What Was the Radical Reformation?

As its title suggests, the Reformation was a movement in central, eastern, and northern Europe that tried to “reform” the teachings and practices of the established church centered in Rome. Some who agreed with the need for reform, however, were persuaded that the changes this movement sought within the church were incomplete. The church not only needed reform; what it meant to be a Christian needed to be redefined. In its day, this was considered even more radical than the burgeoning reformed movement itself.  

The sixteenth-century movements that now go under the heading of the “Radical Reformation” in the history books were not necessarily coherent in their day. Important disagreements notwithstanding, they were all characterized by a dissatisfaction with what they saw as an incomplete vision on the part of Reformation leaders like Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin. In addition, they tended to depart from the Reformers’ views of the sacraments, with baptism becoming the flashpoint of conflict. 

Included among the radical reformers are such diverse characters as the spiritualist revolutionary Thomas Müntzer, known for fomenting the German Peasants War; the apocalyptic prophet Melchior Hofmann, known for galvanizing the militant sect at Münster; and the unitarian (anti-trinitarian) Franci Dávid. 

However, the branch of the Radical Reformation that was to leave the most lasting legacy was neither revolutionary, nor militant, nor anti-trinitarian. 

Believers Baptism and the Radicals

While the Reformation’s leaders rejected the primacy of Rome in the church, they still believed in the concept often referred to today as “christendom.” They thought that regions could be Christian or otherwise, and that governing officials—magistrates—should actively promote Christian teaching and values within those regions. For this reason they are often called the “magisterial reformers.”

For the radicals, however, Christian faith was a personal, individual choice; it could not be assumed or inherited through any natural process such as birth into a Christian family living within a Christianized region. The radicals, thus, saw religious life as fundamentally distinct from civic life in a way that even the Reformers could not accept—much less the Roman Catholic established church. They expressed this belief by baptizing people only after confession of faith, being also persuaded that this was the practice in Christianity’s first generation. 

Traditionally, the first person to participate in this new form of baptism was a priest named Georg Blaurock, who asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him on January 21, 1525 in Zurich, Switzerland in the home of Felix Manz. Blaurock then baptized Grebel and the others present. This was in direct defiance of the reformer Ulrich Zwingli’s order, with whom Manz and Grebel had publicly disagreed on the matter. 

Manz was arrested thereafter and was executed by drowning in the Lammat River two years later. Drowning became a popular mode of executing Anabaptists due to its cynical association with baptism. Conrad Grebel died of illness, and Blaurock had to flee Zurich. 

The most influential Anabaptist theologian would be a Dutchman named Menno Simons, who had been a priest before his conversion to Anabaptism. But the pressure of persecution against Anabaptist leaders, Anabaptist theology was never given the opportunity to develop nearly as deeply as Reformed theology did during the same period.  

Is “Anabaptist” a (Successful) Misnomer?

The practice of baptizing adults was highly offensive to both Reformers and Roman Catholics since it was tantamount to declaring that the (infant) baptisms of everyone else in Europe were worthless. This was, in fact, how the radicals saw infant baptism—as meaningless; the only “real” baptism was one that occurred after confession of faith.

But their opponents called them “anabaptists”—those who baptize again—and the label has endured, ironically, despite its inaccuracy from the Anabaptist point of view. Today, Anabaptists routinely refer to themselves as such. 

The largest group of Anabaptists today comprises the various Mennonite denominations. These are named after the Dutch priest-turned-reformer Menno Simons, who became one of Anabaptism’s most respected leaders. Another group is the Amish, named for Jacob Amman, who led a group that split from the Mennonites in the late seventeenth century. Another surviving Anabaptist group is the Hutterites, named after Jacob Hutter. 

Anabaptists believed that “the sword,” a biblical term often used as a synecdoche for state power, should not be used by the church and that Christians should not fill roles in which they would be expected to use violence and force. 

While rejecting physical violence, however, Anabaptists still believed in disciplined enforcement of right teaching and behavior within their churches. They used “the ban” as their ultimate tool in this endeavor. Often referred to today as “church discipline,” this practice involved shunning, ignoring, or otherwise refusing to associate with a person whose behavior or teachings departed from what was accepted as authentically Christian within the community. 

What Was the Battle and Massacre at Münster?

Though today’s Anabaptists descend from pacifistic groups, some early Anabaptists departed markedly from the pacifistic ideal. Notably, a brand of Anabaptism emerged out of the teachings of a Dutch clergyman named Melchior Hofmann. His followers united at Münster, Germany behind the apocalyptic vision of the lay preacher John Matthijs who proclaimed that Christ’s second coming was imminent. His disciples Bernhard Rothmann and John of Leiden were able to gain control of Münster, and armed the city’s Anabaptist inhabitants and the many pilgrims who had gathered there in preparation for the apocalyptic battle that would usher in the Millennial Kingdom. 

But was not to be: the Münster zealots were overwhelmed by the forces of Prince Franz von Waldeck on June 24, 1535. Their leaders, including John of Leiden, were imprisoned, tortured, and then hung in cages from the sides of the church where they died eventually of exposure.

The Melchiorite wing of Anabaptism was active only a short time after the battle at Münster, but was brutally crushed by Reformed authorities. For the most part, however, Anabaptists did not hold to extreme apocalyptic beliefs, and did not think their movement was a special fulfillment of biblical prophecy. They also rejected polygamy, which had been sanctioned among the Münster sect. 

But perhaps the most important difference between the Melchiorites and the majority of Anabaptists had to do with the use of violence. Those Anabaptist groups that were able to survive to the present day, such as the Mennonites, Hutterites, and Amish, were deeply committed to nonviolence and non-resistance—refusing to use force even in self-defense. 

Yet as the Anabaptists leaned more heavily into pacifism after news of the debacle at Münster had spread, their opponents both in the Roman Catholic and Reformed camps pushed in the other direction.

Despite Persecution, Did Anabaptism Survive?

Judging the Anabaptists heretical, the Reformers—who themselves had suffered persecution at the hands of the Roman Catholic rulers—encouraged local authorities to use all means at their disposal to discourage Anabaptist teaching. This included the most gruesome of corporal punishments. Thousands of Anabaptists were imprisoned, tortured, burned alive, and drowned. Roman Catholic rulers likewise persecuted them even as they would anyone who departed from Roman Catholic doctrine.

Detailed descriptions of these martyrs’ stories were collected and memorialized in the book Martyrs Mirror by Thieleman J. van Braght, first published in Holland in 1660. Significantly, the book places the stories of Anabaptist martyrs chronologically in the same tradition as the celebrated martyrs of ancient Christian history.