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".

HOW RADICAL IS 'RADICAL'?

The discussion between David Platt and Kevin De Young, arising from Platt's book, Radical; Taking Back Your Faith From The American Dream, makes thought-provoking reading. Together with the many responses to the blog, it also shows how widely evangelical Christians differ on what "radical" really means.

"You can be radical in your own home", I read. If your definition of 'radical' is little more than the opposite of nominal, then fine - you can. But surely, committed or zealous ought to do here. By the way, isn't it sad that the old word "staunch" died the death? It had done a good job for centuries!

There is a generally accepted thumbnail definition of 'radical' used by political historians. Might it help us here? For them, it must:
a) refer to a movement, not an individual
b) be organised, not spontaneous, and
c) have as its aim a change to the current system of power.

If we are ready to accept these criteria in a Christian context, it immediately blows out the 'radical at home' idea, for you can't be a movement on your own! But questions still remain, not least regarding the categorisation of particular movements in history. The political-historical criteria by their very nature apply to movements "in the world", actively agitating for good, and not movements which sought to express their protest against the system by going "out of the world" and setting up an alternative society. Chief among these, of course, would be the Desert Fathers and the early monastic tradition.

There is, however, one movement which historians have actually called the Radical Reformation. This was the grassroots reaction in the 16th century against the system and trappings of both the Roman Catholic and mainstream Protestant (Lutheran) churches. A movement sprang up, not by any means in full unity, but committed to breaking free from State-Church structures, externally imposed bishops, and the notion of salvation lying within an ecclesiastical system. They called for a return to New Testament principles of church structure and governance, a congregation's right to appoint its own elders, baptise believers, administer the sacraments and refuse to take up arms and fight wars.

Platt uses the phrase gospel-driven, grace-saturated, God-glorifying obedience, not particularly intending it as a definition, but as a description of the radical heart of Christianity. It seems to me that the Radical Reformation meets these requirements and fits the historians' definition of a radical movement. In my next posts, therefore, I'll try to give specific examples from their story and their writings that unpack this a little more.

FAITHFUL UNTO DEATH

The Moravian Church was the subject of some earlier posts. One episode from their history speaks eloquently of radical faithfulness.

In 1737, the Moravian Church sent a team to start a mission and community settlement in South Africa. They chose some land east of Cape Town and called it Genadendal (Grace Valley). The local tribe, the Khoi, were impoverished and dispersed but the Moravians reached out to them and began a school for their children. One of the first Khoi to be baptised was a woman called Tikhuie, whom the missionaries named Magdalena. Her husband, a skilled hunter, kept the community supplied with meat.

Some of the missionaries died of disease, however, and the leader grew lonely and in 1744 was recalled to Germany. Everyone thought the community was finished. They reckonend without 'Lena’ Tikhuie! Having learned to read at the mission school, she gathered the people daily under a tree and taught them the scriptures.

Years passed. Travellers returning to Europe brought tales of an African woman leading a church at Grace Valley. Finally, in 1792, nearly fifty years after the withdrawal, the Moravians sent a fresh team to re-found Genadendal. On their arrival they found the ruins of the original houses, but to their astonishment there was Lena Tikhuie, frail and almost blind, still holding the ground and ministering to the little congregation, daily, under the tree. Her well-worn bible was still with her, wrapped in sheepskin.

The missionaries were told 'Every evening we all, men, women and children, would go to old Lena. She would fall on her knees and pray. When her eyes would let her, she read from the New Testament.' As families grew, parents taught their children to pray. When Lena couldn't read, a younger woman did it for her.

Lena became a living legend in the area. People came to see her. One, the wife of a high official in the British government, wrote: 'It was like creeping back seventeen hundred years to hear from the coarse but inspired lips of evangelists the simple, sacred words of wisdom and purity.'

Lena never knew when she was born, but she lived a long life, always thanking God for His great grace. When she died in 1800, her faithful perseverance had become legendary throughout South Africa. She was one of the first indigenous church leaders in South Africa, certainly the first woman, and she had led the congregation at Genadendal for fifty years.

HEAR THE WAR CRY!

Why a "War Cry?" Because The Salvation Army means more war!" William Booth, Founder-General of the Salvation Army, certainly favoured the 'in your face' approach. With these words he began the front page article of the first issue of The War Cry, on 27 December 1879.

Today, the 'fight' against poverty takes many forms, from questions in parliament to individuals giving a few pounds to a homeless charity. But Booth's radical eye saw deeper than mere deprivation and squalor: he saw inner lostness, people without hope because God's love was not made real to them. Some churches tried, but in the main, Christians 'walked by on the other side'.

Not so the Salvation Army! The cry of slaughtered millions rises up louder and louder to heaven, crying to our inmost souls, with irresistible violence, to arise and fight more furiously than ever for the salvation of our fellows from the forces of evil which are dragging them drunken, befouled, degraded, wretched down to an eternity of woe. You can feel the passion, the indignation, Christ's own love for the poor! Jesus our King, the dying Jesus of Calvary, still looks weeping on doomed cities and multitudes wandering without a shepherd, and begs us to lay down our lives for them as He laid down his life for us.

If radicality has to do with roots, Booth bores into the very core of them, rebuking Christians for their lethargy, their compromise and their lack of real devotion to the cause of Jesus' kingdom. God will have his own people to repent and do their first works. He will have them abandon forever all friendship with the world, and all parley with evil hearts. Let all that name the name of Christ depart from iniquity. No more unbelief; no more pride; no more worldly pleasure or worldly dress or show; no more covetousness or self-seeking!

Armybarmy.com is the name chosen for a web page run by a think tank and renewal group within the Salvationist ranks. Their wonderfully named Journal of Aggressive Christianity reproduced Booth's original article as the front page of their own first issue in 1999. You can read the General's entire broadside here.

"MISSION-FOCUSSED HEROISM"

In around 1995 I was speaking to a young Salvation Army cadet in my town. I told him how inspired and challenged my own church was by the witness and the writings of William Booth. "Who?", he replied, in all seriousness. I was dumbfounded! Could it be that a movement had lost sight of its foundation (or at least its founder)?

Happily, it seems as though my young cadet may have been an exception. Having started to look at the radical outreach of the early Salvation Army in my last post, I came across this article. In it, Cadet Christopher Footer, from the Salvation Army Training College in South Australia, makes an impassioned appeal for a return to the radical heart of the gospel and the church.

He warns: This article is idealistic and primitive. It is intended to provoke thought, entice hearts and move bodies to some sort of aggressive action. And he sums up the heart of Primitive Salvationism as "charismatic-flavoured, mission-focussed heroism".

I have no doubt General William Booth would have approved of such a definition - non-theological, punchy, pragmatic and applicable. I can almost hear the "Hallelujah!"s ring out - and Ballington Booth's cornet!

I am encouraged and blessed that a new generation of Salvationists is seeking to examine their roots and look hard at the complex issues of what was for its time back then, and what is still meant to characterise the movement in the 21st century.

A TROUBLE-MAKER WITH A VISION

A Trouble-Maker with a Vision

George Fox was born in 1624 in Leicestershire, England. These were troubled times: as a young man, Fox lived through the Civil War and the execution of the king.

His parents were devout churchgoers, but Fox records how from an early age he was disgusted with established church trappings and longed for a Christianity that would consume his whole being. He drifted around the country in a search for God. He sat in orchards reading the Bible, which convinced him that the only true church was the gathering of reborn people. He found no biblical grounds for special buildings, Sunday religion or paid clergymen.

At the age of 23 he finally found salvation and with it an experience that today we would call being baptised in the Holy Spirit. He saw a vision of heavenly glory, an ocean of light and love flowing out to cover an ocean of darkness. He knew the inspiration and revelations of the Holy Spirit, and was overwhelmed with a longing to save the lost.

In 1652 Fox felt led to climb Pendle Hill in Lancashire. Here he had a vision of thousands of souls coming to the Lord. He set off in the direction shown in the vision and, as a result, came into contact with the Westmorland Seekers (in present day Cumbria). These were groups of Christians disenchanted with denominational churches, who met together to pray and study the scriptures - much as many "de-churched" Christians do today.

In time, Fox was accepted and acknowledged as their leader. One sermon was preached to around a thousand of these Seekers at Firbank Fell, and a plaque there declares this to be the birthplace of the Quaker movement. The name came from an occasion in court when Fox told a judge to tremble at the word of God.

This new life, allied to a bold and outspoken nature, was very volatile! He sometimes wandered into a church service and addressed the people after the vicar had ended the sermon. He then fearlessly declared the narrow way of following Christ. On occasions he was set upon, beaten or put in the stocks, but always one or two who had received his words would rescue him.

The poor received his words gladly. Fox records in his journal that during his imprisonment in Carlisle in 1653, when he came near to being hanged, the rich came to gawp and triumph, while vermin-infested beggars and thieves showed him love. In time, some of these poor, uneducated folk were transformed by the Holy Spirit into valiant missionaries for Jesus Christ.

Quakerism is usually thought of as having been an intensely individual faith with its accent on personal salvation and receiving the ‘inner light’ – living in the Holy Spirit. But this overlooks a key thing. At first his network used names like Children of the Light or the Friends of Truth, which placed the emphasis on the experience of each individual. But Fox believed in Church as ek-klesia – those called out in order to be together. The assembly was important, and it was in the assembly that God was speak His prophetic word. So it was that, under Fox’s guidance, the name finally chosen for the movement – and which it still has today – is the Religious Society of Friends. Each word of that name can be meditated on, and together they present a pretty good theology of what any church is meant to be..

Note: The issue of what Church really is occupies a lot of Friends (Quakers) today, especially the younger generation. Chuck Fager gives a useful overview, which you can read here.

Radical CHURCH History (2)

The Moravians, who produced the hymn quoted in my last post, are a good illustration of what I am calling "Radical CHURCH History". They knew renewal in the Holy Spirit and did incredible missionary outreach, planting communities from Lapland to South Africa years before William Carey, the so-called 'Father of Modern Missions'. But for the Moravians, Church came first.

A motley crew were offered sanctuary and religious toleration on Count Nicholas Zinzendorf's estate in Germany. They couldn't agree, there was tension and rivalry - as I have no doubt there would be today if you threw together a random bunch of evangelical-charismatic Christians and told them to work it out! It nearly blew apart; Zinzendorf was sorely tempted to shut the thing down.

But in his heart he knew that CHURCH, the 'called-out ones' of Jesus, had to be the starting point. It was what Jesus had died for, after all. So Zinzendorf took some bold, practical steps.

We do well to note these steps. They are a world apart from today's notion that you have to start with anointed worship, seeker services, mums'n'tots groups and a youth program. But they were certainly radical - in their biblical conservatism.

He made a covenant with several brothers who shared his mind (1723).
They laid the foundation stone of a church building (1724).
They built a visible and distinctive residential community (1724).
He drew up a Church Constitution which set out the requirements of membership (1727).

Was this just Germanic efficiency? I fancy it was rather the actions of a covenant-committed core group standing by the road and looking, and asking for the ancient paths, where the good way is (Jeremiah 6:16).

The annals of the Moravian Church are quite clear that it was these concrete steps which brought an amazing change to the atmosphere and prepared the way for the much-publicised move of the Holy Spirit in a Communion service in 1728 which empowered the community for all that was to follow.