ORGANISED RADICALS?

Now let’s turn to the second suggested definition of “radicalism” (see post of 17 June). Were the 16th century Anabaptists (or Radical Reformation) an organised body rather than spontaneous local outbursts?

Immediately there's a problem. Present-day readers or groups tend to filter the data according to their own position, then make history fit that scheme. So to devout Catholics, the Anabaptists were heretics; to staunch Lutherans, they were dangerous fanatics bent on revolution. Progressive Nonconformists try to claim them as theirs - though in fact there are serious points of divergence.

Hans-Jürgen Goertz acknowledges this in his book The Anabaptists. He reappraises the evidence dispassionately and concludes that the Radical Reformation was largely a local phenomenon and cannot be taken as a united movement, whether through leadership, practice or even theology.

So do we conclude that the Radical Reformation wasn't "radical" in the sense of my earlier post, because it wasn't organised? If you're looking for a national movement, then no, you won't find one. But Goertz misses two fundamental points. The first is that the Anabaptists were outlawed from the start; arrested and imprisoned as soon as discovered; many burned to death; whole colonies forced into exile. Under such conditions it is very hard to start a national movement!

Secondly, the Radical Reformation arose in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and in time other countries eastwards, which were at that point in history hardly nations in the sense of western European monarchies like France, Spain and England. The Germanic lands were a hotch-potch of small states and dukedoms, united by language and culture but by little else. The mindset was different. 'Small was beautiful'. People thought regionally, not nationally.

So the southern wing of the Anabaptists, known today as Swiss Brethren, naturally focussed on their immediate area. On that basis, they did pursue unity and organisation. Leaders of local groups met at Schleitheim (or Schlatt am Randen) in Swabia in 1527 and thrashed through what they really believed and wanted. The result was the Schleitheim Confession, which became the seven-point manifesto and statement of faith for that part of the Radical Reformation. The very wording of the text speaks of united, organised purpose.

"The articles which we discussed and on which we were of one mind are these:
Baptism;
The Ban (Excommunication);
Breaking of Bread;
Separation from Abomination;
Pastors in the Church;
The Sword;
The Oath."

Here is evidence that there was unity and organisation in all three of Goertz's stated areas: leadership, practice and theology. The fact that it was not national, but only regional, is simply down to the political map of the time. All of which leads me to an initial verdict that the Radical Reformation (or at least this part of it) was indeed "radical".

THE 'RADICAL REFORMATION' AS A MOVEMENT

Let's start with the first of the three statements in my last post. Was the 16th century Radical Reformation (or Anabaptism) a co-ordinated movement or a largely individual protest?

Take almost any reform movement in history and it probably began with isolated rumblings of discontent, which grew more general and more vocal but awaited a defining moment: an action or the emergence of a leadership that would give the protest a voice and a cause. 'Protestantism' was already simmering under the surface of German life, but it took Marin Luther's act of nailing to the church door his 95 Theses (objections to the Catholicism of his day), to turn discontent into a movement.

A similar act could be seen as the defining moment for the Radical Reformation. Many people, particularly among the poorer classes, felt that Luther and his colleagues had not gone fare enough in their separation from the old Roman church system. They said he had "tried to mend an old kettle but had only made the hole bigger." One key area was infant baptism. At Zurich in Switzerland, one of the nerve centres of Luther's reforms, a group of leading Protestants headed by Ulrich Zwingli debated the issue. Finally, the town council sided with Zwingli and the mainstream party, declaring that infant baptism was acceptable and that nobody should oppose it.

Three leaders, Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz and George Blaurock, could not accept this. On 21 January 1525 they went to Manz's house to talk and pray the matter over. Blaurock then asked Grebel (who had been a minister) to baptise him with water as a believer, then Blaurock baptised the others. It was illegal but they made no secret of it afterwards, but instead went round baptising others.

The decisive moment had happened; a leadership had emerged; the 'Anabaptist' movement (coming from the Greek for 're-baptised'), or Radical Reformation, was born. This fits fairly conclusively the first criterion for "radicality".