Schowalter, Ralf. “Neither Mystic nor Muentzerite:
The Conversational Theology of Hans Denck.” Ph.D. diss., Southwestern Baptist
Theological Seminary, 2012.
I had earlier written on Schowalter’s research on
Denck as it had been presented as a conference paper last January.[1]
I had made the assumption, correctly it turns out, that it was a preview of his
dissertation, to which I was looking forward to reading. Summarily, my response
was that I wanted to go along with him but wasn’t entirely convinced. After
reading the dissertation, I’m a bit shifted on my view
To review the work essentially seeks to correct a
tradition of scholarship that had placed the origins of Denck’s thought in the
Mystical and Müntzerite traditions. Werner Packull rises to the top of the list
of Scholars with whom Schowalter most frequently interacts. Packull had
importantly placed Denck within the mystical camp.[2]
In doing so, Denck would serve the polygenesis model that would distinguish his
South German origins from the Swiss counterparts.
Along with denying Packull’s claim for a mystical,
vis-a-vis non-Swiss Brethren, foundation for Denck’s thought, Schowalter also
rejected Packull’s severance of the tie of baptism of Denck by Hübmaier (58). Schowalter handles this quite critically, pointing out, more
sympathetically in the footnotes than in the body, while there is no direct
evidence that that baptism took place, there also is no evidence it didn’t.[3]
Schowalter sought the circumstantial evidence to point to the time of Denck’s
contact with Hübmaier as the time of change from humanist schoolteacher to
Anabaptist evangelist.[4]
I will here take the time to note that Schowalter
does not entirely disagree with Packull. On the matter of Denck’s putative
universalism, a topic on which I have done some research, Schowalter sides with
Packull in the assessment that Denck indeed taught the doctrine. For Denck, the
salvation of all was concluded from his insistence that all things work out for
the glory of God (250).
Schowalter’s work at attempting to cut ties from
Denck with a supposedly Mystical and Müntzerite background was covered in the
previous article, so I will not detail it here. What I will say is that I
believe he is correct in his conclusion. The question this then leaves is to what Denck was indebted for theological enrichment. It is at this point that
Schowalter turned to the schema of conversational theology as developed by Malcolm
Yarnell. I had initial misgivings about anachronistically transposing a
twenty-first century theological construct onto a sixteenth-century theologian,
but there is a key difference, it seems. Whereas the mystical and Müntzerite
traditions regard the content of theology, conversational theology regards more
of a methodology. To simplify, conversational theology describes the process by
which one does not do theology in isolation but rather instead has conversation
partners, both internally and externally to one’s own situation, by which one
develops theological content. By investigating Denck’s theological
conversation, Schowalter comes to the conclusion that Denck’s primary
conversation partners were not the mystics or Müntzer but rather Reformation contemporaries,
none more primary than Anabaptists from the Swiss influence.
The implications of this on polygenetic
historiography are clear, although it does not appear to be Schowalter’s
purpose to tackle the broader interpretational paradigm of Anabaptist origins.
These implications are not lost on Schowalter, however, claiming, “. . . the
origins of the South German Anabaptist movement cannot be seen in complete
isolation from the Swiss, even Zurich, Anabaptists” (57). Similarly, using the language from the polygenesis article, “‘. . . a single successio Anabaptistica, which
certainly ran through Zurich’ can no longer be dismissed as ‘an unexamined
assumption which simply does not bear rigorous examination’” (242). While Schowalter concludes correctly, it
is important to note that the softening of the polygenesis model has long been
taking place with the authors of the model at the helm themselves. As Gerald
Mast observed recently, “Polygenesis historians themselves acknowledged that
they had perhaps overstated the autonomy of various regional Anabaptist movements.”[5]
Almost a decade before Yarnell’s publication including conversational theology,
Hans-Jürgen Goertz anticipated the method regarding Grebel’s letters to
Müntzer. His conclusion is indicative of much of the interaction between
different Anabaptist groups in explanation of their continuity and
discontinuity, writing that the letters were “. . . a conversation, not a
settlement of accounts, a conversation that does not confront one side with the
other’s programme and practically hoist it on him, but instead engages the
other, takes up his problems, proposes solutions and with him seeks clarity in
the adverse, desolate situation of the individual’s task of reform.”[6]
[1]http://wederdooper.blogspot.com/2012/01/saving-denck.html.
[2]Mysticism and the Early South
German-Austrian Anabaptist Movement, Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite
History, no. 19 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1977). Although this works
comes after the publication of the polygenesis paper, the dissertation from
which this monograph was republished was completed before, along with Packull’s
severing of the tie of baptism between Hübmaier and Denck (see below). Also,
James Stayer, co-author of the polygenesis paper, was Packull’s doktorvater, so
the ideas were already well in play.
[3]Packull wrote
in very qualified terms, saying that what had been treated as a “closed
question is still an unresolved issue,” and that the polygenetic ramifications
were “possibilities” and a “more plausible hypothesis.” “Denck’s Alleged
Baptism by Hubmaier: Its Significance for the Origin of South German-Austrian
Anabaptism,” MQR 47, no. 4 (Oct.
1973): 338.
[4]I would
personally hold back a little to make clear that even if Hübmaier’s were not
the hands on the ladle poured over Denck’s head, Denck’s change seems to have
happened within Hübmaier’s sphere of influence if even there was a physical
baptism, which is most likely. The presence of Hübmaier as a “conversation
partner” must be taken seriously and with near certainty if not through
indirect means.
[5]Gerald
Bieseker-Mast, “The Persistence of Anabaptism as Vision,” MQR 81, no. 1 (Jan.
2007): 36.
[6]“‘A Common
Future Conversation’: A Revisionist Interpretation of the September 1524 Grebel
Letters to Thomas Muntzer,” In Radical Reformation Studies: Essays Presented
to James M. Stayer, eds. Werner O. Packull and Geoffer Luke Dipple, ch. 5,
St. Andrews Studies in Reformation History (Aldershot, England and Brookfield,
Vermont: Ashgate, 1999), 87.
