The Radical Reformation

Click HERE for sermon audio

Zwickau Prophets

In 1521, three preachers from Zwickau arrived in Wittenberg while Luther was hiding in the castle Wartburg. These men, along with Carlstadt were responsible for the chaotic destruction and violence that broke out before Luther returned. They claimed to have direct revelation from God and prophesied that the world was going to end soon.

Thomas Muntzer

• A Preacher of the radical reformation in Germany.
• He made the Bible secondary to the “experience” and thus believed the true church were those whom God spoke to directly.
• He also believed in the virtue of the poor and thus hated the ruling classes.
• He envisioned a new society where there were no priests, nobles, princes, nor private property, but equality and democracy. If necessary, he taught the elect must take up arms to impose such a society.
• He and Luther did not get along. He condemned Luther as an enemy of the Holy Spirit for his commitment to Scripture, saying Luther worshiped the dead letter of the Bible, ignored the poor, and flattered the magistrates for pragmatic reasons. He called Luther “Doctor Liar.” As you can imagine, Luther had some names for Muntzer in return, calling him the “Satan of Allstedt,” Allstedt being the town he was in.

Peasants Revolt

These sort of radical ideas being taught by Muntzer and the like led to a lot of unrest among the peasant class, who originally saw Luther as their hero and champion, as Luther railed against abuses of the papacy, such as the selling of indulgences and such. At first Luther was sympathetic toward them, but it did not last long. When the peasants and radicals began to take violent steps, Luther quickly departed from them. Luther did not believe in insurrection or anarchy under any circumstances.

So in 1524-1525 you had the peasants revolt, in which they took up the cause in their own hands and caused violence and destruction across the land, destroying 52 monasteries and 270 castles. Luther at first tried to persuade the peasants to peace, but to no avail, and so in May 1525 Luther sided with the nobility and wrote a tract entitled, “Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of Peasants,” in which he exhorted the German princes to lay waste to the violent peasants. Thus the slaughter commenced. 

As for Thomas Muntzer, he was captured, tortured, and executed. However, before he was executed he recanted his radical beliefs and took the last rites of the catholic mass.

Switzerland

These were the most violent radicals. But the real anabaptist movement really began in Switzerland. As Zwingli was reforming Switzerland, a group of men who were with him in the reforms, continued to go further, where Zwingli would not go. The most famous of the men being named Mantz and Hubmeier. They rejected infant baptism, which Zwingli at first considered, but it was a fleeting moment. From these debates, Zwingli ended up defending infant baptism, basically creating the covenantal arguments for infant baptism for the first time in history. These anabaptists were also pacists and did not believe Christians should take up the sword in the military, or even participate in political life at all. And this was the real issue. Because Zwingli and the authorities saw these men as radicals that would disrupt and upset the entire society. Infant baptism at the time was to be put on record as a citizen for taxes and military service and so a rejection of infant baptism and a position of pacifism was a blow to the peace and structure of society. Therefore, they had to be stopped. These men ended up being put to death and Zwingli ended up dying in battle.

On the Radical Reformation Being a Diverse Group

There are points at which we may agree with the anabaptists and learn from them and of course points at which we do not, as is the case with virtually all church history.

What blurs the lines between these various groups is that they all rejected infant baptism and any conception of a Christian state or society. They were called “anabaptists” later by their opponents because they “re-baptized” people – though they themselves would say they were just baptizing for the first time.

They also all rejected the history of the church, and the good things passed down even from the church fathers in creeds, confessions, and councils. 

Three main Groups in the Radical Reformers: the Anabaptists, Spiritualists, and Rationalists. These aren’t neat lines, and there is overlap in all the groups.

Spiritualists

• “Inner Word” and private revelations over the outer word.

Rationalists

• Subjected everything to “right reason” – thus seeing things like the Trinity as contrary to reason.
• From the rationalists, came Socinianism, named after a man called Faustus Socinius. He denied the Trinity, and from him came the unitarians. He basically denied all the core doctrines of Christianity such as the general resurrection, justification by faith, substitutionary atonement, and others.

Anabaptists

The Anabaptists were typically closer to the reformers than the Spiritualists and rationalists, particularly in terms of the authority and sufficiency of Scripture.

The Anabaptists were typically more semi-pelagian and Roman in regard to soteriology, justification, and the freedom of the will. Their focus was on ethics and individual liberty of conscience. A number of them did not have a good doctrine of justification, even explicitly rejecting Luther’s justification by faith, because they saw licentious living from Lutherans and said that it makes people wicked. Many viewed the Christian life and salvation in terms of sanctification, that God saves the faithful.

A number of Anabapists rejected infant baptism for different reasons than we would. Because they were not Augustianian, they believed that the work of Christ wiped away all original sin and so infants did not have need of baptism, since they were innocent.

One such Anabaptist in Austria was Pilgram Marpeck, who also called the Spirit the second person of the trinity. Issues like this are the negative effects and strange results of rejecting the church catholic and the doctrines and creeds that had long been fleshed out, and being an authority unto oneself.

Another Austrian Anabaptist was Jacob Hutter, from which the Hutterites come from, which are still around today. He was on the more radical side, claiming to be an apostle.

• He believed the church should practice communism – live in a commune having no private property and sharing all things in common. Eventually the Roman Catholic King Ferdinand, in 1535, expelled all Anabaptists from Moravia where Hutter had set up communes, and Hutter was captured, scourge, half-frozen in ice water, then set on fire after being drenched in brandy, and eventually burned at the stake in 1536.
• The most influential of Anabaptists was a man named Menno Simons, who was born in the Netherlands. This is where the Mennonites come from. Menno Simons was a Catholic Priest who turned Anabaptist. He was probably the best and most solid Anabaptist figure. He condemned the radical sects of Anabaptists and the Munster rebellion and did a lot to reunify and dampen down the revolutionary spirit of the Anabaptists. He also worked to dampen down the private revelation spiritualists among them, directing them back to the Scriptures. Sadly though He did reject the Augustian views of predestination, and protestant soteriology, rejecting original sin, claiming Christ’s death removed it until an age of “discretion.” He had other odd views, denying that Christ took flesh from Mary, but instead His flesh was a “heavenly flesh,” which can lead to bad theological implications. He held to a version of Sola Scriptura, in which he also accepted the apocrypha as inspired canon.

Hans Denck was another influential Anabaptist, nicknamed “the Pope of the Anabaptists.” He was born in Bavaria. 

• He emphasized the “inner word” over the “outer word.”
• He rejected the Augustian doctrine of the will and was a universalist. 
• In one of his works he compiled what he believed were contradictions in the Bible to make the point that Christians must be united by the “inner word” because they couldn’t be united on the Scripture.
• He was imprisoned by the Roman Catholics and then eventually ended up in Strasbourg and was there banished by Martin Bucer. He then ended up in the reformed city of Basel where he recanted his radical views and became a churchman in the Swiss Reformed Church before his death.

Another was a German, Sebastian Franck. 

• He argued that the true church was purely invisible, with no outward means of grace. Franck’s “true church” included all good Pagans and Muslims who responded to the universal “inner word.” 
• He called the church fathers apostles of the ant-christ.
• He despised justification by grace alone.
• He believed Scripture was full of contradictions in order to point people away from the written-word.
• Expelled by Bucer.

Another was a man born in modern day Poland by the name of Caspar Schwenckfeld. He became Lutheran but left critisizing justification by faith alone, Luther’s teaching on the will, and Luther’s views on the eucharist.

• He said that Luther was possessed by the devil.
• He advocated that celebration of the Lord’s Supper be suspended until harmony was reached. So his followers did just that, and did not partake of the Lord’s Supper until 1877!
• He also denied the earthly flesh of Jesus.
• He taught the flesh of Christ became more and more divinized until it was fully divinized when He ascended into heaven, which effectively abolishes the human nature of Christ.
• He was eventually exiled and moved to Strasbourg where he refused to join a church saying, “if Christ is in me, I have no need for the church.”
• He damned all sides in the baptismal debate, rejecting it altogether. He was eventually asked to leave Strasbourg.

Church/State Issues

Despite all of the appropriate reasons why we would not associate with many of these men, the fundamental reason they were outcast and persecuted is because they were viewed to be disrupting society because of their views on the Church and the State.

The Medieval View, which the Magisterial Reformers largely held to, while making good reforms and distinctions, was that all people in a certain locale are part of the church. If you lived under a Christian prince, you were baptized as an infant and thus a church member and a member of society. It was tied together. Church excommunication meant civil punishment. So the result is that the church ends up being filled with unregenerate members and thus you get all the perversions that were problematic with the medieval church.

The Anabaptist view was that the church is a called out people, made up of those who voluntarily profess faith in Christ and live accordingly, practicing church discipline. To them the state was secular and Christians should not be government officials.

I would be a certain mixture of those things. The church indeed is a called out people, made up of those who do profess faith and practice church discipline. The church and the state are indeed two separate spheres of government. But the civil government also belongs to Jesus Christ. They are to be his servants, protecting the church, not interfering with it. Upholding laws in accordance with God’s Word, and Christians should disciple and instruct the governing authorities on what God requires of them, and Christians themselves may participate in government. Indeed I long for godly Christian judges, governors, etc.

Persecution Problem

So there is a great problem with the Magisterial reformers like Luther, advocating for the persecution of the anabaptists. They were horribly persecuted – drowned, burned, beheaded, etc.

As I have said, one of the saddest realities of Church history is professing Christians persecuting and killing other professing Christians. My speculation is that the loss of Christendom has helped Christians in subsequent centuries see the great tragedy of such things.

Do we come from the Anabaptists?

As 1689 Baptists, do we come from the Anabaptists? Many reformed Christians today will say that we do. But I believe it is pretty clear that we do not. While we appreciate aspects of their views of church, and share in believer’s baptism, that is about all that we share. We are Augustinian and side with the theology of the magisterial reformers on justification, predestination, the will, the sufficiency of Scripture, original sin, substitutionary atonement, and we consider the weight of the church catholic. In the next century you will find that the framers of the 1689 LBC, come from the U.K. and the heritage of the Magisterial Reformers. The similarities between the 1689 and the Westminster are meaningful. You will even find that 1689 authors like William Kiffin specifically say that they are not Anabaptists. The 1689 even upholds that Christians may participate in government and that it is to serve God’s purposes. The 1689 framers were not radials, but more thorough reformers.