Luther and other reformers and treatment of the anabaptists

[CalvinisticCumberland]

Many atrocities have been committed in the name of God, not the least of which is the "Holy" Inquisition perpetrated by the RCC.

But what about Protestant persecution of the Anabaptists? I am trying to sift through the opinions and biases of "historians", amateur and otherwise. What really happened, and how do the flaws, sins, misconceptions, etc. of our esteemed Reformers affect your viewpoints on our Reformed tradition?

I am not defending anabaptist heretical theology by any means, but, did they deserve death, especially at the hand of reformers who should have seen the ere due to the imminent persecution unto death they themselves faced in the name of "heresy".

 

[TimV]

Anabaptist covers such a large and varied group of people that it would be much easier to speak of specific groups and circumstances. Which death sentences are you thinking of?

 

[Hippo]

What makes this question really difficult is the lack of seperation between church and state that renders any attack on the church as also an attack on the secular order.

The major beef that the reformers had with the anabaptists was not (in isolation) the credo baptism aspect but the rejection of the physical church and its authority.

Anabaptists were seeking to destroy the existing soial order and as such they were treasonous. Protestants were happy to remain subjects of their Roman Catholic lords, that is why their persecution was religious not civil.

The Commune of Munster cannot be ignored when one considers attitudes to the anabaptists.

 

[CalvinisticCumberland]

Anabaptist covers such a large and varied group of people that it would be much easier to speak of specific groups and circumstances. Which death sentences are you thinking of?

Those carried out throughout both Roman Catholic and Protestant states in the 1500's.

Here is a quote from

The Rise of the  Radical Anabaptists


The treatment of the Anabaptists is a great blot on the page of the Reformation, Strassburg being the only center that tolerated them.[24] Grebel and Manz were not the only ones to be persecuted. Six executions in all took place in Zurich between 1527 and 1532. The last executions took place March 23, 1532, when Heinrich Karpfis and Hans Herzog were drowned. Blaurock was scourged, expelled, and burnt in 1529 at Clausen in the Tyrol. Haetzer, who fell into carnal sins, was beheaded for adultery and bigamy at Constance, February 24, 1529. Huebmaier, who had fled from Waldshut to Zurich, December, 1525, was tried before the magistracy, recanted, and was sent out of the country to recant his recantation.[25] He labored successfully in Moravia, but was burnt at the stake in Vienna, March 10, 1528. Three days afterwards his faithful wife, whom he had married in Waldshut, was drowned in the Danube.

Other Swiss cantons took the same disciplinary measures against the Anabaptists as Zurich. In Zug, Lorenz Fuerst was drowned, August 17, 1529. In Appenzell, Uliman and others were beheaded, and some women drowned. At Basle, Oecolampadius held several disputations with the Anabaptists, but to no avail. The Council there banished them with the threat that they should be drowned if they returned (November 13, 1530). The Council of Berne adopted the same course.

In Germany and in Austria the Anabaptists were persecuted still worse. In April of 1529 the Diet of Speier decreed that, "every Anabaptist and rebaptized person of either sex be put to death by sword, or fire, or otherwise." The decree was severely carried out, except in Strassburg and the sphere of influence of Philip of Hesse, where they were treated more leniently.

They were treated most horribly by the Roman Catholic countries. In Goerz the house in which the Anabaptists were assembled for worship was set on fire. ““In Tyrol and Goerz,” says Cornelius, "the number of executions in the year 1531 reached already one thousand; in Ensisheim, six hundred. At Linz seventy-three were killed in six weeks. Duke William of Bavaria, surpassing all others, issued the fearful decree to behead those who recanted, to burn those who refused to recant...throughout the greater part of Upper Germany the persecution raged like a wild chase...the blood of these poor people flowed like water so that they cried to the Lord for help...but hundreds of them of all ages and both sexes suffered the pangs of torture without a murmur, despised to buy their lives by recantation, and went to the place of execution joyfully and singing psalms.””[26]

Though physical persecution took place from the State against the Anabaptists, individual Reformers, though not lifting the abuse of the sword upon these people, disagreed with the persecution but retained the title of “heretic” upon them.[27] Luther said, “The devil, on the contrary, disorganizes and ruins everything through his factious and disturbing spirits, his ratling and boisterous servants, in the external and worldly government and life as well as internally in the hearts of men, whom he really makes insane and blind by his evil spirits, as we now have experienced with his insurrectional prophets, fanatics, and Anabaptists.”[28] Calvin called them, “furious madmen,”[29] “supercilious,”[30] and “delirious.”[31] However, Calvin was used as a means to convert many Anabaptists (those who were wisely tolerated in the territory of Strassburg while Calvin was present there for three years) and they brought to him from the city and country their children for baptism.[32]

 

[Mayflower]

Maybe this will help:

Lutheran Reformers Against Anabaptists: Luther, Melanchthon, Menius and the Anabaptists of Central Germany. by John S. Oyer

The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc.

The Reformers and Their Stepchildren. by Verduin, Leonard

The Baptist Standard Bearer, Inc.

 

[PuritanCovenanter]

Some anabaptist were antinomians and lawless rebel rousers sturring up strife against the governments. They were for revolution more than they were for Christ in some cases. In other cases there were some who were just credo baptists trying to follow Christ. They were persecuted because they were outside of considered orthodox beliefs when they rebaptized themeslves decrying the Countries (State) church to be outside of orthodoxy.

Confusing times.. You have to view it through medeival eyes. You can not understand it without understanding the times. Church and State were tied together in a way that we here in a America don't understand.

If you look at early America it was the same way. The Kings Church was funded by taxes and all others were persecuted heavily. That is what made Patrick Henry so famous. He was against a State funded and run church.

 

[LadyFlynt]

One must not forget that blood was on just about everyone's hands...the Anabaptists included (though they hate to admit it and try to distance themselves as much as possible from the Situation at Munster and attempt to claim the Calvinistic Waldenses instead).

They were all a product of their times. People were killed for religion as well as for no reason at all. It was bloody times all around.