Weaver, John Denny. Becoming Anabaptist: The Origin and Significance of Sixteenth-Century
Anabaptism, 2nd ed. Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 2005.
John Denny Weaver’s introduction to the Anabaptist tradition is a work
with two primary emphases. He sought retell the narrative of the first
generation of Anabaptists in the sixteenth century up to the death of Menno
Simons and then to discuss the significance of that tradition in the
contemporary context. As such, Weaver’s Anabaptism is not a history but also a
continuing narrative as heirs of the tradition seek to live out their faith
consistently with the principles developed over four hundred-fifty years ago.
The structure of the historical section is based on the polygenetic model
of Anabaptist origins (168), covering the Swiss, South German/Moravian, and Low
Countries lines. The telling of those stories is fairly standard fair, but
Weaver did bring out several trends throughout that narrative. A recurring
theme was the tendency toward giving a place to the disenfranchised (33, 46,
51, et al.). The general focus was on people and events, yet certain
theological matters, e.g. community of goods and melchiorite Christology,
received attention also.
Weaver did not tell the story of where Anabaptism went after these
generations but rather skipped forward to the present day. His chief concern
was to appropriate the meaning of the Anabaptist tradition for contemporary
existence as the church in the world. Although Weaver fully embraced the
polygenetic account as determinative for the historical origins of the
movement, he nonetheless sought to go beyond that account and assign meaning to
the movement with a greater sense of unity than that from which the historical
diversity might draw attention (168). Also, Weaver does well to open the
fountain of Anabaptism beyond those who come to the tradition by birthright (as
Mennonites can claim a historical linkage) but also those from the outside who
embrace the tradition. Both have a place in the continuing story of Anabaptism
(161-163).
The Anabaptist Vision was the guideline for Weaver’s own vision of the
central characteristics of Anabaptism. Weaver went on to put his own spin on
the Vision, going beyond Bender’s three-part schema of discipleship,
ecclesiology, and the love ethic characterized by nonresistance. While Bender
would later refine the Vision to just discipleship,[1]
Weaver turned that discipleship, following Jesus, toward nearly being
synonymous with nonresistance. He wrote, “Discipleship—Jesus as ethical authority—received
a specific application in the _rejection of violence and the sword . . .. The
voluntary community founded on discipleship to Jesus is perforce a peace church
that rejects the sword of war—as Jesus did” (170). Weaver did highlight other
distinctives, such as swearing of oaths, but the remainder of his discussion of
the meaning of Anabaptism placed pacifism and nonresistance at the fore.
That nonresistance is played out within the Anabaptist conception of
ecclesiology. That ecclesiology describes a church that is separated from
society–sometimes antagonistically and at other times is a peaceful coexistence
that Weaver terms “dualism.” These two modes of relating to the state is born
out of Weaver’s understanding, following Gerald Biesecker-Mast,[2]
of the early Anabaptist tension between maintaining a dualistic relationship or
an antagonism with the state. Just as Anabaptism has historically taken various
“manifestations and expressions (176), so also must current outworkings take
various stances on dualism and antagonism within particular contexts (204). The
general rule, Weave described, is that “the church in benign and tolerant
situations should pursue the more antagonistic strategy” (205).
Weaver constructed his idea of discipleship with its focus on pacifism as
a way of following Jesus. Following Jesus, for Weaver, is to “loop back” to
Jesus (177), which is to constantly return to the narrative of Jesus in matters
of ethics. The Anabaptist biblicism in history was to read Scripture as the
“source for the life and teaching of Jesus” (160). Beyond this, however, Weaver
tended to ignore the biblicism that was characteristic especially of the early
Swiss Anabaptists. It becomes not altogether clear whether the move of viewing
Scripture as the means to knowing the story of Jesus is a move that instead
justifies downplaying the biblical account of Christ in favor of “looping back”
to a Jesus molded in the Anabaptist image. Weaver’s treatment of the
exhortations to turn the other cheek and to go the second mile are
reinterpreted not as mere nonresistance but as means of empowering the
oppressed, who by these actions actually call attention to the inequality being
imposed by the oppressor (182-184). Giving both the cloak and the coat as
payment of a debt results in a nakedness that does not shame the one who is
naked but rather the one to whom the debt was owed for having caused the
nakedness by his unjust demand.
The book concludes with an essay on interpretation, which is essentially
a response to C. Arnold Snyder’s interpretation of the core of Anabaptist
theology.[3]
Snyder had identified the core of Anabaptism in three categories, areas of
agreement with creedal orthodoxy, participation in the broader Reformation
movement, and tenets exclusive to Anabaptism. Weaver gave multiple arguments
against Snyder’s interpretative schema. He rejected Snyder’s starting point of
identifying the core of Anabaptism with the strands of Christendom that came
before it. For Weaver the more appropriate stating point was the differences
with Christendom. Among them was pacifism, which, as the prominent
characteristic of Weaver’s identification, he pointed out Snyder had omitted
from the category of uniquely Anabaptist traits.
Weaver’s preference for the core of Anabaptism was the acceptance of the
authority of the life and teachings of Jesus, i.e. discipleship (230). In this
he shows his affinity for Bender’s Vision. The implications of both Bender’s
Vision and Weaver’s core are a voluntary ecclesiology and nonviolence. The difference
between Bender and Weaver is the prominence Weaver gave to nonviolence.
The historical sections of the book serve as a sufficient introduction to
the movement, but the later sections do not serve this purpose as well. They
are more imbedded in contemporary debate over Mennonite identity that do not
give a balanced enough perspective for readers at an introductory level,
especially for those coming from an outside perspective. However, they do play
an important role in viewing that debate when read in correspondence with the
other perspectives.
[1]Harold
Stauffer Bender, “The Anabaptist Theology of Discipleship,” Mennonite Quarterly
Review 24, no. 1 (Jan. 1950): 25-32.
[2]“Anabaptist
Separation and Arguments Against the Sword in the Schleitheim ‘Brotherly
Union,’” Mennonite Quarterly Review 74, no. 3 (July 2000): 381-401.
[3]Anabaptist History and Theology: An
Introduction (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora, 1995).; “Beyond Polygenesis:
Recovering the Unity and Diversity of Anabaptist Theology,” in Essays in
Anabaptist Theology, ed. H. Wayne Pipkin. Text Reader Series 5 (Elkhart,
Indiana: Institute of Mennonite Studies, 1994), 1-33. Weaver mistakenly
referred to the latter text as “later” (224).
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