#128 The Triumph, Peace, and Power of True Christianity - Part 1

The Triumph, Peace, and Power of True Christianity part 1, an introduction by Edsel Burdge, Jr.

An early Anabaptist tract by Pilgram Marpeck on defencelessness and fidelity to Christ, translated by Peter Hoover.

Introduction by Edsel Burdge — Luther, the peasants, and the birth of Anabaptism

In 1517, the Saxon monk Martin Luther nailed his ninety-five theses to the Wittenberg church door. Little did he know that his doing so would spark a debate that would rend the fabric of Western Christendom. As the battle lines were drawn, Luther and his followers quickly saw in the Roman Catholic Church the fulfillment of John the Seer's vision of the Great Harlot of Babylon.

Over the next years, tracts flowed from Luther's pen plotting the direction of his reformation. The publication of his German translation of the New Testament in 1522 further advanced its progress. Now even illiterate Germans heard the Bible read regularly from the lecterns of Reformed churches. As they listened to the words of Christ, they heard the promise of a new kingdom where justice and peace would reign.

In their simplicity, the peasants expected that the reformation of the church would also mean an equitable restructuring of society along the lines laid down in the gospels. They were to be sadly disappointed. Europe was also in the midst of an economic revolution. In an effort to benefit from this change, rulers and landlords sought ways to maximize their capital by extracting the most they could from their tenants. So instead of things becoming more equitable, they became more inequitable. In 1525, the South German peasants revolted, staging work strikes and calling for changes based on the law of God. Luther, terrified that his reform would be tainted by the charge of rebellion, urged the princes to "knock down, strangle, and stab" the insurgents. The rulers needed little such encouragement, and the Peasants' Revolt turned into a bloodbath. Feeling betrayed, a great number of the peasants turned their backs on the Lutheran Reformation.

However, in several short years, the sword that the Reformers had so readily urged against the peasants swung back to threaten them. The Emperor Charles V, determined to rid his realm of Lutheranism, implemented a series of edicts against it. Those German princes who supported Luther formed the Schmalkaldic League in 1531 as a military alliance against the emperor. Lutheran theologians, who had during the Peasants' Revolt insisted on strict obedience to the emperor and other civil authorities, quickly rethought their theology regarding the sword to justify the resistance.

In the midst of this, Pilgram Marpeck, an Anabaptist leader in Strasbourg, sat down to write the Aufdeckung der Babylonischen Hurn (The Uncovering of the Babylonian Harlot).

The Anabaptists originated in Zurich, Switzerland, in 1525. There a small band of true-hearted Christians, led by Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, and George Blaurock, were convicted by God's word that only believers should be baptized. Disregarding the city council's edict, they baptized each other with "true Christian baptism." This seemingly innocent action was in reality revolutionary. It threatened the whole religious foundation of Europe by calling into question what really made a person a Christian. Was it the "christening" of infants by water baptism? Or was a person a Christian when he recognized the truth, repented, believed on Christ, and then was baptized? The Zurich authorities, at the instigation of the city's reformer Ulrich Zwingli, quickly moved against the Anabaptists. Harried from pillar to post, they spread out from Zurich preaching the gospel and baptizing.

Many of the peasants in South Germany listened eagerly to the Anabaptist preachers. Their message was indeed good news. Despite the threat of persecution, many turned from lives of sin and self-centeredness to lives of following Christ and living in community with their fellow believers.

Yet sadly, there arose a disagreement in their ranks over the issue of the sword. Could a Christian (a follower of Christ) serve as a magistrate or take up the sword of defence? The Anabaptist leader Balthasar Hubmaier and his supporters, the Schwertler (sword bearers), argued that they could. Other Anabaptists said, "No, a Christian must follow Christ and live a life of defencelessness." These defenceless Anabaptists were called Stäbler because they carried a staff when on a journey. With Hubmaier's martyrdom in 1528, the Schwertler party disintegrated. By 1530, most of the Southwest German Anabaptists belonged to the Stäbler wing.

For several years until exiled in 1532, Marpeck was a leader of a congregation of defenceless Anabaptists in Strasbourg. He may have written the Uncovering around 1531 in response to Strasbourg's decision to join the Schmalkaldic League and a corresponding crackdown on the Anabaptists by the city's civil and religious authorities.

Though written in response to specific happenings in his day, there is a certain timelessness about Marpeck's tract. We too need to hear his warning not to let the arguments of the unfaithful church (the Babylonian harlot) lure us into thinking that Christians can take up arms to defend themselves or the cause of Christ. Instead, he encourages us to be faithful to Christ and to bear the cross of suffering even as our Lord Jesus did. Furthermore, the objections raised against defencelessness in the sixteenth century were the same as those offered today. Thus, his responses to those objections are just as fresh and pertinent today as they were then. Then as now, the triumph of true Christianity rests on following the suffering Lamb who is also our victorious King.