Various individuals argue that Anabaptism did not have any core doctrines because they were not a monolithic movement thus they could not have any doctrines that someone could argue are critical distinctives. However, I would have to argue contrary to this position. A monogenetic origin is more realistic than the contemporary polygenetic one. For instance while there are no concrete connections between the Swiss and German/Austrian Anabaptists “there are striking similarities in doctrine and practice. The similarities suggest for more contact and communication between Swiss and South German Anabaptists then the documentation prove.”[1]
In the work Profiles of Anabaptist Women: Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers edited by Clifford Arnold Synder and Linda Agnès Huebert Hech the reader will be presented with the core of Anabaptist doctrine and ecclesial praxes. According to the editors, even though they were regional divergences and various aspects received emphasis more than others “there was a common core of theological beliefs and church practices that bound together all Anabaptists as sisters and brothers of a related movement. These same emphases also distinguished Anabaptist reform from the other branches of reform.”[2]
Holy Spirit
“The strong emphasis on the activity of the Holy Spirit affirmed, the living nature of the Spirit that led individuals to repentance, faith, regeneration, water baptism, and a new life….the living Spirit directly called individual women and men alike to a living faith. “[3]
Spirit and Letter
“Just as there could be no true faith without the inner work of the living Spirit of God, neither could there be a true reading of the letter of Scripture without that same Spirit. At different times in different parts of the Anabaptist movement, this strong spiritual emphasis led to extra-biblical revelations, dreams, and visions, granted alike to women and men.”[4]
Salvation
Anabaptism insisted that the only faith that saves will be a living faith that expresses itself in action in the world. True faith will obey the commands of Scripture–especially the command to teach and then baptize those who have believed (i.e., adults). Furthermore, true faith will “obey God rather than man”…Discipleship (living a new life, based upon regeneration by the Spirit of God) was expected of women and men alike; the “obedience of faith” sometimes led Anabaptist women and men to radical social action, as well as martyrdom.[5]
Freedom of the Will
“At the heart of Anabaptism was freedom of choice and personal responsibility for that choice, for both women and men. A common way of expressing that choice was to speak of the need for yieldedness or surrender [Gelassenheit] to God and the Body of Christ on earth (the church). This yielding meant allowing the Spirit to work directly in one’s life (and many times resulted in a spiritual “calling” and in prophetic activity); but yielding also meant accepting water baptism and the admonition of the community of saints”.[6]
The next area delineated will be the observances that were the observable manifestation of the above outlined teachings. They were “the baptism of believers, church discipline (the Ban), the Lord’s Supper, and economic sharing.”[7]
Baptism of Believers
“[B]aptism of those who had come to a mature faith and then chose to be baptized, was the most visible identifying mark of the movement. It was matched by an intense opposition to infant baptism….In spite of their insistence on adult baptism, the Anabaptists stilled maintained that “the water is just water.” It was the inner baptism of the Spirit that was primary and essential. The water baptism was simply an outer sign of true baptism, which was spiritual and inward. At another level…baptism in water was seen as a crucial seal or commitment to the rest of the Body of Christ and a response of obedience to scriptural command that was not to be ignored or set aside. Both baptisms fell to individual women and men alike, and called for their obedience to Scripture and the community, regardless of the consequences.”[8]
Discipline
“Anabaptists believe that baptism in the Spirit and in water bound believers to the Ban, or church discipline by the collective members of the Body of Christ. A true faith had to bear fruit in deed; deed had to correspond with creed. The personal commitment to fraternal admonition rested on the inward baptism (or regeneration and rebirth) of the Spirit: those truly regenerated by the Spirit were expected to live new lives, in Matthew 18:15-18. Fraternal admonition, like baptism, applied to women and men alike.”[9]
The Lord’s Supper
“Anabaptists understood the Supper to be a memorial or remembrance of Christ’s death and sacrifice, a feeding by faith in Christ. In this practice the Anabaptists in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, and the Low Countries followed the path marked out by sacramentarians in the Netherlands and the reformers Andreas Karlstadt and Ulrich Zwingli. For Anabaptists everywhere, the Lord’s Supper was also a closed Supper, open only to those who had accepted baptism and had thus committed themselves to church discipline.”[10]
Economic Sharing
“One of the central deeds expected of all Anabaptist believers was radical economic sharing, the visible sign of one’s commitment to the community, the Body of Christ on earth. Sometimes, as in several communities in Moravia in the 1520s and 1530s and later with the Hutterites, this emphasis took the form of an organized community of goods. But in all cases it meant caring for the poor, the widows, and the orphans, and generally living as “members of one body.” The economic support of such a community was crucial for the well-being of single mothers and their children. The radical economic sharing espoused by the Anabaptists had been one of the strongest common desires of the peasants in 1525; it lived on in underground fashion in the Anabaptist conventicles.”[11]
[1] C. Arnold Snyder, Following in the Footsteps of Christ: The Anabaptist Tradition (London: Darton Longman & Todd, 2004), 20
[2] C. Arnold Snyder and Linda A. Huebert Hecht, Profiles of Anabaptist Women: Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers (Waterloo, Ont: Published for the Canadian Corporation for Studies in Religion by Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1996), 4
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] Ibid., 5
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., 5-6
