The prayer of Anneken Jans

We hold the legacy of radical Bible readers, peculiar perfectionists, brave martyrs

HERITAGE KEEPERS — David Kreider, tech­nician at Kauffman Museum in North Newton, Kan., shows an 18th-century edition of Martyrs Mirror to a Sunday school class from First Mennonite Church of Newton on Nov. 17. — Paul Schrag/AW

Five hundred years ago, “Anabaptist” was a slur for the worst of heretics — rebel cultists to be scorned or pitied.

“I feel sorry for the Anabaptists,” the Dutch scholar Desiderius Erasmus wrote. “They are possessed of a kind of madness; yet I am told that some of this sect are not at all evil people.”

Erasmus judged the Anabaptists more charitably than Martin Luther, who called them “a seditious mob.”

Ironically, Anabaptists today are heirs of both Erasmus and Luther, ­who even now represent two streams within Christianity.

Luther, the fiery evangelical, stressed Christ’s divinity, humans’ utter sinfulness and salvation by faith alone.

Erasmus, the practical humanist, emphasized Jesus’ humanity and believers’ free will to obey. Because faith without works is dead, he urged Christians to walk in Jesus’ footsteps of peace and compassion.

In the centuries that followed, ­Luther’s afterlife-focused, faith-alone theology shaped both evangelicalism and Anabaptism. Yet Erasmus’ insistence on the necessity of everyday discipleship became a defining principle of Anabaptism, too.

What has bridged these worldviews? Biblical literalism — the unswerving devotion to scripture that sparked the Radical Reformation — has persisted, linking traits usually set apart as conservative and progressive.

In the 16th century, Anabaptists took the principle of “scripture alone” even more seriously than Luther, who admitted infant baptism lacked a biblical foundation. At the same time, they demanded a life of virtue at least as ardently as Erasmus did. Conceiving a church “without blemish” (Ephesians 5:27), they rejected violence as “outside the perfection of Christ.” Withdrawing to enclaves of safety, they clashed over differing visions of purity and perfection. As we still do.

“Spiritual renewal through a liter­al interpretation of the Bible” — as Troy Osborne says in his important new Anabaptist history, Radicals and Reformers (Herald Press, 2024) — remains a unifying principle of the theologically fractured, culturally diverse Anabaptist world. The Anabaptist view of scripture lifts Jesus’ words above the rest and takes his hard teachings literally, even those that compel loving rather than despising enemies.

Stubborn insistence that Jesus meant what he said and was talking to us (a favorite phrase in Mennonite circles) has at times drawn the world’s hatred and at others its admiration. Today it attracts people who yearn for belonging in a lonely, polarized society. It sustains nonconformists who’ve flocked to remote colonies or shunned electricity or refused to pay war taxes or adopted more subtle countercultural markers of simplicity and service. Ideally, our peculiarities include putting God’s reign first and refusing to make the cross bow to the flag.

All of these commitments grow from a desire to follow Jesus as closely as possible. As columnist Brad Roth writes: “Maybe Anabaptism is a movement to restore the immediacy and primacy of abiding with Jesus.”

Anabaptists might take pride in identifying their spiritual ancestors as founders of religious liberty and the free-church movement. Yet the 500th anniversary should evoke humility — recognition of the sinful and painful parts of our history — as well as a spirit of unity with other Christians.

That spirit is rising. At the 2009 Mennonite World Conference assembly in Asunción, Paraguay, Danisa Ndlovu, MWC president, and Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Lutheran World Federation, embraced in a symbolic act of reconciliation. And even more: As sons of southern Africa, Ndlovu and Noko “illustrated the shifting center of gravity of churches long associated with German and northern European ethnic groups,” ­Osborne observes in Radicals and Reformers.

Neither Luther nor Erasmus could have imagined this. Nor, we suppose, could Anneken Jans, one of the one-third of Martyrs Mirror saints who were women. Before her execution by drowning in Rotterdam in 1539, she placed her infant son in the care of a bystander with a prayer that he would follow Jesus, too. As the blood of the martyrs is the seed of faith, she joined the cloud of witnesses who inspire us to persevere (Hebrews 12:1). The fulfillment of her prayer now lies with us.

Paul Schrag

Paul Schrag is editor of Anabaptist World. He lives in Newton, Kan., attends First Mennonite Church of Newton and is Read More

Anabaptist World

Anabaptist World Inc. (AW) is an independent journalistic ministry serving the global Anabaptist movement. We seek to inform, inspire and Read More

Sign up to our newsletter for important updates and news!