Who can be called Anabaptist?

[Ken]

I grew up in the mainstream pre-MCUSA Mennonite Church and the word Anabaptist was rarely if ever used except may to talk about old history like Martyr's Mirror. I think there has been a resurgence of the term. For example, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) has renamed itself Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. I was curious and so looked up Google's Ngram viewer of the word and it usage peaked in the early 1820s and then went through a small resurgence in the 2010s https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

[Neto]

I grew up in the mainstream pre-MCUSA Mennonite Church and the word Anabaptist was rarely if ever used except may to talk about old history like Martyr's Mirror. I think there has been a resurgence of the term. For example, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) has renamed itself Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. I was curious and so looked up Google's Ngram viewer of the word and it usage peaked in the early 1820s and then went through a small resurgence in the 2010s https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

This is an interesting chart, Ken. I wonder how it would look if the researcher had shown different lines pertaining to different "strains" of "anabaptists" - how often they used this term in self descriptions.
For instance, in the context of Dutch "anabaptism", I do not recall hearing the term myself until young "Mennonite Hippies" gained influence in the MCC Peace Section. That was the only source from which I heard "Mennonite anti-war sentiment". Perhaps because Menno Simons was himself Dutch, and the group designations based on his name came out first in that ethnic setting, we always referred to ourselves as "Mennonites" rather than as "anabaptists". (I recall that some of those young Mennonite Hippies called themselves "The Children of Menno", and the zweibach was sometimes depicted as a symbol of identity.)

[MaxPC]

Excellent input; thank you. It helps sort it for me.

Holy Week starts today. I will see you all after Easter.

Additionally I will be celebrating my 90th birthday in the next month. We have a busy schedule for the next few. May you all remember Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. Amen.

[steve-in-kville]

Additionally I will be celebrating my 90th birthday in the next month. We have a busy schedule for the next few. May you all remember Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. Amen.

Well... happy birthday!

[ohio jones]

For example, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) has renamed itself Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

The previous name made sense for about 5 minutes after the merger of its predecessors. That could have been stretched to 5 days if they had made it plural.

Oh, hi Robert.

[mike]

Excellent input; thank you. It helps sort it for me.

Holy Week starts today. I will see you all after Easter.

Additionally I will be celebrating my 90th birthday in the next month. We have a busy schedule for the next few. May you all remember Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. Amen.

Happy birthday, sir. Best wishes for a healthy and happy year.

[Ken]

I grew up in the mainstream pre-MCUSA Mennonite Church and the word Anabaptist was rarely if ever used except may to talk about old history like Martyr's Mirror. I think there has been a resurgence of the term. For example, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) has renamed itself Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. I was curious and so looked up Google's Ngram viewer of the word and it usage peaked in the early 1820s and then went through a small resurgence in the 2010s https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?c ... moothing=3

This is an interesting chart, Ken. I wonder how it would look if the researcher had shown different lines pertaining to different "strains" of "anabaptists" - how often they used this term in self descriptions.
For instance, in the context of Dutch "anabaptism", I do not recall hearing the term myself until young "Mennonite Hippies" gained influence in the MCC Peace Section. That was the only source from which I heard "Mennonite anti-war sentiment". Perhaps because Menno Simons was himself Dutch, and the group designations based on his name came out first in that ethnic setting, we always referred to ourselves as "Mennonites" rather than as "anabaptists". (I recall that some of those young Mennonite Hippies called themselves "The Children of Menno", and the zweibach was sometimes depicted as a symbol of identity.)

It is just a web site where you can plug in any word and google returns the frequency of use over time. I don't know the exact methodology but Google has digitized millions of books and other printed material like newspapers going back centuries. So you can click through the link above and look up any word you want. You can also set the date parameters back all the way to 1500. But obviously the data sources get more sparce the further back you go in time as there is far less printed material to digitize the further you go back in time. You can also change the language and search for words in German language texts, for example.

I gotta run so I don't have time to post up the results, but you can look up "mennonnite" "brethren" "two kingdom" and other related terms and find interesting results.

[ohio jones]

I gotta run so I don't have time to post up the results, but you can look up "mennonnite" "brethren" "two kingdom" and other related terms and find interesting results.

Results for "mennonnite" are not particularly interesting.

[MaxPC]

Additionally I will be celebrating my 90th birthday in the next month. We have a busy schedule for the next few. May you all remember Christ’s sacrifice for our sins. Amen.

Well... happy birthday!

Happy birthday, sir. Best wishes for a healthy and happy year.

Thank you very much. I am thankful for 9 decades of God's blessings.

[Heirbyadoption]

What about the Brethren and German Baptist groups? They date to 1708 rather than 1525, yet are usually considered Anabaptist.

Two things, the first just for clarity. Technically, the "German Baptists" are part of the Brethren groups; Brethren is still usually included in the formal name of each of their splinter groups / divisions, except for 1 or two, perhaps. The ones called German Baptists (in Anabaptist circles) are usually one of the variations of the "Old German Baptist Brethren" (the Old Order break off from Church of the Brethren back in 1881). They (and others) often tend to get lazy (who wouldn't when they keep adding more names to their formal monikers, lol...case in point, the OGBBC-NC of which I am a member) and refer to themselves as German Baptists (unless they are differentiating from a similar Brethren group).

To the actual question above though, we are not denominational descended from any formal "Anabaptist" group. We had interactions with some of them in the late 1600s / early 1700s in Germany, but our progenitors were mostly Lutherans associated or directly influenced by the Radical Pietist movement that was pushing for greater spirituality in the churches in reaction to the dry dogmatic arguments and discourses over theological minutae. Through that influence and interactions with some of the Anabaptists (and their written materials) of the day, along with some interaction with the Dutch Collegiants, they eventually came to the conviction (as did the Anabaptist movement proper) of a need for believers baptism, and proceeded to organize accordingly. Many of our shared "Anabaptist" beliefs and practiced stemmed from those early interactions, as well as significant interaction with Mennonites in Germany, Holland, and eventually the Americas a few years later. But as far as denominational descendants, we are technically independent from any hard lines on the Anabaptist family tree...