Two-Fold Gospel Witness
Early Anabaptists embodied Jesus’ call to love their enemies and be willing to suffer for their faith.
By Jason Rhodes Showalter
In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull to the Christian world. In it he gave spiritual authority to Catholic European powers to kill or enslave Muslim and indigenous populations in the territories they discovered, seizing the possessions and land of these “enemies of Christ” for their own profit.1 The principle in this document, later known as the Doctrine of Discovery, formed the legal and theological foundation for the subjugation of native populations of the New World and the enslavement and exportation of peoples from the African continent.
The historical backdrop of the papal declaration was the centuries-long rule of Muslims in Spain to the west and the advance of Ottoman armies from the east. In the early decades of the 16th century, the threats to Catholic power came not only from invading armies but also from within. As the Protestant Reformation swept across Europe, Anabaptist reformers in both Catholic and Protestant-controlled areas called for a visible church marked by spiritual regeneration through faith in Christ, a reality Menno Simons called “birth from above” or “the second birth.”2
Though not rejecting participation in a universal church as evidenced by their nearly universal use of the Apostles’ Creed3 and appeals to apostolic teaching, Anabaptists saw the local church as the community of daily discipleship that incarnationally embodied that larger identity. For these Christians, voluntary baptism apart from state control was the entry into this mutually-accountable community of those who had received God’s redemption through Christ and walked out daily love for brothers and sisters. But most shocking in light of the imminent threat of foreign armies was their call to love even enemies.
Three years after leaving a Benedictine monastery because of his growing understanding of scripture and evangelical conviction, Michael Sattler was tried in May 1527 on nine charges related to his Anabaptist faith. To the charge that he discouraged all believers from violent resistance to the Turkish armies he replied, “If the Turks should make an invasion, they should not be resisted, for it is written: Thou shalt not kill. We are not to defend ourselves against the Turks and our persecutors; but earnestly entreat God in our prayers that he would repel and withstand them.”4
For this witness, Sattler’s tongue was cut out and he was tortured horribly before his body was burned as a heretic. As he fell into the fire, “he admonished the people, the judges and the mayor to repent and be converted. Then he prayed, ‘Almighty, eternal God, because I have not been shown to be in error, I will, with thy help, to this day testify to the truth and seal it with my blood.’”5 Margaret Sattler, also convicted for her faith, was sentenced to a “third baptism” of death by drowning.
In 1535, Anabaptists violently overthrew government authorities at Münster, carrying out apocalyptic visions of a new Jerusalem. Though the events at Münster were an exception that proved the rule of Anabaptists’ commitment to suffering love, authorities across Europe used the events to increase persecution of the group. Menno Simons, whose church community was just seven miles from Münster, regretted not speaking out more forcefully against violence. He later clearly tied Christian rebirth and discipleship to suffering love. “The regenerated do not go to war, nor engage in strife. They are children of peace who have beaten their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning forks.”6
An emphasis on God’s love was a motivating factor in Anabaptists’ commitment to sharing the gospel. “As nonresistance was love’s negative expression, missions became its positive affirmation.”7 And because faith came from a voluntary response to the proclamation of the gospel, Anabaptists rejected the use of violence because “the Christian’s weapons are spiritual, against the fortifications of the devil.”8 A prominent Hutterite missionary, Claus Felbinger, wrote in 1560, “[W]e do not go only into this land, but into all lands…where He sends us and will use us, there we go, in obedience to his divine will, regardless of what we must suffer and endure.”9
The Schleitheim Confession, affirmed by a gathering of Anabaptists in 1527, notes the objection raised by many Christians of that day and the present: “Now it will be asked by many who do not recognize (this as) the will of Christ for us, whether a Christian may or should employ the sword against the wicked for the defense and protection of the good, or for the sake of love. Our reply is unanimously as follows: Christ teaches and commands us to learn of him, for he is meek and lowly in heart and so shall we find rest to our souls.”
“Where He sends us and will use us, there we go.”
Claus Felbinger, Hutterite missionary
We do well to consider the invitation of the two-fold witness of early Anabaptists who put the spiritual and physical welfare of enemies before their own lives and also made the costly case to fellow Christians that the suffering of the cross is Jesus’ call to all believers.
Jason Rhodes Showalter is Global Ministries Director for VMMissions.