organizer of the Anabaptist wing eventually known as the Mennonites, worked and wrote in the Netherlands.15<\/sup> The influences of Anabaptist thought on Dutch Protestants was one of the factors that helps explain the repute\u2014or ill repute\u2014that the country developed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries for its religious toleration. A number of persons prominent in the story of the development of religious freedom in America had connections with the Netherlands and the Anabaptists. These include the early English Baptists, whose writings on soul freedom were known to have influenced Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island, as well as William Penn and John Locke.16<\/sup><\/p>\n

The Anabaptists\u2019 example of suffering, as much as their ideas and writings, influenced the developing case for toleration and religious freedom in England and eventually America. Their bloody experiences and patient endurance at the hands of civil and religious authorities caused a number of other figures, including Williams, Penn, and Locke, to reflect on the inherent injustice of religious persecution and intolerance. These authors\u2014disturbed especially by the widespread cruelty toward Anabaptists\u2014began weaving a fuller tapestry of spiritual and civil freedom. This alternate view emerged as a competing, if minority, dissenting vision to the model of coercion maintained within mainstream confessional Protestantism.<\/p>\n

Most of the Anabaptists who met in the house of Felix Manz in January 500 years ago died either as martyrs or on the run. But their idea of a free church, within a free state, lived on after them. It never really gained controlling influence in any European country, most of which have some form of state-sponsored church until the present day. But when America was finally founded as a constitutional republic, it was not founded, at least nationally, as a magisterial Protestant nation. Rather, it was a nation shaped by the dissenting Protestant, free-church tradition that Manz, Grebel, Hubmaier, and Denck started in 1525. Any group seeking to restore America to any sort of authentic greatness needs to keep this historical fact firmly in mind.<\/p>\n

1 Harold Bender, Conrad Grebel <\/i>(Goshen, Ind.: Mennonite Historical Society, 1950), pp. 99, 100.<\/p>\n

2 William R. Estep, The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism<\/i> (Grand Rapids: 1975, 1996), pp. 17, 60.<\/p>\n

3 George Huntson Williams, The Radical Reformation<\/i>, 3rd ed. (Kirksville, Mo.: Truman State University Press, 2000), pp. 257, 258.<\/p>\n

4 Ibid<\/i>., p. 257, n. 28.<\/p>\n

5 Ibid<\/i>., p. 335. Hubmaier had an unusual view of the human\u2019s spirit-will not participating in the fall, but this meant nothing and could not operate until the fallen soul received regeneration through Christ.<\/p>\n

6 Henry Clay Vedder, Balthasar Hubmaier: The Leader of the Anabaptists <\/i>(New York: G. Putnam\u2019s Sons, Knickerbocker Press, 1905), p. 197.<\/p>\n

7 Williams, p. 335.<\/p>\n

8 Cornelius J. Dyck, An Introduction to Mennonite History<\/i>, 3rd ed. (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1993), p. 142; C. Arnold Snyder, Anabaptist History and Theology: An Introduction<\/i> (Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora Press, 1995), pp. 89, 90.<\/p>\n

9 Torsten Bergsten, Balthasar Hubmaier: Anabaptist Theologian and Martyr<\/i> (Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1978), pp. 72, 73, 130-132.<\/p>\n

10 Henry C. Vedder, Balthasar Hubmaier: The Leader of the Anabaptists<\/i> (New York: AMS Press, 1971), pp. 84-88.<\/p>\n

11 William R. Estep, Revolution With the Revolution: The First Amendment in Historical Context, 1612-1789<\/i> (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing, 1990), pp. 30, 31.<\/p>\n

12 Williams, pp. 288, 289, 293, 294; Guy F. Hershberger, ed., The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision. A Sixtieth Anniversary Tribute to Harold<\/i> Bender<\/i> (Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1957), pp. 65, 192.<\/p>\n

13 Hershberger, p. 290.<\/p>\n

14 Ibid<\/i>., pp. 19, 57-59.<\/p>\n

15 Williams, pp. 589-596.<\/p>\n

16 I have told this story, its connection with the American colonies, and its eventual influence on James Madison and the First Amendment in my book <\/span>The Religious Roots of the First Amendment<\/span><\/i> (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012).<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This year marks 500 years since a largely forgotten act of defiance helped birth modern religious freedom. Baptism as an act of political revolution? It certainly was viewed as such 500 years ago in the city of Zurich, Switzerland, where Anabaptist leader Conrad Grebel and his companions debated with Swiss reformer Ulrich Zwingli the question<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[363],"tags":[195],"class_list":["post-6731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-january-february-2025","tag-january-february-2025"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6731"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6731\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6731"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.charming-bohr.160-238-31-172.plesk.page\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}