lesterb wrote:
I'm a bit hesitant about Broadbent. It seems like he's trying to establish an alternative apostolic succession.
Baptists tend to try to do this. I remember one training union teacher try to suggest that the origin of the baptist church was John the Baptist! Primitive and regular baptists really get into this. I pretty much dismiss this.
lesterb wrote:Plus, he either had access to sources that no one else did, or he's reading between the lines a lot.
Not really good at footnoting as well. For an old school type that is apt to try to look up his sources that makes things tough.[/quote]
lesterb wrote:I prefer Verduin because I think he's more accurate in his approach to history. I think the conservative Anabaptists place to much weight on Broadbent.
Have already read Verdun. Wife read it as soon as I was finished. Well documented, through, and he seems to draw his conclusions from the research, not the other way around. But to be fully informed, I likely need to read Broadbent as well.[/quote]
lesterb wrote:As far as the ancient origin vs Zurich origin, I think that the truth is in between somewhere. I feel that Anabaptism was a fresh outburst of the Spirit. That happened in the Waldensian revival as well, and on a smaller level in various other places and times. But there were a lot of underground influences drifting around Europe during the Dark Ages. For instance, the Brethren of the Common Life, though they stayed within Catholicism, did a lot to promote both education and spirituality, and even in producing the Bible in the vernacular. Erasmus was a product of this movement.
In the Netherlands you had the conventicles - weekly Bible studies totally out of the control of the Catholic Church. Europe was in a spiritual turmoil, and kept heating up underground until the pot finally boiled over.
So both origin theories tend to be over simplified.
Agree. The ideas were out there for a long time, and you would expect that if one reads the Bible and seeks to obey, the would be led to many of the same conclusions. My take on why Anabaptism finally succeeded in establishing a lasting movement in the 16th century was a combination of the printing press, which enabled their ideas to be spread more widely, the magisterial reformation, which both disrupted the ironclad control that medieval catholicism had on society and the strengthening of the independent cities. All of these provided the "space" for the movement to develop and gain momentum. Lastly, the beginning of the settlement of north america gave refuge where the movement could not be stamped out or co-opted as so many others had in the past.
I just wish I could read German, my limit is the words that are likely to appear in a circuit diagram. (I am in the process of reforming a blaupunkt table radio...got the electronics working!)
J.M.