Furthering reform: The Anabaptists

As radical as Luther and Calvin appeared to the Catholic Church, they didn’t go far enough for other Protestants. Another group, which became known as the Anabaptists (a term that means, “rebaptizers,” given to this group by its opponents), argued that in order to truly seek reform, one must separate the Church from the state altogether. Anabaptists looked at the New Testament Church and saw no intermingling with government authority, no stories of Paul and Peter hobnobbing with Emperor Nero. Instead, the Anabaptists focused on reaching the world with the Good News of Christ. From their perspective, anything else was just a distraction.

Debating on predestination

An age-old mystery for Christians has always been how human free will balances with God’s sovereignty, his ability to do anything he wants and accomplish anything he wants. The Bible offers considerable proof for both of these truths, making them seem hard to reconcile. One man who grappled with this and came to a conclusion that many churches today accept was John Calvin. Coining the doctrine of predestination, Calvin believed that God, in his sovereignty, chooses exactly who’s going to believe in him and who’s not. This doctrine, central to the TULIP beliefs (see the section, “Developing five-point Calvinism: The Reformed Church” in this chapter), became a fundamental teaching in Reformed churches.

An opposing position, known as Arminianism (named after a 16^th-century Dutch pastor, Jacobus Arminius), sprang up and said that humans do the choosing, because God gives people the gift of free will. This perspective says that because God knows the future, he knows in advance who’s going to come to him. But they emphasize that this foreknowledge doesn’t determine a person’s salvation, but instead it’s purely an act of the human will responding to Christ’s work on the cross.

Reformed churches still hold the Calvinist position, while Methodists and a variety of other Protestants are Arminian.

Here’s a comparison of the Calvinist and Arminian perspectives based on the Five Points of Calvinism.

Calvinism: Because of sin, humans never seek God.

Arminianism: Some Arminians say that even though sin made it impossible for human beings to save themselves, God left their wills intact so that they can choose him at the right opportunity.

God chooses the believer. No matter if he has to come kicking and screaming, he’ll come around.

The believer chooses God, but God – being all-knowing – knows beforehand which people will come to him.

Jesus died only for the elect.

Jesus died for the whole world. You still have to believe in order to receive the atoning power of his sacrifice, but his sacrifice was for all.

God’s grace is irresistible.

God opens the door for salvation. People are free to choose whether or not to walk through it.

Once a person is saved, she’s always saved.

A person can lose her salvation through unrepentant sinning over the whole of her life.

Anabaptists had issues that went beyond how the Church relates to state and society. They actually got their nickname because of their stand on baptism. Unlike the infant baptism of the Catholic and Lutheran churches, Anabaptists believed that only adult believers who openly confess Jesus Christ as their saviour can be baptized. (See Chapter 8 for more on infant versus adult baptism.) Because they didn’t see infant baptism as legitimate, many of the Anabaptists were baptized again as adults. Their enemies saw this practice as rebaptism, an idea that they considered heretical and punishable by death. Anabaptists countered by saying that it’s not rebaptism at all. They believed that baptism at birth isn’t really baptism, because baptism implies a conscious faith.

Anabaptists had some extreme fringe groups whose radicalism gave them a bad name throughout parts of Europe during this era. However, some Anabaptists were ahead of their time on several issues that are commonplace today (separation of Church and state, religious diversity, believer’s baptism). But like so many mavericks throughout history, they were persecuted, not only by Catholics, but also by other Protestants.

Some Anabaptists were also ahead of their time on the issue of freedom of religious expression. Many believed that a person should be able to worship where he or she wanted to. To Lutherans and Calvinists in the 16^th century who still held to the idea that a single church dominated a geographical area, this smacked of radicalism.

Today, the Mennonites and the Amish are two groups originating from the Anabaptist tradition. The Baptists, a major Protestant denomination, are unrelated to this group, as most Baptists come from a Reformed background.