Baptismal font in Wittenberg, Germany. Photo: Unsplash, Tobias Schulz
Living in unconditional discipleship following Christ
(LWI) - “We have much to learn from the Anabaptist churches,” said Bishop Friedrich Kramer of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany at an ecumenical service in the Waltershausen town church on 19 January. This year, Mennonites and German regional churches are jointly commemorating the origins of the Reformation – including the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement.
The years following Martin Luther's Reformation in 1517 were times of social, religious, and political unrest, resulting in the Peasants’ War (1524/1525) and various movements, such as the Anabaptists. Five hundred years later, churches in Germany will reflect on what that upheaval and reforms meant for the time and today.
We have much to learn from the Anabaptist churches.
Bishop Friedrich Kramer, Evangelical Church in Central Germany
Kramer noted the Anabaptist’s pacifist convictions and their intention to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ, “who took no weapon into his own hands but took weapons out of the hands of others.” In this respect, he said, continuing the dialogue between Lutherans and Mennonites is important.
Anabaptists seen as “left wing” of the Reformation
The Anabaptist movement began in the wake of the Reformation. It is also known as the “left wing” of the Reformation or the “radical” Reformation. The Anabaptists advocated more radical social reforms than either Martin Luther (Wittenberg) or Huldrych Zwingli (Zurich), including the separation of state and church. The movement stood for a church of men and women without hierarchy or clergy.
They rejected infant baptism because they believed that a confession of faith comes from a conscious decision. Therefore, followers of the movement were “re-baptized.” They also debated the question of whether Christians were allowed to serve in the military.
Doris Hege, chair of the Association of Mennonite Churches in Germany, explained that the first adult baptism, at that time called a re-baptism (hence the name, ana-baptism), which took place on 21 January 1525 in Zurich, Switzerland, “is considered the birth of the Anabaptist movement.” Mennonite churches see themselves as the successors of the Anabaptists and are today one of the largest world communions of the Anabaptist movement.
Hege emphasized the “great significance of the baptism issue”. She said that “the Anabaptists did not baptize their children, which was punishable by law.” Soon, the Anabaptists were cruelly persecuted by both Catholic and Protestant rulers. This was also the case in Thuringia, Germany, around 1530.
On 18 January this year, forming part of the 500th-anniversary program, a memorial plaque with the inscription “Captured, suffered, died” (Gefangen, gelitten, gestorben) was dedicated in memory of the six Anabaptists, four women and two men, who were executed on 18 January 1530 in Reinhardsbrunn, Thuringia.
Reconciliation after centuries
A vital impulse for this commemoration came from the Eleventh Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Stuttgart, in 2010. At the Assembly, Lutherans asked Mennonites for forgiveness for their ancestors’ actions. The “Mennonite Action” at this Assembly included commitments for further reconciliation and marked a key moment in relations between the two communions.
The liturgy of reconciliation used at the Stuttgart Assembly was made possible by an intense engagement in dialogue between the LWF and the Mennonite World Conference, which resulted in the document “Healing Memories. Implications of the Reconciliation between Lutherans and Mennonites”, published in 2016.
Subsequently, a trilateral conversation was organized between the LWF, the Mennonite World Conference, and the Roman Catholic Church, which produced the report “Baptism and Incorporation into the Body of Christ, the Church,” published in 2020, which addressed, in particular, the question of baptism.
The Mennonite World Conference will commemorate the 500th anniversary of the Anabaptist movement on 29 May 2025 in Zurich, Switzerland, under the theme “The Courage to Love: Anabaptism@500.”
