Anabaptists and the Authority of Scripture

[HondurasKeiser]

The adversaries of the Anabaptists in the sixteenth century, as well as historians of our century writing critically about them, set side by side two different accusations.

On the one hand, they were and are accused of an overly great literalism in the interpretation of the Bible. This came to the surface constantly in debates about such matters as the oath and the bearing of the sword, usury, and the baptism of infants. At these points the Anabaptists would insist simply upon the words of the Scripture, and their adversaries would call them to a more “spiritual” interpretation, or to “the general sense of the text,” as over against the letter. The critics of the Anabaptists would argue for the necessity of more complicated analysis of a biblical text in order to avoid taking it at its most simple meaning.

If we are to evaluate the nature of the danger of such an →17 exaggerated literalism, we would have to say that after the first generation of Anabaptist leaders the danger was real, but not for theological reasons. The point is rather that, with the loss of the first generation of intellectual leaders, the entire movement had to rely upon the kind of leadership which could arise out of the rural congregations. It was thus inevitable that there should be a tendency to oversimplification of the real problems of interpretation. It is in this kind of context that we should not be surprised to find some simple Anabaptists saying that, now that the Bible has been translated into the language of the people, we actually need no scholars at all.

Yet these simple spokesmen of refugee Anabaptism nevertheless did not make a systematic issue of their insistence on the clarity and simplicity of every text. They did leave real room for what they called “the character of Scripture.” They recognized that there could be such a thing as the general drift of a text, or the meaning which a total passage has in its context, which could conceivably he distinguished from the immediate wording of one particular verse. They, however, challenged the way in which this kind of generality was used against them by the Reformers. If we were able to examine further the particular cases with which we have to deal, the validity of their objection would be understandable. The best examples of what they had to be afraid of were the meaning of “faith” and of “love” in the theology of the official Reformation.

The most extensive documentation of this clash of hermeneutic assumptions is to be found in the recorded disputations of the 1530’s.[3] More briefly, an excellent sample can be seen in Heinrich Bullinger’s 1531 letter, “How to Deal with Anabaptists.”[4] Here it is transparent how the concept “love” has become equivalent to “whatever serves the preservation of the unity of society,” with “faith” meaning all the dogmatic deposit of the church’s experiences. Thus the “rule of faith and love” as hermeneutic guide could mean the radical relativisation of sola scriptura.

And yet on the other side another set of accusers claim that the Anabaptists relied upon the personal possession of the Holy Spirit to the extent that the Bible was unnecessary. There do seem clearly to have been some individuals who would speak of doing what the Spirit told them to do in such a way that it seemed to the Reformers that they were affirming a special revelation. We know of no significant cases where a person fully within the Anabaptist movement →18 used such language about actions which were not themselves commanded in Scripture, but it certainly appeared on the margins, and there must have been something about the movement itself which left some room for this.

One often finds early Anabaptists appealing directly to “the Spirit” to explain why they behave as they do. But when one looks at the specific action which they take or convictions which they hold on this ground, we find that these are all clearly biblical in origin. The Spirit is not claimed as a source of new revelation. They ascribe to the Spirit the motivation for their repentance or their requesting baptism; for their confessing sins; for their going out to preach and to baptize; for their confidence that in the future they will be guided by their Lord. Often, in fact, “the Spirit" seems to be thought of not so much as a power operating only in the present but also and at the same time as the author of Scripture; “the Spirit says” can be the preface to a direct biblical quotation. But the fact remains that this reference to the Spirit involves a level of subjective acceptance and commitment which is not characteristic of some other doctrines of Scripture.

In the face of the fact that some critics of Anabaptism complain of too much emphasis on the letter and others of too much emphasis on the Spirit, part of the explanation is of course in a difference in persons. Not all the critics were speaking of the same Anabaptists. But nevertheless there is a sense in which both kinds of accusation had a real point of contact. The way the Anabaptists themselves developed their position, which seemed so self-contradictory to their critics, made use of the phrases “Inner Word” and “Outer Word.” The language is consciously borrowed from an older mystical tradition, but with a significant modification.

The point of the insistence upon the Inner Word is that a biblical text without the penetration and testing of personal appropriation is a dead letter. Hans Denck, perhaps the first Anabaptist to use this pair of terms, drew up a list of contradictions in the text of Scripture.[5] His point in so doing was not to argue that Scripture should not be authoritative, but rather to point out that in order to →19 reconcile seemingly contradictory understandings, there must be a deeper personal penetration of what the texts are all about. The statement “the Bible is true” is obviously not hermeneutically sufficient if its text contains statements which are mutually contradictory. It only becomes a true statement in the context of interpretation and “reception”[6] in which varying texts are related to one another and all are understood within a larger framework. Only in this framework have they meaning, and thereby authority. Denck did not necessarily mean that the working of the Spirit which is necessary to interpret Scripture as a unity would be a kind of mysterious or mystical insight. In the case of some of the contradictions he found in the text of Scripture, a further grammatical or contextual analysis is sufficient to show that the texts do not really speak against one another. But even this linguistic analysis is part of a process of appropriation, not contained within the text itself. Thus it is understandable that the Reformers, with their strong emphasis (when arguing against the Roman Catholics) that the text of the Bible is sufficiently clear—the doctrine of “perspicuity”—and carries with it its own final authoritative interpretation, felt that the Anabaptists, with their insistence on personal appropriation through the Spirit, were opening the door to “enthusiasm.”[7]

And yet on the other hand the only court of appeal is the text of Scripture. No congregation and no prophet may claim with any authority to have heard the Spirit, unless in the testing of that Spirit Scripture can be appealed to. The disciples of Melchior Hofmann in Strasbourg, themselves given to quite fantastic interpretations of biblical prophecy, still could see clearly to reject the personal visions of a David Joris, when he claimed that they should listen to him because of his visions.[8] In their understanding of prophecy the Melchiorites were “far out,” but they still believed they were interpreting the letter of Scripture. Thus it is also understandable that Heinrich Bullinger could hold against the Anabaptists primarily their literalism, that is, their insistence on letting any particular text say what it really means to say. This was reflected in the Anabaptists’ →20 suspicion of excessive reliance on the tools of rhetoric as instruments of textual analysis.

This Anabaptist understanding of the complementary relation-ships of the Inner Word and the Outer Word provides a possible answer to a question which theology has continued to debate since the beginning of Protestantism. In what sense is faith a condition for the correct interpretation of Scripture? If we have a fair understanding of the words of Scripture and are technically capable of under-standing these words as human communication, what then does faith add? Does it add a new knowledge which we otherwise would not have received? Or has it to do only with some kind of mystical or subjective dimension, not really part of the communication of the text? In the eighteenth century, when the Pietists argued that faith is a necessary condition for correct understanding of Scripture, they meant this as a rejection of what then was held to be “orthodoxy”; at that time, official Protestant “orthodox” belief was being taught by persons who had no necessary personal, emotional, or missionary commitment to those “truths.” Pietism insisted that the theologian must be a regenerate believer.

Strikingly, today the meaning has been reversed. When today it is said by conservative Protestants that faith is a pre-condition of proper understanding, it usually means that only he who is first of all committed to a basically orthodox set of Christian ideas can be sure to find those ideas in the same shape when he reads the Bible. Thus it is that often in a seminary curriculum a course in systematic theology precedes specific biblical book studies. “Faith” is here understood not as subjective commitment but (as with Bullinger) as the acceptance of a set of right beliefs. Thus two contradictory meanings of “faith” can circulate under the same label. I would suggest that the Anabaptist understanding of the two dimensions of the Word of God might provide protection against both of these dangers.

https://www.anabaptistwiki.org/mediawik ... nabaptists

[Judas Maccabeus]

I would say that Anabaptism IS fundamentalist at its core, all the way back to Schlictheim. Garden City rightly addresses the controversy and attacks on the core doctrine of Christianity that were prevalent at the time.

It is not, and never has been Fundamentalist ( a Religo-cultural movement of the time) but has doctrinally taught most, if not all of the positions covered in R.A. Torrey’s collection, “The Fundementals.”

I would suggest many seem to conflate fundamentalism with Fundamentalism.

I'd be interested in hearing more of your thoughts on that last bit.

Compare the Garden City article on Salvation with the Dordrecht confession. I think there is clear evidence of Protestant fundamentalist influence in the Garden city confession. Dordrecht has a more robust idea of repentance and discipleship.

ARTICLE VII
On Repentance and the Mending of Life
We believe and confess, that, since the inclination of the human heart is evil from the time of youth? (Gen. 8:21), and therefore inclined toward unrighteousness, sin, and evil, the first lesson of the worthy New Covenant of the Son of God is repentance and the mending of life;

That, for this reason, individuals have ears to hear, and hearts to understand the need to: produce true fruits of repentance, mend their lives, believe the Gospel, forsake evil, do good, stop doing misdeeds, and forsake sin, removing the old self with its practices, and putting on the new self, created in the image of God in true righteousness and holiness (Mk. 1:15; Col. 3:9-10; Eph. 4:21-24). For apart from faith and the new birth, and the reform or renewal of life-baptism, the Lord's Supper, church participation, and any other outward ceremony, are of no avail in pleasing God, or for obtaining from him any consolation or promise of salvation. One must instead go to God in true and perfect faith, and believe in Jesus Christ as Scripture says, testifying about him, through which faith a person obtains forgiveness of sins, and is sanctified and justified, sharing in Christ?s mind, nature and being as one of the children of God-who are new, being reborn of God through the incorruptible seed which comes from above ([Gen. 8:21; Ezek. 12:1;] Heb. 10:21-22; Jn. 7:38; 2 Pet. 1:4).

Article VI. Of Salvation.
We believe that man is saved alone by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ; that he is justified from all things on the ground of his shed blood; that through the new birth he becomes a child of God, partaker of eternal life and blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ. Ephesians 2:8; Romans 3:20-26; Acts 13:38, 39; John 1:12, 13; John 3:4, 8, 16; John 5:24; Ephesians 1:3.

Garden City does have a subsequent article which speaks of a holy life, but I think it is interesting how closely Dordrecht ties discipleship and repentance with salvation/new birth, and how Garden City integrates the idea of by grace alone/faith alone which seem to come more from the five solas of the Reformation than from Anabaptist thinking. I'm not arguing at the moment that this means anything bad, just that that it is evidence of the influence of Fundamentalism (did I get that right?) on early 20th century Mennonites.

Article X. Of Separation.
We believe that we are called with a holy calling to a life of separation from the world and its follies, sinful practices and methods; further that it is the duty of the Church to keep herself aloof from all movements which seek the reformation of society independent of the merits of the death of Christ and the experience of the new birth. 1 Peter 2:9; Titus 2:11-14; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Romans 12:1, 2; Ephesians 5:11; 1 John 2:15-17; 2 Thessalonians 2:6; Acts 4:12; John 3:3, 6, 7.

I think rather it is small f fundamentalist ideas. Controversy forces definition. As the Biblically driven ideas that have always been the core of Anabaptism increasingly came under attack from the culture and the "mainline" church in the US, the need to define more closely what we actually believed became clear. I think that reading the "solas" from the reformed movement into Garden City is more than a bit forced. Rather, it is a right reaction to what the culture was throwing at the church. This was a period where the so called "higher criticism" of the Bible was becoming the predominant view in the religious culture of the US. The area that was most under attack by the "mainline" protestant movement of the day was inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, and that is how Garden City opens. "Reactionary", yes, and rightly so. Culturally Fundamentalist, no.

The "sure" results of higher criticism is so ingrained in the mainlines, I was forced, as an elder responsible for teaching in my former church, to reject Sunday School material because it taught the JEPD view of the Pentateuch. This was in the late 80s. This became the predominant view in the "mainlines" in the teens and 20s. Pushback was needed, and you can, and must pushback against false views of the Scriptures without being a "Fundamentalist." This may, however mean that you hold fundamentalist views.

[mike]

I think rather it is small f fundamentalist ideas. Controversy forces definition. As the Biblically driven ideas that have always been the core of Anabaptism increasingly came under attack from the culture and the "mainline" church in the US, the need to define more closely what we actually believed became clear. I think that reading the "solas" from the reformed movement into Garden City is more than a bit forced. Rather, it is a right reaction to what the culture was throwing at the church. This was a period where the so called "higher criticism" of the Bible was becoming the predominant view in the religious culture of the US. The area that was most under attack by the "mainline" protestant movement of the day was inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, and that is how Garden City opens. "Reactionary", yes, and rightly so. Culturally Fundamentalist, no.

The "sure" results of higher criticism is so ingrained in the mainlines, I was forced, as an elder responsible for teaching in my former church, to reject Sunday School material because it taught the JEPD view of the Pentateuch. This was in the late 80s. This became the predominant view in the "mainlines" in the teens and 20s. Pushback was needed, and you can, and must pushback against false views of the Scriptures without being a "Fundamentalist." This may, however mean that you hold fundamentalist views.

Can you explain why in a generation, the Mennonites who penned the fundamentalist creeds of the early 1900s transitioned so quickly into mainstream/liberal evangelicalism? What good did it do them to go with reactionary fundamentalist/Fundamentalist ideas and adopt them as part of the Mennonite theological package? A large portion of the Mennonite church is now indistinguishable from liberal and or conservative branches of Protestant evangelicalism, and the only Mennonites that really hold to those fundamentalist-inspired doctrines are the conservative schisms of the 1950s-1970s.

In contrast, old order Anabaptists (Amish, Old Order Mennonites, and probably others) were not influenced all that much by fundamentalism, and still probably hold to much the same theology and values that they did 150 years ago.

My questions are, how much did the Mennonite church really benefit in the long run from fundamentalist influence in the early 1900s, how necessary was it to react to modernist trends in society and the broader Christian church in that way, and what benefit does conservative Anabaptism derive from those influences and reactions today?

[R7ehr]

I think that is a cart and horse issue. The groups who were already drifting, be they Mennonite or Protestant, were attempting to arrest their movement with these Fundamentalist ideas. But that was like trying to stop a rolling truck by chocking the wheels with a marble - it was never going to work.
We see a similar marble example with churches who pass resolutions against, say, women pastors for example. The whole reason the resolution is necessary, is because there has arose a certain number who are questioning or challenging the matter. As this number grows, the resolution is toppled and the church accepts women pastors.

Same in the secular world. There was no need for the country to define marriage for 200 years. And we saw that very quickly after many laws were passed defining marriage as man and woman, many states explicitly protected gay marriage.

Fundamentalism may have problems, but I don’t think we can say that it causes worldliness based on the Mennonite history.

[mike]

I think that is a cart and horse issue. The groups who were already drifting, be they Mennonite or Protestant, were attempting to arrest their movement with these Fundamentalist ideas. But that was like trying to stop a rolling truck by chocking the wheels with a marble - it was never going to work.
We see a similar marble example with churches who pass resolutions against, say, women pastors for example. The whole reason the resolution is necessary, is because there has arose a certain number who are questioning or challenging the matter. As this number grows, the resolution is toppled and the church accepts women pastors.

Same in the secular world. There was no need for the country to define marriage for 200 years. And we saw that very quickly after many laws were passed defining marriage as man and woman, many states explicitly protected gay marriage.

That's reasonable

[R7ehr]

I guess what I’m saying in fewer words, is that if you are needing to defend something, it means you are under attack.

[barnhart]

I would suggest the thing that RZehr is calling worldliness is an expression of the same ideology that Fundamentalism and Modernism share. The roots of each extend to the same pool.

[barnhart]

One way in which Anabaptism has been unwaveringly Christocentric is the demand the preeminence of Jesus teaching over Church tradition based in the Old Testament in things like sacred authority of Christendom. To the extent that latter theologians like Barth wish to use Christocentrism to devalue the old testament, they deviate from the pattern of early Anabaptists who revered the old as a foundation and signpost to the new.

[mike]

One way in which Anabaptism has been unwaveringly Christocentric is the demand the preeminence of Jesus teaching over Church tradition based in the Old Testament in things like sacred authority of Christendom.

How does what you say here mesh with what Ernie said earlier in the thread?

Plain Anabaptists in the 21st century have mostly resorted to elevating the magisterium and church tradition. Very few churches are sitting down with the Bible, reading the New Testament together, and making adjustments in their practices and lifestyles based on what they read.

[Neto]

The problem with most arguments for a "Christocentric" interpretation is that it tends to set the Living Word against the Written Word (by deciding that the Old Testament can't be saying what it seems to be saying), or at the very least, it finds a "canon with the canon" according to the preferred bias of the interpreter - outside of the natural division of Scripture between the Old and New Testaments.

I don't see the early Anabaptists as advocating for this position. Rather, they accused the Reformers of not following Scripture accurately, as in Menno here:

I agree with much if not all of what you say. My only quibble is that the Anabaptist hermeneutic wasn't "Christocentric". I don't think that's quite right. Perhaps it's not the Barthian "Jesus-centered" approach that leads in a more "liberal" direction but when I read essays, quoting early Anabaptists, it's seems clear to me that they both held a high view of scripture (higher than their Protestant neighbors) and also interpreted everything through the lens of the revealed and triumphant Word. “In the past, God spoke through the prophets … in these final days, though, [God] spoke to us through a Son. Jesus, is the light of God’s glory and the imprint of God’s being” (Hebrews 1:1-3 CEB). I would commend to you some essays on the Anabaptist Hermeneutic by Swartley, Roth and others...I know these folks are more liberal than most here but their efforts to understand how the Anabaptists understood the scriptures and then put them into practice is commendable.
....

I have not read Barth (or the other sources you mention), but I wonder if the problem is that we can easily think that when someone says the Name 'Jesus', we think they mean the "same Jesus", as we know. So the same with "ChristoCentric" theology. We assume they are talking accurately about Jesus the Christ, that is, biblically. But many have created their own 'Jesus', one crafted in their own image. (Just like the Israelites did while Moses had "disappeared" up on the mountain. They created an idol, one crafted after an animal, and Aaron said "This is the God that lead you out of Egypt." I don't think he was talking about a totally different god - I think he was compromising with them, and considered that he had "merely" created a symbol of Yahweh, something tangible that they could focus on.)

The 'Jesus' many people "believe in" is one who, in the words of a childhood friend of mine, "is all about Love". Yes, Jesus IS LOVE, because He is God. But they have also created a new definition for love, one which never confronts anyone about anything, so their false 'Jesus' only accepts them as they are, and when they "come to him", there is no need to "go away different than how they came". Along those lines, it is interesting that the opposite of 'faith' in the NT is not, as one might think, simply 'unbelief', it is disobedience.

This all comes back to the point that others have made as well - that all we know about the identity of God the Father, God the Son, and the Holy Spirit - it ALL comes from the Scriptures (both 'Testaments'). Certainly, the real Truth is revealed in Jesus, but it is recorded in Scripture, and that is our only reliable source for that information, the place where we can find out "Who is the Real Jesus, the Real Christ, the One on whom our lives must be 'centered'.