Are Anabaptists Taking Over?

Sheldon Good, writing at HuffPo, responds to Mark Tooley, who think Anabaptists and Neo-Anabaptists are taking over, to say, well, here’s his opening:

Are Mennonites taking over the world?

Not likely.

But Mark Tooley wonders in The American Spectatormagazine whether Mennonites are taking over a big enough part of Christianity to be dangerous.

Tooley used a recent apology from Lutherans — for violent persecution of 16th-century Anabaptists — to emphasize a “neo-Anabaptist movement” that demands all Christians and society “bend to pacifism.”

He says the views of neo-Anabaptist religious leaders such as Stanley Hauerwas, Greg Boyd, Shane Claiborne and Jim Wallis are “especially pervasive” and “permit a naughty sense of rebellion” — evidence of how the Anabaptist message has mainstream appeal, especially its pacifism.

Tooley shows a somewhat accurate understanding of Anabaptism, while at other times he’s erroneous. As an Anabaptist, I want to speak of my heritage from my perspective.

I now summarize Good’s points. First, what Tooley gets right:

Anabaptists are no longer a small, persecuted minority; they are traditionally pacifist and separatist; Anabaptism is becoming mainstream; Anabaptists do reject supporting the empire.

But, they do not aggressively demand pacifism; they are not part of the Left (or the Right); and Anabaptists do not demand an expanding and coercive State in their social justice policies.