Why do Swiss Anabaptists practice ethnic separatism from other Anabaptists?

[danfreed]

120 posts ...12 pages in only 1 week on ethic separatism.
Wow. You hit a nerve JohnH!
"Lord, give us more faith to follow Jesus, as He is the answer to all of our problems, including our ethic pride and self-righteousness."

"For Jesus Himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has torn down the dividing wall of hostility.... and reconciling both of them to God in one body through the cross, by which He put to death their hostility". ..Ephesians 2

"For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord is Lord of all, abounding in riches for all who call on Him, Romans 12:10

Many of the posts deal with baptism, so I plan to start a new thread on the Jewish understand of baptism (Written Word forum).
Meet you at the Jordan!

[Neto]

I see that as a side point to the baptism aspect but it doesn’t matter. Thanks

Baptism is considered a public sign of membership (like other plain churches).

The difference is that most "other plain churches"
1. Recognize the "baptism" of anyone who was of age and was sincere.
2. Consider baptism as a public sign of membership in a faithful church (not THE Faithful Church) and are willing to transfer that membership to other faithful churches should a person wish to go to a different church.
3. Do not excommunicate those who stay faithful to God but leave the church.

A general comment, springing off of this post. Not a 'refutation' or argument. Just an observation:
I am not aware of any Scripture text that defines what baptism means in terms of 'a testimony to the world, the church, or to other people'. What I see is a a command of God that any true believer will obey.
I also see this spiritual act of obedience - baptism - as something that GOD does. Not something the minister, the congregation, or any other person does. Carrying out this command does, yes, in the physical sense, include the participation of the those to whom the "great commission" is addressed. (There appears to be disagreement as to who that is, whether it is to ALL individual believers, the Church as a whole, or only to ministers. We've discussed this before without agreement, so thus the somewhat ambiguous wording.)
I accept the connection between baptism and membership in a local congregation, the 'applicant' having been obedient in baptism as a requirement for the latter. I do not think there is any problem with it being done in combination (at the same time), and affirm the value of 'proving membership' for both newly baptized believers, and also those who are, for one reason or another, transferring membership from one congregation to another. (The discussion regarding what reasons for changing local congregational membership are advisable or valid is a separate topic.)

[As for the original topic of this thread, I will just say that the question as posed in the topic title assumes the truth of the idea for which reasons are requested. In my experience as an outsider to the Swiss 'anabaptist' setting myself, I have not found this idea to be substantiated. Sure, there are both cultural and ideological differences between the Dutch and the Swiss historical concepts of 'how we do church', but I would not characterize any experience of my own as having been based on ethnic identity. In the realm of cultural differences, some people 'resent' having a language of which they do not have full command spoken openly in their presence. For some reason or another, I do not share this emotional response.]

[JohnH]

One obvious thing about baptism is you can’t baptise yourself. Not even Jesus did. God chooses to involve other believers.

Likewise, baptism isn’t some personal sacrament that is just between a believer and the Lord. It also involves the whole church. Thus, baptism reveals what people’s perspective on church is.

There is a modern idea that “church” is some amorphous blob that you can’t see or meet but is just an ever changing list of all believers everywhere, much like “all blue eyed people” or “all people missing a finger”. I believe the church is real and incarnate, just like Jesus.