Mennonite Anabaptists Celebrate Their 500th Anniversary
Christian Mennonites are gathering in Zurich, Switzerland, to celebrate the 500th year of their origin, which occurred in that city. Although they number less than 2 million people, Mennonites are the largest church denomination among the Anabaptist movement that they started. Anabaptist means to be baptized “again” (ana) or “re-baptized,” although they did not accept either of those terms. These terms refer to Christians who had been baptized as infants in especially state church denominations, such the Roman Catholic Church or the fledgling Lutheran Church at that time, and then were re-baptized as adults.
These Anabaptists rightly cited the New Testament in defending their practice of being water baptized only as adults who had repented of their sins and could truly acknowledge Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They called it “believers’ baptism.” They believed that infants and young children do not have the intellectual capacity to do either. They rejected the term anabaptism because they claimed they were undergoing a true baptism and that infant baptism was not true baptism and thus not baptism at all, which I think is merely a semantical argument a little value.
There are other church denominations that are Anabaptist, such as the Amish, or churches closely associated with Anabaptists or influenced by them. The latter would include Brethren in Christ and Quakers. Certain features that characterize all of these groups are their emphasis on living a truly Christian life as taught by Jesus in the New Testament gospels, especially in his Sermon on the Mount, and being pacifist and rejecting involvement in politics. Some of them refused to vote because of this.
I Disagree with Pacifism and Avoiding Politics
Despite my respect for Anabaptists and others like them, I don’t agree with their being pacifist and refusing to vote. They say Christians are citizens of heaven and therefore not citizens of this world. I believe Christians are citizens of both the kingdom of God and the nation wherever they live and that this viewpoint does not deny scripture, but actually supports it. The Bible says God made the nations (e.g., Deuteronomy 26.19; Psalm 86.9; Acts 17.26). So, I think such rejection is naive, and that such people can become too separatist from society. Christians should be involved in both spreading the Christian gospel and promoting the social gospel, that is, trying to make the world a better place to live. Involvement in politics is one of the ways to do it.
I have known many Quakers because I lived in Friendswood, Texas, for over 25 years. It was founded by Quakers as its name implies, since they used to refuse that name, preferring to be called “friends.” They cite what Jesus said to his disciples, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15.14). I respect Quakers/Friends immensely for their love for, and devotion to, Jesus as risen Lord and Savior as well as their love for people in general. They live out Jesus’s quotation from Torah, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Leviticus 19.18; Mark 12.31; cf. Matthew 5.44).
Pope Leo XIV Will Center His Papacy on the Risen Lord Jesus
The new Roman Catholic Pope Leo XIV, the first ever American pope and a former citizen of Chicago, has praised Mennonites for this recognition of their history and is calling for unification of Christians worldwide who truly believe God literally resurrected Jesus from the dead. I salute Pope Leo XIV for this. I have posted about his inauguration to the papacy, when he made it clear that his tenure as pope will be centered on the risen Lord Jesus when he repeatedly said in the balcony of the Sistine Chapel, “Peace be with you.” That obviously was a reference to the risen Jesus when he appeared multiple times to his disciples and first said this to them three times.
Pope Leo XIV called for Catholics and Mennonites to practice “honesty and kindness in reflecting on their common spiritual heritage of being connected to Jesus of Nazareth. And he again repeated what he said at his inauguration, “Peace be with you.” These words apparently are going to represent his leadership. He added, “The motto chosen for your celebration, ‘The Courage to Love,’ reminds us, above all, of the need for Catholics and Mennonites to make every effort to live out the commandment of love, the call to Christian unite, and the mandate to serve others.”
Conclusion
The closing statement of Pope Leo XIV was, “The more united Christians are the more effective will be our witness to Christ the Prince of Peace in building up a civilization of loving encounter. ” I think I’m going to like this pope, maybe a lot. That has never happened to me.
Catholics should recognize their Church’s ill treatment of Anabaptists, especially in their formative years, and express their disdain of it, which Vatican II somewhat does. I have a section about this in my book, The Restitution: Biblical Proof Jesus Is Not God (pp. 93-94). I state, “During the 16th century and thereafter, countless Anabaptists and Unitarians were persecuted and/or exiled for their faith by Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastical leaders and political officials. Many of them suffered martyrdom. … by the mid-16th century 30,000 Europeans Anabaptists had been put to death, mostly in Holland. … only Anabaptists and Unitarians defended religious toleration.”
But times change. It appears to me that the Catholic Church has a good pope to bring about positive change both in the Church and the world. At least, he sure is saying the right things so far that can endure non-Catholic Christians like me to his Christian leadership.
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