After Münster: Two Kinds of Faith [Justin]
I came across the Wikipedia article on the Rebellion of Münster recently, and was surprised to learn that the city was taken by Anabaptists by force in 1534. The Anabaptist theocracy lasted less than a year and a half, after which it was overthrown quite violently. The leaders were tortured to death, and their bodies were put on display in the town for the next 50 years in hanging cages that remain in place five centuries later.
After the rebellion, two kinds of Anabaptism became distinct from one another:
The Münster Rebellion was a turning point for the Anabaptist movement. It never again had the opportunity of assuming political importance, the civil powers naturally adopting the most stringent measures to suppress an agitation whose avowed object was to suppress them. It is difficult to trace the subsequent history of the group as a religious body. The fact that, after the Münster insurrection the very name Anabaptist was proscribed in Europe, is a source of twofold confusion. However, the Batenburgers under Jan van Batenburg preserved the violent millenialist stream of Anabaptism seen at Münster. They were polygamous and believed force was justified against anyone not in their sect. Not surprisingly their movement went deep underground after the supression of Münster with members posing as Catholics or Lutherans as necessary.
For those who opposed the use of force, differentiating themselves from the Münster rebels became of utmost importance. Many nonresistant Anabaptists found leaders in Menno Simons and the brother Obbe and Dirk Philips, Dutch Anabaptist leaders who repudiated the distinctive doctrines of the Münster Anabaptists. This group eventually became known as the Mennonites after Simons. They rejected any use of violence, preached a faith based on love of enemy and compassion and never aimed at any social or political revolution. link
It’s interesting that I’ve never heard of the violent, polygamous Anabaptists, despite hearing a good deal about the peaceful Anabaptists who influenced later movements such as the Mennonites.
I think there’s an important message here: the way we pursue our aims determines how history will remember us. The way of violence does not lead to long-term change; it is the path of desperation rather than the path of wisdom.
[...] After Münster: Two Kinds of Faith I came across the Wikipedia article on the Rebellion of Münster recently, and was surprised to learn that the city was taken by Anabaptists by force in 1534. The Anabaptist theocracy lasted less than a year and a half, after which it was overthrown quite violently. The leaders were tortured to death, and their bodies were put on display in the town for the next 50 years in hanging cages that remain in place five centuries later. [...]
Most Mennonites don’t talk about Munster.
And the Batenburgers sound an awful lot like the Branch Davidians.
“After Munster” is a very interesting blog. Especially for those of us who class ourselves as “anabaptist but not Mennonite.”
In our current study on the life of Luther, it has been amazing to see how much of an impact his words had on the whole world as they knew it. Riots, burned church buildings, the Anabaptists and the like all rose out of branches/schisms of Luther’s teachings. Despite Luther’s condemnation of such events, they still took place and impacted the culture around them.
Like you, I too wonder who’s stories will impact the future generations through what is emerging in the church today.
I should have linked in the post: Leaving Münster (the blog) is a great contemporary Anabaptist perspective.
He also has an “about” page that mentions the theocratic phase of Anabaptism.
As a Mennonite/Anabaptist, and someone who has done a lot of study of my own denominational/religious history, I’ve spent quite a bit of time looking at the Münster tragedy. In it’s day, it was a big deal, a medival media frenzy.
Perhaps it forced the peaceful Anabaptists to try all that much harder to convince everyone that they were actually peaceful, or even Biblically and theologically a legitimate movement. Perhaps it gave common citizens and scholars alike a solid reason on which to base their critique of Anabaptism.
It’s easy to look back and criticize them, but those same pitfalls recur today as well.
1 - Apocalypticism - it’s easy to look back and say that our end times theologians are crazier and have more to work with, but they don’t. Sure our guys have the newfound state of Israel, the European Union, Chernobyl (Wormwood), etc., but they had plagues, famine, wars, and not to mention the earthly return of Enoch and Elijah.
2 - Charismatic leadership - all of us have our own theologians who we admire as presenting new ideas that larger society just isn’t ready to accept. That happened in Münster, and then it was adopted politically, what more could you ask?
3 - Well-meaning law changes - polygamy was instituted to protect women. Many local men left the city to avoid the “accept rebaptism or execution” ultimatum and assumed that their wives and children would be spared. They were spared, they just couldn’t take care of themselves, so they were married off.
4 - Flash - Why this hasn’t been made into a Hollywood blockbuster, I don’t know (maybe because I haven’t written the stageplay for it yet). The king marching out to the besieging army to induce the coming apocalypse, some young punk marries the Queen to take charge of the city, a young Munsterite woman takes it upon herself to re-enact Judith and the Holafernes, public torture and humiliation of the ringleaders, their cages still hanging there to this day, etc. It’s a story for the ages. Who wouldn’t want to have been part of it?
Justin, I can’t believe you didn’t know that!
I feel compelled to point out that the Wikipedia article smooths things out a little too much, as hindsight tends to do. However, your final paragraph is so important.
Graham, I hadn’t heard of Anabaptism at all until I met you
This is the first I’ve heard of this…
i have to say that i’m a little surprised that no one has pointed out the similarities between the militant anabaptists and the militant islamists who plague the world today.
don’t read that as some kind of criticism on the unfair bias of people. it’s not. i just think that it’s interesting…and that it might help me/us remember that the problem with all religions (both the True and the false) is not the failure of their adherents to live them out, but the truth claims that they make.
Ah, schucks!
Daniel I think there is a slight difference. I do believe that both “militants” misrepresent their groups, but at least Islam is an identifiable group. At that stage, Anabaptism didn’t really exist as a identifiable body. There were anabaptisms and there were anabaptist values forming, but it resulted in all sorts of different groups - some of which were completely disinterested in “spiritual” things.
I guess the other difference is that this sort of thing was (relatively) short-lived and we can now look back and see it as a complete abberation with very little repetition in anabaptism. Unfortunately, the mutation of Islam into terrorism and its legacy of violence is slightly more established now.