I
arrived late to a Baptist research symposium to hear the Q&A following a
student’s paper presentation. I don’t know what the paper was on except that
had to do with Balthasar Hübmaier. The last question the faculty panel asked of
the student was if Hübmaier would affirm the Baptist Faith and Message in
regards to the Lord’s Supper. The student first responded by saying that
Hübmaier would prefer relying on Scripture rather than on creeds or
confessions. It was a bit of a pat answer but it was essentially correct. After
thinking out loud for a few seconds, the student admitted that Hübmaier likely
would agree to the substance of the BFM. Unfortunately that question had been
the last and my immediately upshot hand was ignored. So, let’s reevaluate the
question: would Hübmaier affirm the BFM’s teaching on the Lord’s Supper?
Article
VII of the BFM reads, “The Lord’s Supper is a symbolic act of obedience whereby
members of the church, through partaking of the bread and the fruit of the
vine, memorialize the death of the Redeemer and anticipate His second coming.”
Two aspects of this are important for our enquiry: the memorial aspect
indicated by the words “symbolic” and “memorialize” and also the reference to
the events of the crucifixion and the parousia. By referencing the event of the
crucifixion the BFM bypasses the question of real presence that was at the fore
of Reformation debates on the Supper. This is confirmed by Leon McBeth’s
summary of historical Baptist understanding of the Lord’s Supper as “recall[ing]
and reflect[ing] upon the death of Christ.”
McBeth further concluded that the central concern among Baptists regarding the
Supper was real presence but rather the matter of who would be allowed to
participate in the ordinance.
Huldrych
Zwingli’s memorial view was that the words of institution were metaphorical,
with est of hoc est corpus meum taking the meaning of significant.
The emphasis for Zwingli’s memorial view was the memorialized body, which was
broken. For Baptist, as the BFM indicates, the emphasis is on the crucifixion
event, during which that body was broken. The difference is of emphasis rather
than substance on this point. While Baptists were engaged in a different debate
on the Lord’s Supper, they retained an essentially Zwinglian answer to the
debate from Hübmaier’s day. The first direction to take in answering the
central question is to ask if Hübmaier would agree with the BFM’s understanding
of real presence.
Hübmaier’s
teaching on the subject has been summarized often enough not to demand
extensive treatment here.
John Rempel’s work, which has gained great currency in Anabaptist studies since
its publication, summarizes Hübmaier’s opinion on real presence: "An ontological shift followed in which the
visible church became the res referred to by the signum. That is to say, for
Hubmaier the breaking of bread became preeminently a sign of the church and its
covenant of obedience."
Further, "The Lord's Supper is [for Hübmaier] the sign that the
incarnation is being carried on in the church."
If the Body of Christ memorialized in the Supper was for Hübmaier the church
rather than the physical body as taught by Zwingli and evidently agreed to by
Baptists, then Hübmaier would thus be at odds with the BFM.
Reading
Hübmaier’s writings might cause confusion if the chronological development of
his controversy with his erstwhile co-reformer, Zwingli, is not taken into
account. While that controversy centered on baptism, baptism was to the extent
of that controversy’s reach. For instance, Hübmaier initially agreed with
Zwingli, writing in one of his earliest works, Eighteen Theses Concerning
the Christian Life of 1524, “The mass is not a sacrifice, but a memorial of
the death of Christ.” The editors
of Hübmaier’s works commented on the similarity to one of Zwingli’s 67
Theses. Interestingly, both Zwingli and Hübmaier at this stage viewed the
Supper as memorializing Christ’s death, thus further demonstrating the
interchangeability of the body of Christ and the event during which that body
was broken.
Directions
toward including the church as the body of Christ alongside the physical body
(in memory) of Christ are evident as Hübmaier’s thought developed. He wrote
that believers partaking in the Supper are “willing to let [their] flesh and
blood be broken and sacrificed, which [they have] now become one bread and one
drink.”
While Hübmaier’s positioning of the church as the body of Christ represented in
the Supper was a development of his thought beyond Zwinglian memorialism,
perhaps even to the point of assuming greater prominence over the physical body
of Christ, it is not as clear that the Zwinglian starting point had been set
aside.
In Brewer’s estimation, Hübmaier’s “Eucharistic conclusion is the same as
Zwingli’s, differing only in their hermeneutical routes.
If
Hübmaier intended to include the church as the res to the Supper’s signum
to the exclusion of the physical body, then the BFM’s reference to the memorial
of Christ’s death would not be in agreement with Hübmaier’s mature theology. If
Hübmaier only intended to add a second meaning to the sign, then the BFM would
be within Hübmaier’s teaching, although not fully encompassing the development
of the additional meaning. While this may appear to allow Hübmaier the
speculative affirmation of the BFM’s declaration on the real presence debate,
given that the respective doctrinal statements were forged over the fires of
different controversies. To make a judgment on this is admittedly speculative
(a danger that will be addressed below), but it is evidence enough that
Zwingli’s position was essentially no different than that of Baptists in
general and that Hübmaier came to view Zwingli as an opponent on the issue.
This says little about other areas of possible disagreement between Hübmaier
and the BFM’s teaching on the Supper such as the BFM’s eschatological outlook
or the BFM’s lack of entanglement of the Supper along with baptism into
Hübmaier’s disciplinary ecclesiological superstructure.
If Hübmaier were to affirm the BFM, it would likely be with qualification at
the least.
Why then
indulge in such speculation? There is a danger in speculation to the point of
losing focus on what was actually said, even if there were tendencies evident
in the life of a theologian whose untimely death aborted a full fruition of his
thought. Also, and more urgently, there is the possibility of idealizing a
theologian of near kinship that can anachronistically project onto a historical
figure the image of the one speculating. I suspect that this is what happened in
our case here–the student may have saw great similarity on clearer areas and
made a premature judgment on a grey area. A beach ball and a bowling ball cast
remarkably similar shadows but seeing only the shadow would be a poor guide to
deciding whether the ball is safe to punt. To be fair to the student, he was
forced to speculate because that was the question that was asked. It might not
have been a fair question to ask in the first place (unless the paper was
titled, “Hübmaier and the BFM: A Comparison of Free Church Perspectives on Real
Presence in the Supper”). Sometimes questions must be answered simply because
they are asked.
While it
would be convenient to find a historical teacher quite similar to ourselves and
thus validate our own position on the authority of heroes, we must remember the
true value of historical theology. No theologian of the past is an authority
for us beyond except where they agree with Scripture. However, when we find one
who has a very similar starting point, that theologian can become an effective
foil toward our own theological development. In the case of Hübmaier and the
Baptists, the shared starting points include recognition of the authority of Scripture,
and a free church composed of believers. Both Hübmaier and the Anabaptists
should be understood for who they really were and then, listening to their
voices, they can challenge our theology and thus lead us to growth. Perhaps
that may only mean that we are confirmed in our positions, but the differences
can force us to strengthen our arguments or alternately rebuke us in our error.
