What if the Anabaptist Movement...

[Ernie]

This is a fun thread to talk about what the Anabaptist world might look like today if...

[Ernie]

What might a Plain Anabaptist church service look like today, had the Anabaptist movement originated in Scotland?

[Ken]

What if they had stayed in the Palatinate?

Would we today be seeing big and growing colonies of Amish and plain Mennos in Switzerland and southwest Germany?

[Sudsy]

What might a Plain Anabaptist church service look like today, had the Anabaptist movement originated in Scotland?

Perhaps they would play bag pipes (not considered a musical instrument ) and the men wearing kilts but perhaps full length to the ground ?

[Neto]

... had gotten more involved in world-wide missionary work right away?
(As I recall, Dutch Mennonites waited until the mid 1800's to start sending missionaries out to other lands and peoples. That's about 300 years of just trying to survive.)

... had not been persecuted?

... had not started MennoDiscuss (and MennoNet)?

[Soloist]

What if they had stayed in the Palatinate?

Would we today be seeing big and growing colonies of Amish and plain Mennos in Switzerland and southwest Germany?

Wife: Well, judging from the ones that did, I don’t think it would go well. I think they would’ve just re-integrated into main stream society.

Perhaps they would play bag pipes (not considered a musical instrument )

Hearing it up close, I think I would agree with that, although that might have kept the no musical instruments stance going longer, or at least made a standard that bagpipe players had to stay outside the camp.
The dialect would be harder to pick up because who outside of nerdy people actually study Gaelic? That would’ve been an interesting looking Bible.

[Judas Maccabeus]

What might a Plain Anabaptist church service look like today, had the Anabaptist movement originated in Scotland?

It likely would look like the Acapella Psalm singing, gospel preaching, women wearing hats during service, "Wee Frees."

[steve-in-kville]

What if they had stayed in the Palatinate?

That is the area my family is from. They named a village/township after us.

[Pelerin]

What if Münster held out? Would there be all kinds of things named after it today like Geneva? Would there be a Van Leyden College? Would the sorts of people attracted to radical new ideas have gone with Münster instead—everybody likes a winner—and left the other Anabaptist groups like the nascent Mennonites much smaller?

What about those of us who became the Amish and Mennonites anyway? Would we have all moved to Münster? Maybe we’re a little uncomfortable with the soldiers defending the faith but at least there we’re accepted and not persecuted. Would there even have been a push to move to North America and Russia? Would there be a Lancaster or Holmes County worth mentioning? Would Münster today be an Amish tourist attraction like they are or would we all have just ended up as irreligious modern Europeans?

[Josh]

What if Münster held out? Would there be all kinds of things named after it today like Geneva? Would there be a Van Leyden College? Would the sorts of people attracted to radical new ideas have gone with Münster instead—everybody likes a winner—and left the other Anabaptist groups like the nascent Mennonites much smaller?

What about those of us who became the Amish and Mennonites anyway? Would we have all moved to Münster? Maybe we’re a little uncomfortable with the soldiers defending the faith but at least there we’re accepted and not persecuted. Would there even have been a push to move to North America and Russia? Would there be a Lancaster or Holmes County worth mentioning? Would Münster today be an Amish tourist attraction like they are or would we all have just ended up as irreligious modern Europeans?

My guess is it would have evolved into something very much like the London Baptists; essentially a magisterial reformation, with a comfort level of church and state, but with believers’ baptism tacked on. Munster otherwise lacked most of what we think of as “Anabaptism” today.