Spring 2025 · Vol. 54 No. 1 · pp. 2–6
From the Editor: Reflecting on Anabaptism at 500
The Spring and Fall 2025 issues of Direction are devoted to reflections on Anabaptism at 500. On January 21, 1525, in Zürich, Switzerland, what has been called the Anabaptist movement was (arguably) launched through the adult baptisms of several of the early leaders, nearly all of whom died as martyrs within the next few years. An Anabaptist (a term employed by their opposition) was one who had received a second baptism. Rejecting the validity of their baptism as infants, they made a public declaration of faith to knowingly join the community of Jesus’ disciples. This act had several entailments, most perilously a rejection of the church-government alliance that regulated citizenship.
To embrace adult baptism did not then nor does it now necessarily align oneself theologically with those in sixteenth-century Switzerland. That is, the term Anabaptist is partly ambiguous. The ancestry of Direction traces to that branch of the Anabaptist tree that came to be known as “Mennonite Brethren” (Mennonitische Brüdergemeinde) in nineteenth-century Russia and includes strong connections to the distinctives of those in Zürich three-and-a-half centuries earlier. These later believers also sought to emulate Jesus in their lives, to hold a high view of the Bible, to worship God genuinely, and to practice peaceful methods of conflict resolution; they also committed to alignment with as well as distinction from other groups who embraced their Savior.
Eighty years ago, professor Harold Bender drew attention to three aspects of the Anabaptist tradition that he promoted as distinctive from other Christian understandings: discipleship that followed the teaching and practice of Jesus (practical theology), the concept of a voluntary church separate from the world with deep love for one another (ecclesiology), and the embrace of nonviolence (ethics). 1 In recent decades, considerable critique of Bender has been voiced, including a recognition of the diversity of that early movement and even a call to repentance for condescension toward other Christians. Whether or not we agree that what Bender identified constitutes the real heart of Anabaptism—or whether there is some kind of heart that can be discerned—and that other concerns should be addressed, the writers of this Spring issue and the Fall issue to follow will explore and reflect upon the legacy of those who came before, both in North America and internationally.
Those who now take Anabaptism or aspects of it as part of their own faith identity must be wary of at least three possible errors. The first is to ignore the term completely, and along with it the theological heritage it carries. Whatever the strengths and weaknesses inherent in our theological {3} ancestry, we are wise to discern what they are in order to better embrace or perhaps avoid them.
A second possible error would be to abstract values and themes from the history of Anabaptism and then to allow the abstractions to take on a life of their own without testing them with the context of that movement or of our own. Stanley Hauerwas and William Willimon illustrate how losing the roots of the faith can lead to distortion:
Big words like “peace” and “justice,” slogans the church adopts under the presumption that, even if people do not know what “Jesus Christ is Lord” means, they will know what peace and justice means, are words awaiting content. The church really does not know what these words mean apart from the life and death of Jesus of Nazareth. After all, Pilate permitted the killing of Jesus to secure both peace and justice (Roman style) in Judea. It is Jesus’ story that gives content to our faith, judges any institutional embodiment of faith, and teaches us to be suspicious of any political slogan that does not need God to make itself credible. 2
A third possible problem is to honor the term but superficially, without careful awareness of what it does represent. We easily “baptize” the values and priorities of our present milieu, and then, out of ignorant reverence, we may attach the term to whatever we find laudable. As Theron Schlabach reminds us:
In Mennonite lore,
We need not say more;
One word is always the aptest.
Whate’er we construe,
To be good and true,
We name the word Anabaptist. 3
The reader may decide which of these or other errors are stumbled into by the writers and editor of these issues. By God’s grace we can hope that somewhere in our reflections and deliberations we might engage the theological tradition that is Anabaptism—from the sixteenth century, through the generations, and around the globe, seek out its values and commitments and test them for alignment with Jesus, and live out its strengths wisely in the urgent challenges of our own time and context.
Menno Simons of the Netherlands, from whom many Anabaptist groups have derived their name, was a prolific early leader. The following is among his more well-known statements of Christian faith: {4}
Behold, beloved reader, in this way true faith or true knowledge begets love, and love begets obedience to the commandments of God. Therefore Christ Jesus says, “Whoever believes on him is not condemned.” Again at another place, “Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life” (John 5:24). For true evangelical faith is of such a nature that it cannot lie dormant but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love; it dies unto the flesh and blood; it destroys all forbidden lusts and desires; it seeks and serves and fears God; it clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry; it comforts the sorrowful; it shelters the destitute; it aids and consoles the sad; it returns good for evil; it serves those that harm it; it prays for those that persecute it; teaches, admonishes, and reproves with the Word of the Lord; it seeks that which is lost; it binds up that which is wounded; it heals that which is diseased, and it saves that which is sound; it has become all things to all people. The persecution, suffering, and anguish which befall it for the sake of the truth of the Lord are to it a glorious joy and consolation. 4
This Spring issue of Direction has both a theological and historical lens among its Feature Articles. In “Peacemaking as Mission,” three authors report on some of their ongoing work with “peace camps” and recount the sequence of events that led to the formation of these camps. Andrew Dyck looks back at the emphases by Mennonite Brethren on internal accord as well as collaborating with other Christians on various efforts of common mission in “Boundaries and Bridges for Unity.” David Wiebe provides another historical report in his article, “The Formation and Operations of ICOMB,” which describes the process leading to the worldwide collaboration of Mennonite Brethren denominations that began in 1990. Stuart Murray Williams offers a look back at the presence of Anabaptism in Britain, with a four-hundred-year gap that ended in the mid-twentieth century, and has seen a resurgence that continues into the current day.
Harrison Wiebe Faber examines the “narrative Christus Victor” theology of J. Denny Weaver and his attempt to forge a distinctively Anabaptist soteriology. We conclude the feature articles with a focus on Mark Baker’s work to promote “A Centered-Set Paradigm for Being Church.” Baker summarizes his recent book of a similar name, and then Brian Cooper offers a critique of the centered-set concept. The interchange concludes with a response by Baker. Someone who reflected on Baker’s concept of center in regard to exclusions and inclusions of fellowship was reminded of this quip by Edwin Markham some time ago: {5}
He drew a circle that shut me out—
Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took him in! 5
In Ministry Compass, pastor Sherri Guenther Trautwein reflects on some of the challenges she has experienced with shared pastoral leadership. In this issue, we offer a list of Recommended Reading in regard to Anabaptism. As compiler of that list—which includes more than a hundred entries and eighty-five of those annotated—I am deeply grateful for those who responded to my invitation to suggest and describe publications concerning Anabaptism within the past five years. I was deliberately vague in the specific focus of my request (“on some aspect of Anabaptism”) to see what kinds of suggestions it might generate. In a few cases, the warning of Theron Schlabach (above) was apt, but I included nearly all of the submissions, and some may decide that the net was still cast too broadly. At any rate, here are those who responded: Brian Cooper, Paul Doerksen, Ken Esau, Vic Froese, Ted Grimsrud, Bruce Guenther, Nancy Heisey, Mark Jantzen, Lynn Jost, Michael King, Karl Koop, Gerald Mast, Jerry Pauls, Jamie Pitts, and Stuart Murray Williams.
Nearly all the Book Reviews for this issue engage matters often associated with Anabaptism. We include our traditional spring report on Faculty Publications from the previous calendar year.
My thanks to Mark Thiessen Nation and Marvin Zehr for drawing my attention to the quotations cited above. May the faithful cloud of Anabaptist witnesses, who went before us and now surround us, challenge our own faithfulness that we might be stirred by the Spirit to be the faithful people of God.
Douglas B. Miller
General Editor
NOTES
- Harold S. Bender, The Anabaptist Vision (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1944).
- Stanley Hauerwas and William H. Willimon, Resident Aliens, 2d ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2014), 38. {6}
- Theron Schlabach, “Renewal and Modernization Among American Mennonites, 1800–1980: Restorationist?” in The Primitive Church in the Modern World, ed. Richard T. Hughes (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 210.
- Menno Simons, “Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing,” The Complete Writings of Menno Simons, trans. Leonard Verduin, ed. J. C. Wenger (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 1956), 307, Bible quotations NIV.
- Edwin Markham (1852-1940), “Outwitted,” epigram published in The Shoes of Happiness, and Other Poems (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1913), 1, https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Shoes_of_Happiness/KT4FAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1.
