An article on the Anabaptists

I found an article on about Anabaptism Scot McKnight's blog (accessed on 5th March 2010). Click here for the article.

I find this particular quote of Roland H. Bainton particularly interesting:

“The ideal of restitution or restoration was common in the age of Reformation, and all parties desired to restore something. The difference was only as to what, and how far back to go. Luther wished to restore the church of the early Middle Ages; for him the great corruption was the rise of the temporal power of the papacy in the eighth century. The Anabaptists went back further than any of the other groups, and turned exclusively to the New Testament. Even within the New Testament they tended to neglect Paul and to push back to Jesus. That is why (their) ideal of Restoration tends to coincide with the ideal of the imitation of Christ."

I really like the idea of imitation of Christ. But personally speaking I have problems with the tendency to neglect Paul and push back to the Gospels. Of course, Christ has to be the centre, and indeed the Triuine God has to be the centre of our belief and of our life. (And the centre of Paul's theology is Christ, I believe - and Paul reads the Scripture in light of the life, death and resurrection of Christ.) But as far as the Scripture goes, I believe that all Scripture is the God's revelation. I'll talk more about this in another post. (Click here for that post.)

Having said that, I am very inspired by the Anabaptists, mostly by their lives, ecclesiology and their social justice focus.