Recent Trends in Anabaptist Scholarship

This post is a descriptive update to Troy Osborne’s 2007 article and John Roth’s 2002 article on recent trends in Anabaptist studies.1 There have been several threads in Anabaptist scholarship that have recently received heightened attention. Most notable is the volume of work being dedicated to two Anabaptist figures: Balthasar Hübmaier and Pilgram Marpeck.

The swell in Hübmaier scholarship is perhaps largely due to a continued byproduct of the 1989 publication of a new translation of the Hübmaier corpus.2 Also, recent interest has come from Baptists, finding a predecessor to their own confessional stance in Hübmaier more than in other Reformation theologians. Since 1999, 10 doctoral dissertations have been written on Hübmaier. 3 Furthermore, in the editorial preface to the January 2010 edition of the Mennonite Quarterly Review, Roth noted that Hübmaier’s full impact on the Anabaptist movement merited further investigation after years of Hübmaier studies having been marginalized by Mennonite scholarship. The bulk of that edition contained articles on Hübmaier. 4

The recent attention paid to Marpeck has, I believe, two points of origin. One has been the significant biography by Klaassen and Klassen. 5 The other has been the publication of new sources on Marpeck and his “circle.”6 This has resulted in a conference on “Anabaptist Convictions after Marpeck” at Bluffton University, June 25-28, 2009 and an issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review being dedicated to Marpeck studies in January 2011.

Another trend is the study of the use of patristic literature among the Anabaptists. Much of the came to the fore in a 2005 issue of Mennonite Life, 7 but some groundwork had been laid before. 8 Other works have continued this investigation, 9 especially that of Andrew P. Klager,10 and further work will likely come out of this.

This leaves open certain questions that remain to be made, including more specifically which authors used patristic sources and in what situations. Were Anabaptists more likely to include patristic citations in debate with opponents for who the fathers held authority? Did they appeal to the fathers when writing pastorally to their congregations?

1Troy Osborne. “New Directions in Anabaptist Studies,” MQR 81, no. 1 (Jan. 2007): 43-47.; John D. Roth, “Recent Currents in the Historiography of the Radical Reformation,” Church History 71 (Sep. 2002): 527-529. Osborne includes the proscriptive call for a new generation of confessional Anabaptist scholars to approach the subject in keeping with the concept of an Anabaptist vision, however recognizing the complexities introduced by the polygenetic model.

2H. Wayne Pipkin and John Howard Yoder, eds., Balthasar Hubmaier: Theologian of Anabaptism, Classics of the Radical Reformation, no. 5 (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 1989).

3In chronological order: Emir Caner, “Truth is Unkillable: The Life and Writings of Balthasar Hubmaier, Theologian to the Anabaptists,” Ph.D. diss., University of Texas at Arlington, 1999.; Michael Wayne McDill, “The Centrality of the Doctrine of Human Free Will in the Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier,” Ph.D. diss., Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2001.; Samuel Byung-doo Nam, “A Comparative Study of the Baptismal Understanding of Augustine, Luther, Zwingli, and Hubmaier,” Ph.D. diss. Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2002.; Brian C. Brewer, “A Response to Grace: The Sacramental Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier,” Ph.D. diss, Drew University, 2003.; Ernst Theodor Endres, “The View of Balthasar Hubmaier of the Church: A Church-Historical Perspective,” D.D. diss., University of Pretoria, 2003.; Kirk R. MacGregor, “The Sacramental Theology of Balthasar Hubmaier and Its Implications for Theology,” Ph.D. diss., University of Iowa, 2005.; Darren T. Williamson, “Erasmus of Rotterdam’s Influence upon Anabaptism: The Case of Balthasar Hubmaier,” Ph.D. diss., Simon Fraser University, 2005.; Brian David Raymond Cooper, “Human Reason or Reasonable Humanity?: Baltasar Hubmaier, Pilgram Marpeck, and Menno Simons and the Catholic Natural Law Tradition,” Ph.D. diss., University of St. Michael’s College, 2006.; Antonia Lucic Gonzalez, “Balthasar Hubmaier and Early Christian Tradition.” Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2008.; Andrew P. Klager, “‘Truth Is Immortal’: Balthasar Hubmaier (c. 1480-1528) and the Church Fathers,” Ph.D. diss, University of Glasgow, 2010.

4The articles were Andrew P. Klager, “Balthasar Hubmaier's Use of the Church Fathers: Availability, Access and Interaction,” 5-65.; Matthew Eaton, “Toward an Anabaptist Covenantal Soteriology: A Dialogue with Balthasar Hubmaier and Contemporary Pauline Scholarship,” 67-93.; Brian C. Brewer, “Radicalizing Luther: How Balthasar Hubmaier (Mis)Read the ‘Father of the Reformation,’” 95-115.; Jonathan R. Seilig, “Johann Fabri's Justification Concerning the Execution of Balthasar Hubmaier,” 117-139.; Kirk R. MacGregor, “Hubmaier's Letter Johannes Sapidus,” 141-146.

Other recent works in this swell: Emir Caner, “Balthasar Hübmaier and His Theological Participation in the Reformation: Ecclesiology and Soteriology,” Faith and Mission 21, no. 1 (Fall 2003): 32-66.; David Funk, “The Relation of Church and State in the Thought of Balthasar Hubmaier,” Didaskalia 17, no. 2 (Wtr. 2006): 37-50.; Andrew P. Klager, “Balthasar Hubmaier and the Authority of the Church Fathers,” Historical Papers 2008: Canadian Society of Church History: Annual Conference, University of British Columbia, 1-3 Jun 2008, 18 (2008).; Kirk R. MacGregor, “Hubmaier’s Concord of Predestination with Free Will,” Direction 35, no. 2 (Fall 2006): 279-299.; Wayne H. Pipkin, Scholar, Pastor, Martyr: The Life and Ministry of Balthasar Hubmaier (Prague: International Baptist Theological Seminary of the European Baptist Federation, 2008).; Martin Rothkegel, “Von der Schönen Madonna zum Scheiterhaufen: Gedenkrede auf Balthasar Hubmaer, Verbrannt am 10 März 1528 in Wien,” Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für die Geschichte des Protestantismus in Österreich 120 (2004): 49-73.; Kurt J. Thompson, “The Proper Candidate: An Examination of the 1525 Debate between Ulrich Zwingli and Balthasar Hubmaier concerning Baptism,” M.A. Thesis, Liberty University, 2009.; Jean Marcel Vincent,  “Présentation et traduction du premier écrit anabaptiste: Un Résumé de ce qu’est toute une vie chrétienne (1525) de Balthasar Hubmaier,” Études Théologiques et Religieuses 79, no. 1 (2004): 1-18.

5Walter Klaassen and William Klassen. Marpeck: A Life of Dissent and Conformity (Scottdale, Pennsylvania: Herald, 2008).

6Walter, Klaassen, Werner O. Packull and John Rempel, transls. Later Writings by Pilgram Marpeck and His Circle, Vol. 1. Anabaptist Texts in Translation, Vol. 1 (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora, 1999).; Heinhold Fast, Gottfried Seebaß and Martin Rothkegel eds. Briefe und Schriften oberdeutscher Täufer, 152701555: Das “Kunstbuch” des Jörg Probst Rotenfelder gen. Maler. (Gütersloh, Germany: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2007), and its English translation: John Rempel ed. Jörg Maler’s Kunstbuch: Writings of the Pilgram Marpeck Circle, Classics of the Radical Reformation, Vol. 12 (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora, 2010).

7Mennonite Life 60 (Sep. 2005). Articles included B. Royale Dewey, “Making Peace with History: Anabaptism and the Nicene Creed.”; Gerald J. Mast, “Creedal Orthodoxy Is Not Enough: A Response to Ollenburger.”; Ben Ollenburger, “True Evangelical Faith: The Anabaptists and Christian Confession.”; J. Denny Weaver, “Identifying Anabaptist Theology.”

8Irvin Buckwalter Horst, “Menno Simons and the Augustinian Tradition,” MQR 62, no. 4 (Oct. 1988): 419-430. Karl Koop, Anabaptist-Mennonite Confessions of Faith: The Development of a Tradition (Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora, 2003).; Dennis D. Martin, “Menno and Augustine on the Body of Christ,” Fides et Historia 20 (Oct. 1988):41-64. A. James Reimer, “Trinitarian Orthodoxy, Constantinianism and Theology from a Radical Protestant Perspective,” In Faith to Creed, ed. S. Mark Heim (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1991).

9Andy Alexis-Baker, “Anabaptist Use of Patristic Literature and Creeds,” MQR 85, no.3 (July 2011): 477-504.; Geoffrey Dipple, “Just as in the Time of the Apostles”: Uses of History in the Radical Reformation, Kithcener, Ontario: Pandora, 2005.; Antonia Lučić Gonzalez, “Balthasar Hubmaier and Early Christian Tradition,” Ph.D. diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 2008.

10“Balthasar Hubmaier and the Authority of the Church Fathers,” Historical Papers 2008: Canadian Society of Church History: Annual Conference, University of British Columbia, 1-3 Jun 2008, 18 (2008).; St. Gregory of Nyssa, Anabaptism and the Creeds,” Conrad Grebel Review 26 (Fall 2008): 42-71.; “‘Truth Is Immortal’: Balthasar Hubmaier (c. 1480-1528) and the Church Fathers.” Ph.D. diss, University of Glasgow, 2010.; “Balthasar Hubmaier's Use of the Church Fathers: Availability, Access and Interaction,” MQR 84, no. 1 (Jan. 2010): 5-65.

Review of An Investigation into the Relationship Between the Early English General Baptists and the Dutch Anabaptists, by Goki Saito

Saito, Goki. “An Investigation into the relationship Between the Early English General Baptists and the Dutch Anabaptists.” Ph.D. diss. Louisville, Kentucky, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1974.

            Saito’s dissertation approached a topic that is still not entirely resolved. The strain of scholarly debate into which he entered, however, has mostly cooled down. The tendency has been for interpreters of early English Baptist history to remain firmly entrenched in their positions, with no significant advance of the conversation having been made since. This dissertation is of vital, even if heretofore not fully recognized, value to the study.

            The initial point of interest is Saito’s overview of the debate up to then. Particularly useful was his investigation into how the narrative of succession came into and was propagated in nineteenth-century histories of the Baptist movement. The introduction of critical historical methods challenged view with the earnest debate beginning in 1930. Summarily, the two sides either found Baptist theological origins in the Waterlander influence or in the Separatist tradition out of which the movement came.

If anything is lacking, Saito could have given greater detail in the overview, but that could be a project that could be brought up to date for contemporary historians currently investigating the same question. Saito’s most keen observation in this section is his conclusion that those taking the positive view (that Baptists derive theologically from the Anabaptists) emphasize the points of agreement between the two group while those of the negative view (that Baptists are better interpreted as an extension of Separatism) emphasize the points of disagreement.

This at once raise the question of pointillizing the various aspects of Waterlander and Early General Baptist belief. This recognition characterizes Saito’s subsequent method. In the following chapters, the method was to investigate the similarities and dissimilarities by comparing articles of faith or other confessional literature in almost an article-by-article fashion, when appropriate to the material being analyzed. Saito could thereby hope to discover the strains of individual theological concepts as they were accepted or rejected by the Waterlanders, Smyth, Helwys, Murton and the Early General Baptists successively. In this way, the moments when differences arose could be identified, thus providing essential data for his project.

Unfortunately, this pointillization creates a rather large set of data that a reader must keep track of, for the conclusion Saito drew were closely dependent on the analysis of continuity of several points of doctrine among several individuals and groups. An appendix outlining in parallel each article, when available, for each group, could have aided comprehension. An organization of this sort would have clarified the streams of thought and given the overall argument greater force.

The essential character, Smyth, is given due reserve. Saito remained aware that an exact conclusion could not be drawn but presented fairly plausible possibilities. Prominently was the fact that Smyth must not have been drawn to believers’ baptism by interaction with the Waterlanders because his se-baptism was performed out of necessity, in Smyth’s mind, on account of the lack of a true church into which to be baptized. It was not until later that Smyth recognized the Waterlanders as a church of like mind.

The period between that baptism of the congregation and the documentable interaction with the Waterlanders was a period of other theological change, but at what point in that period Smyth took on Anabaptist-like teachings might be indiscoverable. For instance, Saito notes, the Arminian tone of General Baptist theology ay have come not from the Waterlanders but from the Smyth congregation’s awareness of the theological debate in Amsterdam that was already in progress when they arrived. Saito leaned more toward an interpretation that credited Smyth’s independent reading of Scripture, not guided by the Waterlanders, as the primary genesis of his doctrine.

As time went on, Smyth did begin to move in a more Anabaptistic direction and he appropriated more of their thought. Helwys rejected this move and he and some followers returned to England. The Helwys congregation, therefore, explicitly denied identification with the Anabaptists; a point not lost on Saito since it was Helwys, not Smyth, who was normative for the continued development of the General Baptist movement. On the other hand, Saito did recognize that the Waterlanders might have indirectly influenced Helwys by his retention of several of Smyth’s teachings. This indirect influence sadly faces the same question as to whether those retained teaching were those developed by Smyth before or after Smyth’s tutelage under the Waterlanders.

Saito then moves onto the thought of Murton as a representative of a next generation of General Baptists. Though notable, this exploration does little to advance Saito’s arguments since it basically operates under the same principle as the analysis of Helwys. The difference is that this analysis is even more indirect, now proceeding through Helwys.

The last topic is a comparison and history of the Waterlanders and the General Baptists in the 1620s. Though only twenty years removed from the Smyth-Helwys split, the movement was distinctly far enough from the Waterlanders that a proposed union would have been unacceptable to the latter. This is revealed by the Tookey group’s exit from the Baptists over the issue of the strictness of discipline. When the Tookey group sought union with the Waterlanders, who themselves departed the Frisian Mennonites over their objection to the latter’s harshness in church discipline, the Waterlanders could not agree to more than “friendly relations” because of the severe disagreements over other issues such as the oath, magistracy and the sword. The Waterlanders could not come into full union with the Tookey group precisely because of the doctrines that were not at issue between Tookey and the rest of the General Baptists, indicating that the General Baptists, sharing those doctrines, were by this time far enough from Waterlanders identity as to prevent full union. Though this conclusion and its significance jumps off the page, Saito did not draw it himself nor even mention Tookey in his recap of the chapter in his conclusion. Rather, he used the debate as a means to cull data with which to compare the teachings of the movements outside of the group’s attitudes toward the teaching of the other.

Having pointillized the analysis, Saito did not give an all-encompassing answer to the question of whether Baptists may rightly be considered part of the Anabaptist heritage, either yes or no. The most he could answer was to show Anabaptist influence on certain points, namely the sacraments, good works, church discipline and eschatology. This is an appropriate reservation to show because it does not presume to overshadow how each group identified its defining characteristics.

Moving forward, we must take that reservation to heart. When trying to identify Baptists as heirs to the Anabaptist tradition, we must remain aware of how each group identifies itself and its theological distinctives. This was readily apparent in the Tookey split. The matters of the magistracy, oath and the sword were not essential enough to prevent fellowship with the Waterlanders, with whom they agreed on issues of the believers’ church, church discipline and scriptural authority, the Waterlanders saw these points as essential enough to their core convictions that they would be part of the characteristics that form the sine qua non of their identity. The Tookey group, without those teachings that the Waterlanders saw to be so essential, could not be taken into fellowship despite their agreement on the issues that the Baptists saw as decisively essential.

If that was true in the early Seventeenth Century, it is more so true today as the groups become more polarized in their understandings of group identity. In the editorial preface to the January 2010 issue of the Mennonite Quarterly Review, John Roth recognized that Hübmaier had not received the deserved study on account of modern Mennonite scholars’ distaste of Hübmaier different opinion on pacifism. By that point in history, pacifism had become such a core conviction of Anabaptist identity that one who would by most other estimation be part of the origins of that tradition would in many ways be ignored.

On the other side, Baptist historians, especially among conservatives, readily accept the teachings of a free church, believers’ church and baptism, scriptural authority and discipline as central identifier of their heritage. Seeing those same characteristics in the Anabaptists, it is no surprise that they would feel a theological kinship and that they would interpret history in a way that would identify themselves as part of a broader movement including Anabaptists. Meanwhile, even though those points are important to Anabaptists generally, they are not the points by which they identify themselves. Therefore, just like the Waterlanders facing the request for fellowship with the Tookey group, Anabaptists can quickly see Baptists as having a distinct identity from them.

This matter of self-identification of core convictions would thus put out of reach any legitimate answer to the question of whether Baptists are Anabaptists. What would thus be more helpful is a clear understanding of the similarities of particulars without providing an answer for the whole. For this, Saito is to be commended for having not given an answer beyond the particulars. As new evidence is inevitably revealed as scholarship on the matter goes forward, it would be helpful to be mindful of Saito’s model of analysis in this direction.