Who were the ana-baptists?

Ana-Baptits was the general name give to any group who Baptized adults before and during the Reformation. Some people who were given this name were very unOrthodox (Do a search for AnaBaptists + Munster on google), while some were a lot more orthodox. Minno Simons became a AnaBaptist and lead a group of them in correct doctrine, becasue of his leadership they eventually got the name Mennonite (means follower of Menno). There is much debate on here if Ana-Baptists were the parents of Baptists or not.

Bryan
SDG

 

"Anabaptist" is a term originally applied from a paedobaptist (i.e. infant-baptizing) viewpoint to Christian groups practising baptism of older persons. It means "rebaptizers", since from the paedobaptist perspective we (Baptists, Mennonites, etc.) seem to advocate rebaptism, though from our point of view paedobaptism isn't really proper baptism, and you can't "redo" what you haven't properly done in the first place. Like other terms first applied jocularly or in opprobrium by opponents, like "Quaker", "queer" and "Christian", many Anabaptists have come to embrace and appropriate the term.

Our modern Baptist churches, at least in the English-language countries, generally trace their collective history to a couple of English separatist Puritan congregations that, while in exile in Holland, had some contact with Mennonites there. How much contact, and whether it was sufficient to view the Mennonites as our historical ancestors or merely as a group that influenced our ancestors, is a matter of recurrent controversy here. Menno was not the first or only leader of 16th-century anabaptism, but the branches that bear his name (and that of the 17th-century Swiss Mennonite Jacob Amman or Amen) are the most prominent of the surviving Anabaptist groups.

Landmark Baptists tend to see at least some of the 16th-century anabaptists as their/our linear forebears in the faith, while most non-Landmark Baptists tend to downplay the direct connection.

Haruo
who thinks the facts lie somewhere in the gray area between

 

Neither the term nor the people denominated "Anabaptist" originated with the Protestant Reformation. These churches are attested, even by their enemies, to have existed long prior to that time.

The first Anabaptists practiced "rebaptism" before infant baptism or sprinkling in place of baptism came into common use. As far as we know, the first "rebaptisms" occured when they rebaptized those who came into the Anabaptist churches from churches they considered heretical.

When the Waldenses captiulated to the Protestant Reformers in 1532 they acknowledged that their forefathers had practiced rebaptism but that they would cease and desist. This, however, did not spell the end of the Anabaptist movement because there were churches which did not conform to the Reformation. The practice continues among the Baptists, as well as the Mennonites, to this day.

The Anabaptists of pre-Reformation days and of the Reformation era were no more a homgeneous body than are the Baptists of today. The Lutheran historian Mosheim states in his church history that there were 13 sorts of Anabaptists in Germany and that each considered the other's baptism invalid.

This fact accentuates the point that rebaptism was not always a matter of rebaptizing those who had been baptized in infancy, but was also (and is) a matter of rebaptizing those who were baptized in heretical churches, whether as infants or not.

Goadby (an English Baptist historian) states in his book "Bye-paths In Baptist History" that some of the English General Baptists rebaptized those coming to them from the Calvinistic Baptist churches, considering their baptism in the Calvinistic religion to be a baptism into heresy, and not into the gospel of Christ.

Landmark Baptist all over the world continue the practice of Anabaptism today, rebaptizing all whose previous baptism they have reason to consider invalid.

Mark Osgatharp

 

Dahoon,

"Anabaptist" was the early name for Baptists, given to them by their enemies. As a matter of fact, it continued to be used, even in the United States, up to the early 1800s.

The group which you encountered likely has a Mennonite background. The Mennonites are the descendants of the Dutch Anabaptists. They differ doctrinally to a great degree from the English Anabaptists from which most American Baptists descended, but we both share a common historical background. In Germany the Mennonites are called "Taufer" which is simply the German term for "Baptist."

Because the English Baptists vehemently disowned the name "Anabaptist" some have erroneously concluded that they denied any connection with the Anabaptists of continental Europe. But in reality, the early English Baptists did acknowledge their descent from earlier Anabaptist groups.

When they denied the the name "Anabaptist" they were denying that what they practiced was a "repbaptism." They never professed to rebaptize anyone, but rather to give true baptism to those who had previously experienced a false baptism.

Mark Osgatharp

 

Bugman&Haruo are basically correct.
As for the ideas of Mark.

"Neither the term nor the people denominated "Anabaptist" originated with the Protestant Reformation. These churches are attested, even by their enemies, to have existed long prior to that time." silly notion
Baptist propaganda of the silly kind. and the same goes for all these tales about the Waldensians.


"The Mennonites are the descendants of the Dutch Anabaptists. They differ doctrinally to a great degree from the English Anabaptists from which most American Baptists descended, but we both share a common historical background."
True, and I wouldn't want to defend the notion that the differences always favor the English Anabaptists. For the record, despite my nationality, I'm livelong member of a church descended from the English Anabaptists.

 

Mioque,

It is one thing to label my statments "silly propoganda." It is quite another to prove them to be historically inaccurate. I am very well aquainted with the available literature on Baptist and Anabaptist history, both from the modernist revisionist viewpoint as well as the successionist viewpoint.

I make no claim that all who flew under the name "Anabaptist" were identical or scriptural in doctrine, any more than I would claim the same for Baptists of today. I do, however, know enough history to know that the Anabaptists did not originate during the Protestant Reformation and that the practice of Anabaptism dates from the very early centuries of Christianity.

Mark Osgatharp

 

The term "Anabaptist" was used to describe and define certain Christians during the Reformation. These Christians rejected infant baptism, choosing instead believer's baptism.

Since many of them had been baptized in their infancy, they chose to be rebaptized as believing adults.So their enemies called them anabaptists which means "re-baptizers."

The 16th century Protestant Reformation in Europe spawned several radical reform groups. One of which was the Anabaptists.

Contemporary groups with Anabaptist roots include the Mennonites, Amish, Dunkards, Landmark Baptists, and others.

Although the belief in believers baptism predates the reformation,( see the Etheopian eunic in the Bible and the stories of John the Baptist in same) it was during the reformation that the term "Anabaptist" was coined.

 

Marc
"It is one thing to label my statments "silly propoganda." It is quite another to prove them to be historically inaccurate."

This Romanist website explains the problems associated with the successionist historical view of Baptism nicely.
http://www.shasta.com/sphaws/trail.html

And this is a bit more scholarly.
http://www.gty.org/~phil/baptist.htm

 

This book, by Leonard Verduin, does a good job of explaining the Anabaptist origins The Reformers and Their Stepchildren Link

Here is a link to the book's Introduction and Postscript

Then of course there is this Reformed (Calvinist) link for a review of the book by F. N. Lee.

 

Interestingly there is an Anabaptist conference going in Australia, their website appears to be down at present though.

http://www.mjaa.org.au/

 

BibleboyII
shame on you!
Both of those writers are only pushing their prejudices instead of telling the interesting tale of Ana-Baptist history.

 

Wow! A website by a Catholic on why the Catholic Church is THE church. Well, that won't be prejudiced, now will it?!

Just like the Catholic revisionist writers who say that the Crusades never happened. AND, the Catholic Church never tortured and killed non-Catholics.

PLEASE!!!

 

'Well, that won't be prejudiced, now will it?!"
But ofcourse it is heavily prejudiced.
In this case however, they only have to tell the truth because it is our side that is lying.
The baptist site linked below the Roman Catholic one gives the same info. But it takes a little more reading.

 

I don't think so... Leonard Verduin received an A.B. from Calvin College, a Th.B. from Calvin Seminary, and an A.M. from the University of Michigan. For twenty years he served the Christian Reformed Church as pastor of the Campus Chapel at the University of Michigan. He was awarded a Fulbright Research Grant in 1950 to study medieval protest movements in the Low Countries. He is the translator of the complete writings of Menno Simons.

He is neither a Baptist nor an Anabaptist. He is a Reformed Church pastor and scholar. So it is not fair to claim that he is pushing a prejudice one way or the other (Baptist/Anabaptist or Catholic respectively). The book The Reformers and Their Stepchildren is actually his PhD Dissertation. I own a copy and have read it from cover to cover for a Baptist History class at Southeastern College at Wake Forest (a SBC college).

Now the other guy... the Hyper-Calvinist one... I can't vouch for because I just found the link to that website when I searched on the title of Verduin's book.

 

Here is another link to a book about one of my favorite Anabaptists Michael Sattler by John H. Yoder.

 

Verduin's basic premise is sound. He simply goes overboard and end's up giving ammunition to certain nuts.
I especially like this quote
"one third of Christendom if not more has attended illicit Waldensian conventicles and is at heart Waldensian."
It's apparently comes from page 173 of The Reformers and Their Stepchildren.

(to be honest I haven't looked into Verduin's writings for over a decade I borrowed the "Reformers and their etc." from the UB but never bought it myself)

 

Verduin's basic premise is sound. He simply goes overboard and end's up giving ammunition to certain nuts.
I especially like this quote
"one third of Christendom if not more has attended illicit Waldensian conventicles and is at heart Waldensian."
It's apparently coming from page 173 of The Reformers and Their Stepchildren.

(to be honest I haven't looked into Verduin's writings for over a decade I borrowed the "Reformers and their etc." from the UB but never bought it myself)

 

Thank you very much for the invitation!

First of all, it should be noted that there are no general Anabaptist distinctives that are not taught by some Baptists somewhere (note that only the Hutterites reject private, in favor of communal, property--they are outside mainstream Anabaptism). There is also a considerable diversity in doctrines and practices across the Anabaptist spectrum. As among Baptists generally, there are historic premillennialists, dispensationalists, amillennialists, postmillennialists, and preterists. There are those who are so conservative that they are legalists; there is unfortunately a minority so liberal that they accept practicing homosexuals as members and even ministers, just as in the wider Baptist family. Only certain among the Old Orders drive horse and buggy or eschew high-line power or in-home phones, but a great many more dress modestly and distinctively and shun modern mass media entertainment. Some Anabaptists send their children to their own schools, some homeschool, and many more send their children to the public schools. Some Anabaptists practice baptism by trine forward immersion, others do affusion as the early English Baptists did, and yet others may do single backward immersion. There are Calvinists in Anabaptism, even though the majority holds to Arminianism, but pretty much all outside the Old Orders teach assurance of salvation. Some Anabaptists practice footwashing, some do not. Some practice the holy kiss, some do not. Many are opposed to divorce and remarriage, some are not. Some insist on acappella singing, but others have praise bands. Some use shape notes, but most do not. Conservative women wear veils over their uncut hair, the rest do not. Some Old Order men wear beards, but most Anabaptist men do not. All Anabaptists believe in voluntary believers churches of committed disciples baptized on confession of faith (though like some liberal Baptists, there are some exceptions among the most liberal as to the latter) and hold to a Zwinglian view of the Lord’s Supper. Conservatives have unpaid plural ministry, usually untrained, who may be elected or chosen by lot, whereas non-conservatives often have a full-time, salaried, seminary-trained pastor. Most are either cessationists or at least non-charismatic, but not all. Some hold the Lord’s Supper as part of a love feast, but most do not. Some meet in homes, but most have meetinghouses. Congregations range in size from one family to 100-200 people to megachurches of 3500 attendance. Some insist that formal education must end at eighth or tenth grade, others have a Ph.D. Some believe women may not speak at all in church (but do not consider wedding vows or hymn singing to count) or teach men, others have women speakers, and a handful even women pastors. Most trace their origins to the 1525 Swiss Brethren and to the Dutch Anabaptists, but a few try to create an apostolic succession of Anabaptists back to the ante-Nicene church. Most are nonresistant, but some are merely noncombatants, some are political pacifists, and a few are in the military. Most refuse to swear oaths or join oath-bound secret lodges. All Anabaptists believe in separation of church and state and liberty of conscience, and have from the very beginning. After conferences came to be seen as exercising too much centralized authority over local congregations, many withdrew to form looser fellowships or even be unaffiliated in order to preserve congregational autonomy. Because of this diversity I have just covered, most anything I say in absolute terms must be understood as generalizations that may have exceptions if I haven’t noted them already.

A key point to repeat, though, is that as far as I know, there are no Anabaptist doctrines or practices that are not held by some Baptists somewhere or have been held by them at some time, whether the vast majority of them or a small minority--but nothing in mainstream Anabaptism (but which I mean to exclude the Hutterites) is foreign among Baptists. Russian Baptists, for example, advocate the women’s veil and nonresistance, yet they also stress what they refer to as seven Baptist distinctives, which are the Bible as sole authority for faith and practice, saved and baptized membership, two ordinances being baptism of believers by immersion and the Lord’s Supper, priesthood of all believers, freedom of conscience, separation of church and state, and local church autonomy. Some Landmark Baptists teach that the clothes they wear should mark them as separate from the evil world around them. Holiness Baptists abstain from tobacco, liquor, dancing, public ball games, swimming pools, circuses, TV, immodest apparel, secret societies, long hair for men, short hair for women, and some of them oppose war and even capital punishment. Some Baptist women veil their hair. As far as labels go, in Germany Anabaptists are normally referred to as Täufer (Baptists). In America, the Baptist General Conference is Arminian, as is the National Association of Freewill Baptists, which practices footwashing as an ordinance (as do Primitive Baptists).

I first came into contact with the Anabaptists through a Baptist pastor. He had graduated from a fundamentalist Baptist university, and been ordained after leaving a military career. He was a conscientious objector, eschewed TV and movies, had acappella worship, practiced baptism by immersion, accompanied the Lord’s Supper with footwashing, greeted by the holy kiss, believed in anointing the sick with oil, and stood against swearing. His wife and daughters wore the veil. In every way they reflected moderately conservative Anabaptist positions though their strict Calvinism was unusual. Nothing they did was unknown as a practice or doctrine of Baptists.

So are Anabaptists Baptists? Are Baptists Anabaptists? Have I demonstrated the differences between Baptists and Anabaptists?

[ August 09, 2003, 06:45 AM: Message edited by: Taufgesinnter ]