Tomorrow will be another day of guiding visitors through the Hans Herr House. Hans Herr and the Germans with him were Anabaptists. Today the Anabaptist umbrella consists primarily of the Mennonites, the Amish, and the River Brethren. The name "Anabaptist" means one who rebaptizes.
At the time of the Protestant Reformation, several people felt that the reforms of Luther did not go far enough and they wanted to see more radical changes in the church. In Switzerland, the German Reformed Church became the established church and as such it carried the reforms beyond what Luther had envisioned. Still, there were people in Switzerland who felt that the German Reformed Church did not go far enough.
Within a short period of time, these reformers came to emphasize three principles. The first point was that baptism should be an adult decision. Infant baptism was not the means to salvation. In accordance with this belief, the early adherents underwent baptism as adults. Since they had already been baptized as infants (in the Catholic church), they were labeled as rebaptizers or as Anabaptists. Of course, when their children were born, they were not baptized. Later these children, on the basis of their own decision, were baptized. So the term, Anabaptist, applied only to the first people, but still the name has stuck down through the ages.
A second point was a belief in pacifism. They were not willing to join the army or participate in armed conflict.
The third point, which perhaps evolved more slowly, was a belief in the separation of the church and state. The established church in Switzerland, now German Reformed, operated, as the Catholic church had, very closely with the state (or city or canton in Switzerland). The state wanted children baptized at birth which enrolled the children as citizens of the state. Thus, baptism served as a two-fold gate, admission to the church and admission to the state.
The state did not take kindly to the idea of pacifism either. Therefore the state, in conjunction with the church, decided to eliminate Anabaptist thought by eliminating the Anabaptists. A period of severe oppression followed in which hanging, drowning, burning at the stake were the techniques. If you are a member of a church group under this kind of treatment, you would be inclined to believe in the separation of the church and state. Of course, there was the theoretical admonition from the Bible for the separation of the church and state.
So, at the time, which would be the early 1500's, the Anabaptists were considered very radical. But of the three ideas which tended to separate them from their fellow Christians, two are widely accepted today, namely, adult baptism and separation of church and state. Pacifism may not be widely accepted but there is a more tolerant attitude toward it today.
( to be continued )
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the Germanna-L@rootsweb.com email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.