medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Just a bit more clarification:
The continental Anabaptists highly valued physical, water baptism.
Ediwn is correct to state that they did not see it as a sacrament,
certainly not as objectively efficacious sacrament in the Catholic
sense. Faith must precede water baptism. Logically, one might say, why
bother with the water, and many of their opponents threw this at them.
They replied that water baptism is a very important sign, outward sign,
of inward faith that distinguishes the true believer, the converted
believer who takes his faith seriously enough to die for it, from the
nominal, cultural Christian. One proved one's faith after baptism then
by doing good works, by living as a Christian. One Anabaptist did
develop something like an objective sacramental theology of baptism
(PIlgram Marpeck, active in Augsburg and Strassburg), with baptism not
merely an affirmation of the faith (faith being what really counts) but
baptism as a "co-witness" almost on an equal footing woth faith. He
also highly valued other outward structures and institutions. But
otherwise Anabaptists sharply rejected sacraments as objective mediation
of God's grace. But they did not teach a sola fide, forensic salvation
as Luther did (at times; at other times . . . ). They were closer to
Calvin, in some ways (with his emphasis on living out a regenerated life
after justification), yet they did not accept his double predestination.
Finally, they did have a highly developed view of history, as I have
argued at some length elsewhere. Their mistrust of the Catholic
hierarchy, episcopacy, and also the Protestant university
Scripture-scholar hierarchy and their Fall of the Church theology rested
on the asumption that one could "know what really happened" back then by
doing historical research rather than depending on the steady chain of
tradition, apostolic succession, divinely guaranteed office over the
centuries, which is the backbone of the Catholic ecclesiology. THe
major Protestant reformers shared some of this position: a fall of the
Church (with Constantine or with Scholastic Aristotelianism, which was
Luther's position), yes, but, once more, did not go as far in rejecting
(based on "new, authentic, Holy-Spirit inspired" historical research)
Tradition as the Anabaptists did.
In other words, they thought that one could, by doing historical study,
strip away all the accretions of "traditions of men" and get back to the
original, Gospel simplicity. Of course, they were interpreting
Scripture just as much as Catholics and Orthodox do when they (the
latter) see a God-given episcopacy, councils, patriarchs, popes etc. as
a means to maintain the true history, the true interpretation of
Scripture over the centuries. The difference, however, is that they
believed the papal/episcopal reading of tradition was precisely the
problem and that better historians (Sebastian Franck's compendium of
church history was widely used by the Anabaptists) had no, by God's
divine gift, arisen, and had uncovered the True Story after centuries of
obscurity.
And that is exactly what historians have been doing ever since: we all
know that the Catholic (and Orthodox) version of church history is
deeply flawed, do we not? Elaine Pagels, Adolf von Harnack, Dan Brown,
Michel Foucault, Edward Gibbon and historian after historian have
shown/demonstrated that the "real story" was different: this or that
Gnostic group or otherwise marginalized, carnivalesque group was pushed
to the side by powerhungry bishops and popes, who rewrote history after
their own fancy. The only problem, of course, is how to be sure that
Elaine Pagels or Edward Gibbon aren't doing exactly the same thing.
And, lest anyone try for a centrist, middle-of-the road position by
pointing out that some of the people listed above are rather extreme and
that sensible academics like all the members of this list will be
certain to avoid such extremes and pick and choose carefully among all
the data of history thrown at us until a believable, credible, sensible,
humble, qualified by "one can't be sure" and "things are, of course
always very complicated" middle of the road reading of history emerges,
let me ask, why could that not also be an example of reading into
history one's own presuppositions, in this case, the presuppositions of
nice, moderate, middle-of-the-road, a pox-on-all-your houses,
anti-fanaticism ideal, a sort of post-modern credo?? Why would that be
more credible than Gibbon's High Enlightenment, anti-Christian screed or
Dan Brown's conspiratorial salaciiousness?
But, I digress.
Dennis Martin
Edwin replies:
Just a subtle ammendment: Anabaptists believe(d) that physical baptism
is not necessary for salvation, nor is it sacramental (Anabaptist = no
or without baptism). Inner change (sola fide) is considered
regenerative, but physical baptism is merely an outward sign of
obedience and repentance (thus adults only). This view is still held by
many modern Baptists. Rebaptism, in the Anabaptist system, is simply a
reaffirmation of faith. This claim is based on direct biblical
interpretation which rejects historical traditional interpretation.
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