Posted on 03/03/2009 10:47:48 AM PST by Alex Murphy
It’s a long tale – how I became a Mennonite and ended up involved with the Anabaptist Network (http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/) and the thinktank Ekklesia. My affiliations have been mostly Methodist so it’s not so much a matter of membership as a kind of passion for something else; call it simplicity or community or an Anabaptist vision.
Anabaptists were the radicals of the Reformation – pacifist but prickly – and Mennonites were the Dutch Anabaptists, named after their most prominent leader, Menno Simons.
There were Anabaptists in 16th century Britain, but persecution cut the movement short. The name means ‘re-baptiser’ and was used as an insult by those who saw compulsory baptism as a way of keeping religious belief and loyalty to the governing authorities soldered together.
Mennonites and other Anabaptists refused violence, held goods in common, prayed and discerned the Bible communally, would not administer the state’s version of ‘justice’, and sought to witness by living the way of Christ. They are specifically denounced in two of the 39 Articles of Religion endorsed by the established Church in England.
After nearly 500 years Mennonites returned to London following World War Two to help with relief work. Those that settled founded the London Mennonite Centre (http://www.menno.org.uk/) in Highgate.
LMC is now a resource centre for radical Christian discipleship and Anabaptist and peace and justice studies. It also hosts the ‘Bridge Builders’ mediation and reconciliation service, the Metanoia Book Service (which Ekklesia partners for its online book shop - http://books.ekklesia.co.uk/) and is part of the Root and Branch network.
When I first began this Anabaptist journey it was holiness that drew me in. Here was a tradition that took the corporate challenge of Christ’s Lordship seriously and practiced peacemaking, social justice and community alongside a biblical faith.
I sometimes wondered whether, if a Baptist and a Quaker were spliced together, in a kind of ecclesiastical genetic engineering, something like an Anabaptist would result! Anabaptism is in some ways ‘neither Protestant nor Catholic’ – in the words of Walter Klaassen’s 1969 book of the same name.
While Protestants persecuted Catholics and Catholics reciprocated, everyone persecuted the Anabaptists. Anabaptism was both part of the Reformation yet at the same time practiced a rich community life that was reminiscent of monasticism. Some significant early Anabaptist leaders were former Benedictines.
We had two forays into Anabaptist community, in Doncaster and – briefly – in Wales where three families shared a smallholding near Carmarthen with Buzzards and the east wind. In these individualistic times we found the communitarian vision captivating: ordinary things – food, friendships, planting apple trees – acquired a rich significance.
There was a discernible ecological dimension to our life together and I still think that the best response to our throwaway society is not a kind of Christianised pick and mix religion but an experience of Christian community which answers the hunger in modern people for something untainted by cynicism and more than money can buy.
The ‘Core Convictions’ of the Anabaptist Network UK, which are affirmed by Ekklesia and by other members of the Root and Branch network (http://ekklesia.co.uk/about/partners), set out the kind of historic vision we seek to live by in a fast-changing modern world. (http://www.anabaptistnetwork.com/coreconvictions)
I have a Menonite friend in OK who told me about the Anabaptist connection. Have not seen him in a few years.
He was not a rigid Menonite, he was a ham operator and liked technology. (on the cheap) He liked to home-brew electronics and I did and still do.
I am a Baptist and have been a technology student for 35 years.
Thanks for the interesting piece. It pricked my narrow interest areas.
When the Muslims come to slit your throat you can count on the Protestants and Catholic’s kids to die on the battlefield for you.
There were 3 “parts” after the “reformation”. The anaBaptists were the ones truer to the Apostles than the other two, IMHO. And, they were the ones hunted down and killed by the other two. However, they survive today. There’s a number of “branches” such as the Amish, Mennonites, etc.
It’s a study worth doing...
See post three
Your arguments isn’t with me, but with Him. It’s His book not mine.
What argument? Its a statement of fact. Pacifism is your TRADITION not the Word. Read the entire word including the OT. God does not change.
When did I say I believed in pacifism? Although, I believe Jeshua preached non-violence, I’m not sure how far He meant that to be taken. But, it certainly is not a cut & dried issue! Too complex an issue though to be settled on a forum like this in a few sentences!
OK, fair enough. I guess the argument is over the Anabaptists being closestest to the apostles that came out of the reformation. The fact is their legacy is of being separatists and inconsequential in the history of the Gospel. Hardly like the apostles, especially Paul, who carried the Gospel across the Roman Empire.
It's an interesting study. The problem I've run into is gaining accurate information on the pre-Reformation Christian Churches. Until the printing press writing was largely controlled by the dominant power, in this case the RCC, and was written from that power's perspective. We know there were numerous Christian Churches such as the Waldensians, Petrobrussians etc., but there is not a lot of reliable information.
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