An Anabaptist Theology 3

I’ve been negligent on posting this series. Anabaptism sought to find a way outside Catholicism and yet not the same as the major Protestant groups, the Lutherans and the Reformed. Anabaptism, then, can be seen as a third way. Thomas Finger, in his big book A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology: Biblical, Historical, Constructive, seeks to show how anabaptism can be of help to theological discussions today.

When it comes down to it, what many people want to know about Anabaptism involves these sorts of things: Is it just a social ethic? Is it just an ethic of discipleship? What does it say about justification?

That last topic is the subject of Finger’s big 5th chp, but let me set it up a bit. Without doubt, in the inner circles of concern for anabaptism was an authentic Christian life, a true piety, and a real Christ-like life. It was deeply troubled by the institutionalization of the church and the transformation of the gospel into highly abstract theological categories. There’s more, to be sure, but this is enough to get us going today.

When it comes to justification, and the big picture is that Anabaptism stood between Catholicism and Protestantism, the driving concern is not so much “by faith” or “by works” but “transformation.” What good is justification if people aren’t transformed into a genuine Christlike life? That’s the issue. Finger admirably dives into this theme…First, by a nice sketch of the difference between Catholics (a two-step justification) and the Reformers (a legal declaration, independent of transformation or works). Because the Anabaptist concern is transformation, justification takes on some new hues. His 5th chp is on the Personal Dimension, and he focuses this chp on this very significant idea:

Anabaptism reveals that justification is best understood through the lens of christomorphic divinization, and I would point here to Menno and Dirk and Hoffman as three good examples. Finger has a good extensive discussion of the biblical material, where he sees covenant faithfulness as well as the faithfulness of Christ — new perspective kind of ideas — without denying more traditional ideas. He pushes hard to show that God’s justifying work involves the life and teachings and obedience of Jesus and not just his death and resurrection.

Yes, you read that right: Finger’s contribution here is to show that Anabaptism had a strong theme of divinization, that is being transformation through the energies of God so that justification is relational and organic and legal/forensic, and not just forensic.

There is a very strong emphasis in Anabaptism that sounds like the Reformers: justified by faith alone, God’s initiative and work, the human need to surrender and trust, double imputation or at least clear single imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us; but they did not want to leave it at that. The divine intent is not just a forensic declaration but was designed to transform the sinner into a Christlike disciple, both now and in the eschaton. So that emphasis on transformation made the Anabaptists sound at times like Catholics and at times it sounded like works were involved.

But Finger thinks the Anabaptists are in the middle here or at least a third way that can point toward a blending that deserves consideration. Their idea of salvation is eschatologically driven so that there is a present dimension and a future dimension (inaugurated eschatology).