Debate and Discourse: Early Anabaptist Understandings of Church and State
A Series: Anabaptism and the Long Quest for Religious Liberty
Introduction
“The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function” (F. Scott Fitzgerald).
This was the “world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which cancelled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them . . .” (Orwell in 1984).
These two quotations, both from 20th century literary giants, themselves seem irreconcilable. For Fitzgerald, tolerating ambiguity is necessary in order to maintain one’s way in the world. Ideas in contradiction may simply be paradoxical truths that need time to be honed and then understood. An intelligent mind should not be hasty in judgement between this way or that, to arbitrate with quick opinion.
But for Orwell, the contradictions of a governing body that spun lies and opposing opinions, yet kept everyone chastened to never doubt the contradictions, were the height of deception. Orwell was speaking of the method of Ingsoc (a philosophy used to suppress thinking in his fictionalized and dystopian nation of Oceania), dishing out propaganda to brain-benumbed citizens. They came to believe anything, no matter how incredible (if you haven’t read 1984, you should).
So what are we to make of this? How do we process inconsistencies? In academics, tensions are the stuff we are always working with. People, and the history of their ideas and institutions are not consistent, and quickly concocted summaries of events result in premature judgments and errors.
As for theology, we meet up with seeming inconsistencies in Scripture, and we struggle to determine whether they are tensions that we need to leave alone, or if our interpretations are irreconcilable. We then may parse out more careful options—or perhaps we will shade one concept and pour light on another to help harmonize things.
Our subject here of the Anabaptist understanding of the relationship of church and state takes us into the middle of much debate and many tensions. In surveying the issues here, it might be helpful to look at two introductory questions:
1) What was the Christian’s role with respect to the state in the time of the New Testament and in the first century?
2) What changes materialized to bring the church to the condition it found itself fifteen centuries later?
While we cannot take the time to study this with any detail, with respect to the first question, we can quote the historian Edward Gibbon in his classic work: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:
“The Christians felt and confessed that such institutions (government) might be necessary for the present system of the world, and they cheerfully submitted to the authority of their Pagan governors. But while they inculcated the maxims of passive obedience, they refused to take any active part in the civil administration or the military defence of the empire. Some indulgence might, perhaps, be allowed to those persons who, before their conversion, were already engaged in such violent and sanguinary occupations; but it was impossible that the Christians, without renouncing a more sacred duty, could assume the character of soldiers, of magistrates, or of princes. This indolent, or even criminal disregard to the public welfare, exposed them to the contempt and reproaches of the Pagans, who very frequently asked, what must be the fate of the empire, attacked on every side by the barbarians, if all mankind should adopt the pusillanimous sentiments of the new sect. To this insulting question the Christian apologists returned obscure and ambiguous answers, as they were unwilling to reveal the secret cause of their security; the expectation that, before the conversion of mankind was accomplished, war, government, the Roman empire, and the world itself, would be no more.”
If we could summarize Gibbon’s analysis, the first century Christian’s attitude to its civil government lay in a range from aloof to adversarial. But it was rarely, if ever, an ally or assistant to the Empire’s mission. It did not involve itself with seeking to use the sword of Caesar or with superimposing its opinion on Rome with the aim of influencing political agendas; though, when needed, it would call out the nation in its evils and perfidies.
But this changed severely in time. Concerning the second question above, by the fourth century, the church became the friend and eventually even a sort of mistress to the state. The state at first (under Constantine) merely sought to use the socially adhesive component of the church to bind up the nation making Christianity a civil religion. But as a result, the church, first an object of utility for the Emperor, conversely learned a bad habit. The state, with its strength, its power, and organization was too tempting to resist. Once its favors were tasted then ingested, the church became an irreversible addict to the state’s coercive methods. So the church throughout Medieval and Renaissance history used the arm of civil power to accomplish its goals and to coerce unity as best it could within the diverse nations throughout Europe. It set about persecuting any who dissented with its edicts; it compelled citizens with the point of the sword to embrace the doctrinal details developed from selected Scriptures, often mingled with the mind of the state and what the two together defined as the Christian faith.
But did Jesus and his Apostles teach this? Does the New Testament even vaguely permit this unseemly relationship? There were opposers who insisted it was an unlawful union: the Donatists, the Waldensians, and the Lollards, but they were such a minority as to hardly even dent the unequal yoke between the two entities.
The Anabaptists of the 16th century speak here and bring to light the inherent evils in the relationship. Though their discovery did not immediately deliver a crushing blow to it, yet they set in motion beliefs that would, in time, show the folly of the synthesis. These Anabaptists did not entirely agree on many of the details, but one of the signature issues intrinsic to the Anabaptist name, and one that practically all zealously proclaimed, was that believers should be permitted to make a volitional decision to be followers of Christ and to be baptized into His church. The whole tenor of the New Testament reverberates with this truth. Believers must choose to follow Christ; they cannot be coerced as both Catholics and Protestants were wont to do with their corpus christendom, their state churches, their infant baptisms.
And because they spoke to the issue, revealing the egregious errors so entrenched in the fabric of society, they were deemed to be dangerous and rebellious, menaces to the social order.
We can more easily forgive the variances between the Anabaptist groups when we recognize the novel nature (for that time) of their fundamental principles: the concept of believer’s baptism, voluntary church membership, and a more serious and literal understanding of following Jesus. Given their context of church/state confusion, this led straight away to the confusing question of their responsibility to their nation-state. Of course, they had to work on this one. Still today, so do we.
Anabaptists, in the first several years after Jan 1525, were finding their way, honing out details, disagreeing, debating, and sometimes separating over the issues of the relation of the church to the state. We can quickly outline 3 perspectives.
First is that of the Swiss-Brethren—particularly Michael Sattler and the views that were promulgated in the Schleithiem Confession; second the beliefs of Pilgram Marpeck of Strasbourg (later Augsburg), and several others (i.e. Hans Denck); third that of Balthasar Hubmaier. And (sort of) fourth, there was also the perspectives of Hans Hut and others that stopped short yet bordered on the extremes of Muntzer and Hoffman from Munster.
1. The Swiss Brethren Perspective
After the first baptisms in Zurich, Anabaptism sprang forth and sought to take root in the surrounding regions (the last article outlined this in part). But we now wish to look at this spread in relation to the question of beliefs on the relation to the state. While of course Anabaptists agreed that the state had no right to coerce its citizens to nominal confession of Christ (as the state churches were accustomed to); and it had no right to control what the beliefs of the church should be (as Zwingli had permitted); still the Christian’s role or responsibility to the civil society was debated.
When Conred Grebel and Wilhelm Reublin travelled to Waldshut and baptized Hubmaier in the spring of 1525, the subject was still in the air. For most of the Swiss Brethren, the issue was largely settled. But others in South Germany and in the holdings of Austria (as Waldshut), depended, at times, on the Peasants for protection in their cities. This was crucial to the issue. To entirely reject the role of the state as unchristian—or worse yet from the netherworld—was to remove oneself from its protection. After Hubmaier was baptized and in turn baptized hundreds, making the city very Anabaptist in complexion, the peasant armies came to his aid and assisted in keeping Waldshut protected from the Austrian lords.
A thoroughgoing nonresistance does seem to be the position of both Conrad Grebel and Felix Manz. Interestingly, Grebel wrote a letter to the infamous Thomas Muntzer before the first baptisms in Zurich in which he chastised Muntzer for his belief that “they [the princes] should be combatted with the fist.” He tells Muntzer: “if that is true, or if you intend to defend war, the tablets, chanting, or other things for which you do not find a clear word [i.e. of Scripture] . . . I admonish you to desist.” (Snyder 57, 58).
Manz in his farewell letter to the brethren before his execution wrote:
“It is love alone that is pleasing to God; he that cannot show love shall not stand in the sight of God. The true love of Christ shall not destroy the enemy; he that would be an heir with Christ is taught that he must be merciful, as the Father in heaven is merciful. Christ never accused anyone as do the false teachers of the present day” (Martyr’s Mirror, 417).
Michael Sattler
But it was Michael Sattler that first taught formally and promulgated this view with its implications. Sattler was a Benedictine Monk. He was Prior of the monastery of St. Peters in the Black Forest. This area in 1525 was inhabited by bands of peasants who actually took control of the monastery and later overcame the nearby city of Freiburg. It should be noted that these peasant armies contained volunteers from Waldshut and Hallau.
Questions remain as to the personal pilgrimage of Sattler away from Catholicism and its dogmas toward an Anabaptist expression of faith. But it is certain that by the summer of 1526, he was a traveling, preaching, and re-baptizing Anabaptist with keen skills in theology, doctrine and expression. He was in the well-known city of Strasbourg where he interacted with the Reformers Martin Bucer and Wolfgang Capito, to whom he had pled for the release of several imprisoned Anabaptists.
By January 1527, it became clear that Anabaptists were outcasts and unappreciated. They were pariahs of a society that had no use for them. Their beliefs were stigmatized, misrepresented, and the state churches typically condemned even their very existence. And they had too few able leaders. Conrad Grebel had died, Manz drowned, Bolt burned at the stake, Ulimann beheaded, and Blaurock was preaching in the Tyrol. Hubmaier had escaped to Moravia, Hans Denck was away evangelizing the Jews along the Rhine, and Reublin was proving not to be a very reliable leader. Moreover, in this delicate and dangerous condition, many Anabaptists were developing some strange ideas and desperately needed leadership and confessional and polity order.
Schleitheim Conference
This was the context for the meeting at Schleitheim on Febuary 1527. Its leader and primary spokesman and writer: Michael Sattler. The immediate concern of the articles is one of order and discipline. Therefore the articles are hardly a confession but a statement of what is believed in distinction from the surrounding Catholics and Protestants and how the new church should conduct itself. This should be emphasized: Schleitheim was not a comprehensive confession of Christian belief but rather a statement of the Brethren’s unique understandings. And it provided essential form for these believers.
There are seven articles:
Baptism
Ban
Communion
Separation from the World
Selection of Ministers
Sword
Oath
This Schleitheim Confession was drawn up and embraced by the Swiss Brethren, and when compared with the diversity and the foment of the Anabaptist movement as a whole, some variations come into view. The first three articles were unanimously agreed on by Anabaptists from the advent of the movement. Believers’ baptism (1) and what follows from a free/believer’s church, namely a disciplined church (2) is simply the sine qua non of the movement. And communion (3) as a partaking of the emblems in remembrance of the body and blood of our Lord is to be only observed by those who are united with Christ in his church through believer’s baptism.
The fourth article, though a little more controversial, still in its basic understanding was practiced across the range of Anabaptists. The New Testament clearly teaches a separation from the evil of the world and the existence of two orders. Concerning this Schleitheim says: “He orders us to be and to become separated from the evil one and thus he will be our God and we shall be his sons and daughters.”
But perhaps this separation spoken to in the New Testament is not quite as stark as stated here in the article: “Now there is nothing else in the world and all creation than good or evil, believing and unbelieving, darkness and light, the world and those who come out of the world, God’s temple and idols, Christ and Belial. And none will have part with the other.” And again (note the inflexible severance of two entities): “From all of this we should learn that everything that has not been united with our God in Christ is nothing but an abomination which we should shun.”
As we analyze Article 4 along with the last two articles, we can see the imprint of Sattler’s influence. As mentioned above, Sattler was a Benedictine monk before he was an Anabaptist. This Catholic order was known for its separation and its reclusive attitude towards the world. One cannot help but imagine that some of these more stringent statements are nuanced from that influence.
The fourth article sets the stage for the sixth on the sword. So, Schleitheim is emphasizing in 4 the separation from not only the evil of the world but also all political mechanisms of civil society. This then flows into the perspective explicated in Article 6 on the sword.
Sixth Article of Schleitheim
This sixth article is the longest of all, probably because the subject is difficult and somewhat controversial--by this time it was obvious that not all Anabaptists were on board with total nonparticipation. This has to do, not only with participation in war, but the whole realm of the social order. Since this is what we are looking into in this post, we will take the time to analyze more carefully.
The first statement on the sword has become a familiar phrase to us. It states that the sword “is an ordering of God outside the perfection of Christ.” Most would have agreed with the basic idea—that what happens in the area of justice and law is not the way we bring people to Christ.
It goes on to say that “it punishes and kills the wicked and guards and protects the good. In the law the sword is established over the wicked for punishment and death . . .”
Here Schleitheim underscores the positive aspects of the place and purpose of the State. And it is not calling the State to the way of peace and of Christ as would a modern pacifist response. In general, it is showing that the State has its role, but it is outside of the circle of the way of Christ.
Then more details are given with the way of Christ: “But within the perfection of Christ only the ban is used for the admonition and exclusion of the one who has sinned, without the death of the flesh, simply the warning and the command to sin no more.”
Next in Article 6 of Schleitheim, there are three questions posed:
First question: “Can the sword be used against the wicked for the protection and defense of the good, or for the sake of love?” To this question, Schleitheim responds: “The answer is ‘unanimously revealed.’ Since we are to learn from Christ and follow him we can see how he dealt with sinners.” John 8 is referred to: “Christ says to the woman who was taken in adultery, not that she should be stoned . . . but with mercy and forgiveness and the warning to sin no more, says: ‘Go, sin no more.’”
Second question: “whether a Christian shall pass sentence in disputes and strife about worldly matters, such as the unbelievers have with one another?” Here the answer is given: “Christ did not wish to pass judgment between brother and brother concerning inheritance, but refused to do so (Luke 12;13). So should we also do.”
Third question: “whether the Christian should be a magistrate if he is chosen thereto?” “This is answered thus. Christ was to be made king but He fled and did not discern the ordinance of his Father. Thus we should also do as he did and follow after him.” Schleitheim further states: “He [Christ] further forbids the violence of the sword when He says: ‘the princes of this world lord it over them etc., but among you it should not be so.’” A last point is made: “ . . . it does not befit a Christian to be a magistrate: the rule of government is according to the flesh, that of the Christians according to the Spirit. Their houses and dwelling remain in this world, that of the Christians in heaven. Their citizenship is in this world, that of the Christians is in heaven. . .”
In summary, articles 4 and 6 in the Schleitheim are uncompromising. The Christian is not to participate in any of the civil world’s affairs. All aspects of society that interact or penetrate into the realm of the worldly order are to be shunned. One noteworthy aspect in the confession is the abundant quotations referring to Christ as the perfect example in all of life whom we should follow. Here are some examples: the passage in I Peter 2:21, for example, that “we should follow in his steps,” is quoted to show that that we should reproduce aspects of Christ’s life even in areas that are not necessarily in context; that we should “learn from him” Matthew 11; what Jesus said to the woman as an example of what we should do too; the reference to Jesus’ rejection of kingship; all of these reveal the devotion of Schleitheim to simply following Jesus.
This total approach to following Christ can be contrasted with a method that would seek to understand and then obey his commands, but not necessarily duplicate all of Christ’s lifestyle or see details that relate specifically to his situation as expected for believers of all ages. Here Schleitheim takes New Testament fidelity further than simply following Jesus in his teachings. It is not only the New Testament in its commands, but it is Christ as one we should imitate (almost entirely).
But is this the way that the narratives of the New Testament are to be understood? Did Jesus intend for these aspects to be the rule for the church? As we shall see, others will argue differently.
We now look at Anabaptists who pulled back from Schleitheim’s rigor.1
2. South German Anabaptist Perceptions
Pilgram Marpeck
Pilgrim, originally from Rattenberg, was employed there in the early 1520s as a member of the mining guild, and later as member of the city council. By the end of 1527, Marpeck had become an Anabaptist and had to flee the city. In 1528 he was in Strasburg and received employment as an engineer constructing waterways for floating lumber. By 1531, Marpeck was baptizing converts and received threats from the city for his beliefs and practices. He was banished in 1532. He moved on to Augsburg where he served the city there again as an engineer installing aqueducts and canals, etc. Here too he was chastised for his Anabaptist beliefs and for writing an Anabaptist book. He was warned, but the city never expelled him, obviously treasuring his services.
Marpeck developed his Anabaptist beliefs in obvious interaction with the Swiss Brethren and the confession from Schleitheim. Though he seemed to resonate with much that was determined there, his approach to the state took on a slightly different complexion. He, along with his brethren in Augsburg, wrote an 800-page book called Testament Explanation. This is one of the largest treatises of early Anabaptist doctrine available.
Some scholars who have studied Marpeck’s views2 make the case that Marpeck did not see the office of the magistracy and civil roles as inherently wrong in itself. One could at least theoretically participate in civil affairs up to the point where they came into direct conflict with Christ’s commands and methods for his disciples. This is contrasted with Sattler/Schleitheim that held the office itself was in the realm of the flesh, outside the Christian’s permitted participation.
Marpeck’s position seems well-illustrated by his vocation. He was employed by the city and was thus connected with the civil side of society. His perspective moreover, as Snyder emphasizes, pressed the importance of love as the guiding principle for ethical decision with respect to the interaction a Christian has with the state.
So any participation with the civil side of society is not immediately ipso facto rejected by Marpeck.
Hans Denck
Hans Denck represents the mystical side of Anabaptism, though not the violent and vision-crazed extremes of Muntzer and Hoffman. Denck was a spiritualist in the sense that he emphasized the spirit over the letter and would not bow to doctrinal formulations nor even heavy textualist approaches to Christianity.
As such it becomes obvious why Denck did not fall in line with Sattler and Schleitheim in its ordered detail, and its exclusive black and white type of delineations. Yet Denck came out similar to Sattler. Snyder tells us that despite his spiritualism, “he emphasized a congruity between the inner word and the outer testimony of Scripture.” He held to nonresistance as the way of the Christian, but here he came at it differently. His foundation for not using the sword was essentially spiritualist. This was love. What was emphasized was not just a biblicist argument nor even a command to follow Christ in all aspects of his life on earth, but the higher law of love.
Similar to Marpeck, Denck did not assign the roles of the magistracy and the civil order to the realm of evildoers entirely. Theoretically a Christian may be able to serve in this sphere but as Snyder says: “he doubted that the world would tolerate Christ-like behavior in a ruler” (189).
3. Hubamier’s and Hut’s Perspectives
In last post we outlined details in Hubmaier’s eventful but too-short life. Hubmaier’s perspective of the state is unique in Anabaptism. He never rejected the realm of government as an area outside of employment for Christians. As mentioned above, he allowed and even supported the peasant troops in Waldshut early on, and they in turn protected his city. In addition, there were many members of the town council of Waldshut that had converted to Anabaptism.
When Hubmaier fled Zurich after his torture and reversed recantation mentioned last post, he made his way to Moravia and settled in the city of Nicholsburg. As mentioned, this city was booming with thousands of Anabaptists fleeing persecution. And there two broad groups began to develop, one under his leadership and the other mostly under Hans Hut.
The division began with the war tax. Hubmaier was supportive of the citizens paying it, while Hut fiercely opposed it. But Hut did not oppose the tax for biblicist or Christ’s example reasons that Sattler or the Swiss brethren would have had they had been there. Hut’s view of nonresistance was hedged—he held to nonresistance for the time, but his eschatology, along with his dreams, vision, and dates calculated as to Christ’s imminent return insisted there was coming a time when the sword could and should be drawn to fight for the army of God against the evildoers. Early on, he was somewhat involved with the militant zealot, Muntzer. He is quoted as saying: “A Christian may well have a sword but . . . it must remain in the scabbard until God tells him to take it out.” As to the war tax, Hut opposed it on the grounds that he believed the Turks were coming as God’s agents to judge the evil European rulers. So, of course, you could not pay the tax to fight God’s agents of judgment.
Within the city of Nicholsburg, the two sides developed into what became labeled the Schwertler (sword-bearers) and the Stabler (staff-bearers). And it was during this time that Hubmaier wrote his treatise called On the Sword. The Baptist historian, William Estep, calls this “an alternative to Schleitheim.” And the work does seem to be contrasting itself with that confession.
Hubmaier, On the Sword
The majority of Anabaptists both in the 16th century and today do not accept Hubmaier’s views here and his work would more accurately represent the Baptist persuasion. But this work is instructive, even if we disagree with it.
There are three points, all contesting and debating Sattler/Schleitheim’s chief arguments on government as outside (totally) the perfection of Christ. Hubmaier seems to be chiefly contesting the idea that “following and imitating Christ” is an adequate argument for shunning civil roles.
His first argument is that though Christ’s kingdom is not of this world, his followers are here in the world and have to remain until death or his return. In fact, Hubmaier will argue that “we are stuck [in this world] right up to our ears, and we will not be able to be free from it here on earth.”
His second argument is that Jesus’ role on earth was to be our saviour and redeemer. Since he, in his humanity, was one body and could not do all things, it is not a correct argument to declare the roles Christ was not assigned are ruled out for us because he never filled them. Here Hubmaier is referring to governmental functions that he believes could be assumed by Christians.
The third argument of Hubmaier is that there is ideally a harmony that can exist between the two kingdoms; they do not have to oppose each other so starkly as Schleitheim held. Seeking to reconcile the use of the sword with the way of love, he argues that the magistrate can perform the functions of justice without hate or animosity. Hubmaier even goes on the offense here and argues that to refuse to carry out the duties of justice is to accommodate to the evil—it makes one guilty of forsaking the helpless and not defending the innocent.
What are we to make of Hubmaier’s critique of Schleitheim? Concerning his first argument above, the ethics of such a response deserve careful question. How far is Hubmaier taking this worldly reality by his statement “in this world up to our ears.” Does Hubmaier mean by this that serious Christian discipleship and kingdom theology practiced today is impossible? This sounds a little like Augustine’s council to the soldiers of Rome to serve their Emperor with the sword but then when they return, do penance. After all, we are in the world and thus have to do the business of the world. And the world is messy. One can imagine that this part of Hubmaier’s presentation could easily be used to justify far more than the New Testament explicitly allows.
Yet there is certainly some truth to Hubmaier’s realism. We are in the world, and we admittedly are more “stuck here” than Jesus who was, as in Hubmaier’s second argument, given a very specific heavenly assignment. Here Hubmaier makes a point that we should consider. Is Schleitheim taking “following Jesus” a little farther than is really possible for Christians in all places, times, countries, and cultures?
Hubmaier’s third argument is a typically Protestant.: the roles of the judge/magistrate do not have to be carried out with any hatred or animosity toward those who have broken a society’s laws of order. While this seems to be admittedly true, it doesn’t resolve the tension of the whole spectrum of details associated (carrying out the sentence of the law to its brutal end, fighting and killing enemies of a nation, etc. And moreover, most nations, in their orders of state and their priority of national aggrandizement, drift toward purposes inimical to Christ and his church.
Hubmaier and Sattler were both Anabaptists. But with respect to the roles of church to state they were on opposite sides. This tension continues today within the believer’s church segment of evangelicalism: Mennonites, Brethren, Baptists, Evangelical Free Church, and most nondenominational and community churches. In fact, within most of these groups, Hubmaier’s perspective has carried the majority.
But the Mennonite nonresistance/peace segment is still alive; within the continuum, the perspectives of Sattler or possibly Marpeck is what we have inherited. Yet it is imperative that we assess and test our assumptions on this controversial issue. This is a thorny subject, difficult, entangled and full of tensions. Still, we need more interaction among us on our roles here when both society and nation are tumbling into a moral free-fall.
Reminder: Mennonite Diaspora’s purpose is to “Provide a Forum for Serious Thinking on Mennonite History and Theology amidst Fragmentation and Doctrinal Confusion.”
A Note: some of you may question why I would bring up these disagreements and tensions within our tradition since I am attempting to appeal to those who are questioning the tradition not to leave it so quickly. Here are my reasons:
we must attempt to be intellectually honest and academically objective. We cannot, as has been done at times in our history, sugarcoat our tradition to be something it isn’t or to overlook its unsavory side.
I do not believe that tensions in our positions such as the relation between church and state will disillusion young people as much as ignoring the issue, or oversimplifying it. Moreover, when we understand the variances in the continuum mentioned in this article, it has the potential to challenge young people to look into these things and seek out their own views, testing and assessing from the Bible. This can stimulate a certain kind of loyalty that surpasses too clean cut of positions that sometimes have not been challenged (such as the Protestant’s general assumption that there is no Christian incongruity in loving our neighbor and killing lost souls on a battlefield).
The variations here that I have taken liberty to underscore, may be more pronounced in the the polygenesis understanding of Anabaptist origins. Though, I’m sure, too academic for most to appreciate, anyone who wishes to understand the scholarship will have to become acquainted with it and its alternate, monogenesis. The terms are used to describe how Anabaptism emerged. Since the 1970s a significant segment of Anabaptist academics have emphasized the diversity of Anabaptist positions and pockets right from the beginning (polygenesis). Critique is aimed at approaches like H. S. Bender’s monogenesis which placed the source in Zurich with the Swiss Brethren and spreading toward the other regions where Anabaptism flourished. This has the tendency to prioritize the emphases of Swiss understandings. Polygenesis scholars will emphasize the diversity of doctrinal beliefs and especially soteriology and anthropology between the Swiss, the South German-Austrian, and the Dutch (as in: Werner Packull, Kenneth Davis, Alvin Beachy). This has the tendency to reveal the problems and variations within the diversity.
i.e. William Klassen in MQR 56, (Oct. 1982); and C. Arnold Snyder in Anabaptist History and Theology. Klassen admits that his view here differs from that of the scholar Klaus Depperman who argues that Marpeck too, denied that it was possible for any official of the state to be a Christian. But Marpeck is also quoted as saying: “there is no Christian ruler except Christ himself. The title is too high for a human being, involves a belittling of Christ though it is perhaps not intended in that way . . . But when people in political authority are Christians or become Christians (as I heartily wish and pray), they may not use their previous physical force, power and rule in the kingdom of Christ” (James Stayer, Anabaptists and the Sword, 179; quoted in Snyder, 199, n.19).