In preparation for the 500th anniversary of Anabaptism in 2025, Troy Osborne, who teaches history and theology at Conrad Grebel University College in Ontario, has written an accessible survey of Mennonite life and thought, sweeping across five centuries and multiple continents.

Radicals and Reformers begins with early modern European origins, forged during political and religious upheavals across Swiss, German, Dutch and adjacent territory. Osborne emphasizes that despite the many confessions of faith that early Anabaptists formulated, the tradition never featured a single authoritative statement of beliefs. Significantly, he adds: “Since the 16th century, Mennonites and other Anabaptists have been drawing water from new spiritual wells.” These factors set the stage for the book’s central argument that Anabaptists and Mennonites have adapted in ordinary and extraordinary ways to their specific contexts, sometimes embracing and sometimes rejecting other spiritual influences and cultural streams. “To tell the stories of Anabaptists,” Osborne argues, “we must balance the highest original ideals with an appreciation for how time changes all things.” 

Osborne’s narrative pushes against any notion that a grand synthesis of Anabaptist history is possible or even plausible. He acknowledges that “there are many Anabaptist stories from around the world that go untold in these pages.” Despite that unavoidable limitation, his emphasis on Anabaptists’ diffusion across geographic locations offers an ironically cohesive framework. In part, this derives from his analysis of Mennonites’ responses to 18th-century Enlightenment ideas and new governmental structures. He notes that “Mennonites were among the groups that embraced the new theories of equality and human rights, which gave them theoretical equality before the law . . . [while] other, mostly rural, Mennonites continued to set themselves apart from the surrounding society . . . [and migrated] to new lands where they could live under premodern understandings of privileges.” 

The chapters on Anabaptism’s global growth since the mid-19th century will be of interest to readers who seek a fuller understanding of African, Asian and Latin American Anabaptist faith traditions. Currently, Anabaptism is growing more rapidly in Latin America than in any other part of the world. Osborne explains how mission activity, migration and cross-cultural contexts have yielded vastly different expressions of Anabaptist life, from conservative German-speaking rural colonists to Latin American adherents whose Anabaptism intertwines with liberation theology. In stark contrast to the deeply patriarchal colony Mennonites, Indigenous and Spanish-speaking women study theology at Mennonite schools in Colombia and Guatemala and are integrated into pastoral roles.

Accounts of Mennonites in Asia — spanning India, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam and more — offer differing perspectives on the role of missions and postwar service work in the formation of Anabaptist communities. In Asia, Anabaptist Christians have been countercultural, given the prevalence of Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism and other religious streams. Even in the context of Western colonization, many Anabaptists “do not see themselves as a branch of the European or Mennonite tree.” A key example is in South Korea, where in 1996 an Anabaptist congregation, Jesus Village Church, developed through a process of biblical study by a small group of believers on a quest for authentic discipleship. 

Osborne takes a restrained interpretive stance, noting that historical analysis is always open to reassessment and critique. He suggests that Mennonite readers may receive the “gift of humility,” considering that the movement has been characterized by divisiveness and has embodied colonialism, racism, patriarchy and related injustices. Yet he often touches only glancingly on shortcomings and troubling legacies. Readers may find themselves wishing for a more substantive treatment of historic concerns, including ethnic chauvinism, the myth of Mennonite exceptionalism and heteronormative assumptions in congregations and church agencies. Also missing is any sustained consideration of the extent to which the Anabaptist movement may have influenced broader philosophical and political tenets in the Western world and beyond, including pacifist thought and church/state separation. 

Radicals and Reformers offers a tapestry-like portrayal of Mennonites’ commitments and practices over a 500-year span. Its appearance is timely as a new survey of Anabaptism’s place in the broad stream of religious history.  

Rachel Waltner Goossen is professor emerita of history at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan.