The 21st century may mark a great fight for the Baptist soul. (Photo credit: CatherineTranslates.com)
For progressives in Mainline and Evangelical churches alike, the Anabaptist tradition has been claimed as a foundation for nonviolence, social justice protest, and even federal entitlement programs. Recently, neo-Anabaptists have been reaching out to traditionally conservative Southern Baptists. Although not ready for current leftist political themes, some Southern Baptists, especially if shunning Calvinism, do look to Anabaptist history as part of their tradition.
Anabaptist beliefs or their modern variant have experienced a resurgence of popularity, especially within the Evangelical Left. Twenty-somethings admire the work of pacifist Shane Claiborne while some seminarians tout theologians like Stanley Hauerwas and the late John Howard Yoder. Even Sojourners activist in chief Jim Wallis, who once glorified Marxist revolution, has been pointing to Anabaptist themes.
Liberal evangelist Tony Campolo’s Red Letter Christians recently featured a near manifesto of a young Mennonite ostensibly reclaiming his theological heritage. The writer reveled in the fall of Christendom, in which the “greedy” Church established itself as “oppressive to culture.” Many young evangelicals like the Anabaptist narrative because of its pacifism, focus on evangelizing at the “margins,” purported social justice, and a rejection of state power. Claiborne and others proclaim “ordinary radicalism,” “empire subversion,” and loving community in a New Monasticism. Their image of the countercultural activist stands as the ideal. These voices engage in civil disobedience while avoiding positions in existing power structures. They boast a literal interpretation of Sermon on the Mount, occasionally pitting the Gospels against the Pauline epistles. In short, they shake up the comfortable establishment to seek a more selfless, less popular life devoted to establishing God’s kingdom on earth now. Sometimes, these eager revolutionaries even revitalize postmillennial eschatology in the process. Often such modern beliefs translate into liberal political stances, even while traditional Anabaptists typically shun politics and are socially conservative.
A recent Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary conference featuring popular megachurch pastor Rick Warren focused on the commonalities between Southern Baptists and Anabaptists. “The Radical Reformers will increase your zeal for evangelism and world missions,” Warren argued. “The roots of global mission are in the Radical Reformers.” He claimed that Anabaptists modeled his approach to discipleship. Highlighting their commitment to the supremacy of the Scriptures and Christ, Warren painted the Germanic Anabaptists as nearly identical to American Baptists. Southwestern Baptist Seminary President Paige Patterson, who also spoke, confessed that institutional and historical ties between Anabaptists and Southern Baptists are not close. But he suggested Southern Baptists today should sometimes imitate the Radical Reformers rather than magisterial paedobaptist Protestants. “The current trend in Baptist and Southern Baptist life to identify with the Reformed faith” is a “major step backward,” he declared, and “must be resisted.”
“Why should Baptists identify with those who formerly persecuted and misrepresented them?” Patterson inquired, “May God bless the rebirth of Anabaptism among Southern Baptists today.” Almost certainly he was pointing to old style Mennonites and others who were strictly Gospel focused and not to the liberal social activists who profess to be Anabaptists today.
Modern Anabaptists summon images of loving pacifism, poverty alleviation, social justice, and even quaint Amish families adept in 1800s handicrafts. But the Radical Reformation that spawned Anabaptists occurred in the 1500s when some young scholars thought that Protestant reformers Martin Luther and Ulrich Zwingli were reforming too slowly and moderately. Some historic Anabaptist stances seem normal enough: separating church government from the state, religious liberty, and baptism by immersion for confessed believers alone. But the early Anabaptists also sought radical egalitarianism. Some revoked school degrees since they distinguished men; others would not accept parsons who did not receive continual personal revelations through the Holy Spirit; still others tried to abolish property since it made some wealthier than others. Particularly embarrassing was the city of Munster, where Anabaptist leaders instated polygamy, enforced city-wide tyranny, and declared their city the New Jerusalem in preparation for the imminent Apocalypse. The situation became so horrific that Protestants and Catholics united to quell this anarchy.
Other Anabaptists have historically devoted themselves especially to pacifism. They rejected Christian Just War teaching and refused to offer forcible resistance to wrongdoers. What many contemporary Anabaptists fail to admit is this tradition’s rejection of any Christians working in government roles. The early pacifist Anabaptists formed small communities removed from the world and machinations of civil government. Ironically, Anabaptists had to find shelter in whatever tolerant society would protect them. Such tendencies exist today in the much-touted “New Monastic” movement, which is hardly monasticism at all. Unfortunately, with their hatred of “empire” (i.e. any legitimate government authority that enforces its laws) and obsession with the “marginalized,” they eschew ministry to the “center.” For the Anabaptists, there is not much good in being salt and light in positions of influence.
So problematic were Anabaptist teachings that English Baptists of the 1600s intentionally distanced themselves from their Continental cousins. These English Baptists, distinct from European Anabaptists, formulated different principles that supported congregational government, credobaptism, and religious liberty; this same group founded the Baptist denominations we recognize in America today.
In the past decade or so, some established Southern Baptists have worried a great deal about the inroads of Calvinism into the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC). Reformed Baptists show cool reserve towards the Arminian (some would say Pelagian) techniques of the Second Great Awakening, much to the disappointment of revivalist Baptists. High-profile negotiations between the two camps can leave the door open for more pernicious doctrines to infiltrate the convention. Although Southern Baptists may disagree over election and the ordo salutis, they should agree on the importance of evangelism, penal substitutionary atonement, Biblical infallibility, and salvation by grace through faith alone. The SBC was founded so that individual congregations could pool their resources and talents to further spread the Gospel message. How effective would mission work be to foreign countries if the main Baptist mantra is “empire subversion?”
The neo-Anabaptists, on the other hand, threaten to divert the church’s commitment to preaching the Gospel with self-inflicted pursuit of the “margins.” This zealous group protests that they are merely “living” the Gospel “incarnationally,” which is fine and good. Commonly, though, their approach means constant protesting for narrow political causes rather than teaching salvation from sin in Christ. With all its good intentions, neo-Anabaptism tends toward politicized Social Gospel—nothing the SBC should seek if it is committed to evangelism. With the Reformed and Radical camps both drawing young followers, the 21st century may well mark a great fight for the Baptist soul.
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