Prairie View

Thursday, October 18, 2018

Magisterial Reformation

This post has been in the making for several weeks, so the time references are no longer current.

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I learned a new term,  Magisterial Reformation, yesterday morning on my way to finding information on a question prompted by a Facebook conversation, coupled with studying in preparation to teach 2 Peter 3: 11-18 in Sunday School class.  Here's what came up when I googled something incoherent like "view of government Zwingli Anabaptists."The Magisterial Reformation is a phrase that "draws attention to the manner in which the Lutheran and Calvinist reformers related to secular authorities, such as princes, magistrates, or city councils", i.e. "the magistracy".[1] While the Radical Reformation rejected any secular authority over the Church,[2] the Magisterial Reformation argued for the interdependence of the church and secular authorities, i.e. "The magistrate had a right to authority within the church, just as the church could rely on the authority of the magistrate to enforce discipline, suppress heresy, or maintain order."[1] (Wikipedia)

I was excited, because I had found someone else's words to draw a fine line that I had attempted to draw in the Facebook conversation--with some outraged (and, from  my perspective, outrageous) responses.  I did not draw historical parallels there, but rather tried to defend being discerning and willing to give a Christian witness (which the early Anabaptists of the 1500s did)--while at the same time staying clear of political entanglements (which they also did).  I should probably have learned from past experience that I am almost never believed (especially by politically active or opinionated Anabaptists) when I say that this is what I desire and try to do. What usually happens is that I am pegged as being on the opposite side (read:  promoting the "wrong" party) of whoever is commenting, and I am reproved in some fashion.  Digression:  I wonder what it means when a person uses parentheses or dashes to excess in writing as I just did.  Scatterbrainedness probably, and an inability to think of simple alternative constructions.  And laziness.

In the past few decades most of the Conservative Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christian world has been walking lockstep with the Magisterial Reformers, and I think it's a big mistake, just as the Anabaptist reformers believed. Specifically, the error of the Magisterial Reformers was that they insisted on staying involved in government machinery, using it to accomplish their own purposes. They wanted to have freedom of religion--in Zwingli's case, freedom to be Protestant instead of Catholic.  Their way of acquiring their version of religious freedom was to get the Council of their canton to rule that the Protestant religion was to be the only one practiced in their Canton (political entity, ruled by a council), and, of course, to enforce the rule.  Protestants kept the Catholic practice of infant baptism, and required it of all who lived in the Canton Zurich in Switzerland.

Precisely at this point, the Anabaptists parted company with Zwingli.  Conrad Grebel had been a Catholic priest, and then a gifted student and admirer of Zwingli, but believer's baptism was what Grebel and other Anabaptist leaders began to see as being taught in Scripture--in opposition to infant baptism.  They understood baptism as the symbol of a deliberate choice--to repent from the old life (the previous sinful/selfish life) to live a new life as a follower of Jesus, empowered by the anointing of the Holy Spirit. The symbol of baptism simply did not seem appropriately applied to infants.

In a series of public disputations, the Anabaptists tried valiantly to explain their position, hoping to influence the Zurich Council to allow them to baptize only believing adults instead of infants, but the Council ruled against them, and adult baptism eventually earned its practitioners a death sentence, as did failure to baptize their infants.  A host of Anabaptists subsequently became martyrs. In Zurich it was the Protestants who tortured and killed Anabaptists.  In other cantons that had stayed Catholic, Catholics were the persecutors of Anabaptists.

Sorting out some names of people and places might be necessary here, depending on a person's familiarity with this part of the historical record.*

Decades passed with Anabaptist individuals and groups forced ever farther to the fringes of society and settled areas.  In time, however, one principle of their lived-out faith penetrated Western society. In the late 1700s the principle found its way into the United States Constitution, a fact which explains how the world has the Anabaptists to thank for a government that codifies the separation of church and state. This was a new concept in government.

A curious dismantling of this separation has been underway of late, with many conservative Anabaptists joining the magisterial call to arms sounded by other Christian individuals and groups. Effort is being invested in changing the system by becoming part of the system as Zwingli did.  In contrast to Conrad Grebel's bold challenge to the Council, the current effort involves "joining the council" by advocating for political parties and candidates, and voting for favorite candidates.  This approach does not honor the 500-year-old Anabaptist tradition that was largely preserved among them in America until the last few decades of the 1900s.

As a full-on Magisterial Reformer, Zwingli's end serves as a warning for how untenable this position can become in Christian practice.  He died while leading a military charge into a neighboring canton that had refused to become Protestant.  For Zwingli, participation in a government that espoused the use of force ultimately cost his life.  By that time, in Zwingli's life, other aspects of Christian faith and the practice of following Christ in life had become casualties as well.

Jacob Grebel, Conrad Grebel's father, was one person whose experience during this era is particularly poignant.  He desperately tried to act with integrity in his position as a highly respected council member in the canton of Zurich.  Although he never became an Anabaptist, he, along with several other councilmen, advocated leniency for the Anabaptists.  This site says:   " . . . he [Grebel] disapproved of Zwingli's interference in political matters and use of civil government to establish his creed and suppress all dissent. Jacob Grebel believed that a church should not, through the state or otherwise, exercise jurisdiction over those who do not voluntarily unite with it."  Although he and Zwingli had a history of close friendship, Grebel's position infuriated Zwingli, and he sought to have  Grebel punished.  On charges that he had accepted payments for recruiting mercenary soldiers, Jacob Grebel was convicted and sentenced to death by beheading, a sentence that was swiftly carried out, Grebel protesting all the way from the courtroom to the execution site.  

Zwingli himself had done exactly what Grebel did, at the same time, five years earlier, and many among the populace saw Zwingli's act against Grebel for what it was, an effort to solidify his own power by means of an unjust accusation and a wrongful death. Jacob Grebel obviously felt conflict in his Magisterial Reformer role.  In the end, while trying to operate with integrity within the system, he became a victim of it rather than being able to influence it toward more noble ends.  The possibility of this happening in our time should not be lost on modern day Anabaptists.

My gentle brother-in-law Roberto, who is a non-Anabaptist pastor, saw a dark side of Magisterial Power first hand in his homeland of Nicaragua.  He lamented the fact that Christians (and other champions of freedom for the oppressed) who are embroiled in political upheavals often experience a dramatic role reversal when the existing political power collapses, and the formerly oppressed become the new oppressors. In this scenario, all credibility for the "freedom cause" is lost in the eyes of those who come under the heel of the new authorities.

Today, many politically active Christians see themselves as an oppressed people engaged in a struggle for freedom.  What will happen if they ever gain the upper hand in the political entities where they reside?  We know from Scripture that the result will not be a kingdom of God on earth.  Jesus decisively repudiated that method of establishing His kingdom. Having arrived in a position of power by force does not bode well for the prospects of Christians in power becoming gentle rulers. Many would-be immigrants to America no doubt feel that this has already materialized. 
 
My takeaways:

1. Anabaptists have historically opposed becoming involved in Magisterial Reformation.

2. The teachings of Jesus and examples from history demonstrate the wisdom of this historic position.

3.  The kingdom of God never expands by human force or power.  

4.  Assuming a political identity in order to influence government by political means is always a difficult position to maintain with integrity.    

5.  "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  This is not original with me, but it rings true, in my estimation.  Christians in pursuit of power seek what is actually a corrupting status.  

6.  Nationalism is not a Christian virtue.  Christians must never forget that "stranger and pilgrim" are basic elements of their identity as followers of Jesus. (Today, on what would have been  my father's 91st birthday, I remember how clearly he understood and taught this.)

7.  In its formative era, Anabaptist leaders spoke truth to power at great cost to themselves.  Then they followed up with leading quiet lives of witness to these truths, often in hiding or living as refugees.  By a combination of these means, the kingdom of God was extended to one person, one martyr at a time.   

8.  Those who claim the Anabaptist name today while holding to a position that rejects magisterial involvement need not apologize for this stance.  A great weight of effective, history-altering, God-honoring, tradition is on their side.

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*The term Anabaptist means "another baptism."  Those of us who understand Pennsylvania German say "ahnah" for  "another," so we understand where this term came from--common language.  In the 1520s, Anabaptist was a derogatory term.  Scholars in our time usually use the term "radical reformers" for the Anabaptists who came out of the Reformation period.  Swiss Brethren is the term that was used in Switzerland for the Anabaptists.  Zurich was one of many city-states in the confederation of Switzerland.  

One Swiss Brethren minister by the name of Jacob Amman led in an effort to purify the church.  Those who looked to him as their leader eventually were known as Amish--after Jacob Amman.  All of the Amish eventually emigrated to America.

Mennonites are named after Menno Simons, who was a reformer from Holland.  He was never one of the Swiss Brethren, but when he decided to leave the Catholic priesthood, it was the beliefs of the Swiss Brethren that he aligned himself with.  Some Mennonites came to America and others stayed behind in Europe.

Martin Luther was German and his followers eventually became known as Lutherans.  Luther himself was very anti-Anabaptist, a fact that the biographer Roland Bainton refers to as the biggest blot on Luther's record.  Anglicans and Presbyterians descend from the Lutheran line of religious tradition.




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