What Being Anabaptist Is Not

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Rob Martin | Monday, 27th June 2016

[Reposted from Abnormal Anabaptist. Originally posted on 10 May 2016.]

Over the years, since I personally rediscovered my Anabaptist roots and have spent time exploring and uncovering what it means to be an Anabaptist minded Christian, I’ve had many conversations with folks about what being an Anabaptist is. I even wrote an article here defining an Anabaptist in which I link several other articles. I participated in a Synchro-blog with other like-minded folks exploring three distinctives that we felt defined Anabaptism. But there are still people I run into who, when I mention being an Anabaptist, they say, “Yeah, I believe in adult baptism, too.” Sigh. So, in this article, I want to spend a bit of time listing a few things that Anabaptism is not.

Anabaptism is NOT about baptism. Yes, the term “Anabaptist” has to do with the concept of “rebaptizing” related to how the original folks carrying the name were given that moniker after they started baptizing grownups that had previously been baptized as infants. But the rule and timing and age of baptism was never the purpose for re-baptizing. The adult baptism comes from the idea of making a conscious, risky, radical decision to break away from institutionalized, hierarchical church into a Jesus-shaped lifestyle with baptism being performed as a public witness and a sanctification of that life dedication. Technically speaking, for a person to be “Anabaptist” in the original sense, if it were truly about baptism, they would have to be baptized at least twice. Truly, when and how often someone is baptized is not the point of Anabaptism. Who you are following is.

Anabaptism is NOT about being a pacifist. There are quite a few religions and philosophies around the world that have, at their core, a pacifistic ideology and have nothing to do with Christianity or with being an Anabaptist. However, Anabaptism does have as one of its central ideas this concept of shalom from which an Anabaptist operates. This concept is rooted, itself, in a radical love that encompasses all human beings, even those who would consider the person to be an enemy.

What’s key here is that love is the key to all human interaction. Anabaptists take very seriously Jesus’ words to love our enemies, to love our neighbors, to love other people, even if those other people are the disgusting, heretical, heathen Samaritans that obviously have their theology wrong. The Anabaptist Christian approaches every situation, even ones where wrong is being confronted, with the general question of “How do I show love to this person?” This is the example Jesus gave us, that even his strongest opponents were given respect, were answered in kind, and were treated, not as some outcast to be avoided but as humans who are brothers and sisters. If we have made the radical decision to follow Jesus, as I mentioned above, then we follow his example. And his example is to love everyone, equally, with nothing held back, even to the point of laying down our lives for those who hate us.

And going further with pacifism, Anabaptists are NOT passive. Over the centuries, the Mennonite branch of Anabaptists has taken pacifism in a direction where to be a pacifist means to avoid conflict. If there is something that is going to cause people to be in conflict, we avoid it, we cover it over, we make it into an inconsequential thing to be handled, quietly, at the next committee meeting. We Mennonites have gotten very good at avoiding conflict. And this has, unfortunately, infected our activities within the church as well as in how we interact with the world around us. We chose to just stay quiet. In our silence, though, we have let racism in our own churches go unaddressed, we’ve covered over abuses of power, both the more “acceptable” kinds as well as those that result in sexual assault. Our pacifism cannot lead us into passivism. There are ways in which we can still express our enemy love while still addressing the problems around us.

Anabaptism is NOT conservative, nor is it progressive, nor is it liberal, nor libertarian, nor any other label that we might apply to it that relates to a human based ideology. It is not a protest movement nor is it collaborative with the powers around us. An Anabaptist sets aside human structures and ways of thinking as best as possible and, again, chooses to radically follow Jesus. Sometimes that may look like what the world thinks as conservative (living by a code of morality in contrast with the world), sometimes that looks very progressive (the code of ethics of care for the poor, the marginalized, and the voiceless is very progress). And every other flavor in between. In Jesus day, he had factions to deal with as well such as Pharisees, scripts, Sadducees, Zealots, Essenes, etc., who all had a particular ideological framework by which they operated. And Jesus pretty much rubbed them all the wrong way, not because that was his aim, but because they couldn’t fit him in their neat little boxes.

For Anabaptists following after Jesus 2000+ years after he walked the earth, this can look and feel very messy. The voices and patterns of this world are very loud and very hard to keep separate from our Christian walk at times. The Spirit that Jesus left behind for us speaks so quietly that we often miss our way. But an Anabaptist seeking to follow Jesus holds very lightly to these things because they recognize the limitations to their own understanding and, instead, seek Jesus guidance through his Spirit, through the community of Christ-followers around us, and through the stories and writings in the Bible.

In our day and age where people like to categorized and classify and define things to the utmost of details, where we want to be able to very clearly put things in their proper place and perspective, Anabaptism stands out in that it is probably easier to describe what it is not and much harder to describe what it is. I’m sure that there are folks who will come along to my article here and say, “Yeah, but you didn’t talk about this” or “You need to make sure you defined that.” And those are probably good points of discussion. But ultimately, the biggest test for what I see as the Anabaptist way is whether or not I can see Jesus in it. If it doesn’t, then it doesn’t really belong in Anabaptism. And, honestly, if it doesn’t look like Jesus, I question if it should even belong in Christianity at all. And isn’t that the better question?

 

Rob Martin is a software validation analyst living in Southeastern Pennsylvania. He has a Masters of Arts in Missional Ministry from Biblical Theological Seminary. He blogs at Abnormal Anabaptist.

Politics that Devour: A Reflection on Revelation 13

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Shane Fenwick | Wednesday, 22nd June 2016

[Reposted from Ethos Engage Mail. Original article dated 6 June, 2016.]

Politics.

It’s a word that will conjure up a myriad of feelings for Christians. For some, politics — or ‘being political’ — has come to represent how one votes in the partisan political process, and is deemed to have nothing to do with the ‘spiritual’ message of the Gospel. For others, Christians must be heavily involved in this process, often through lobbying, to maintain a strong moral voice for ‘Christian values’ in the hallways of power.

As we enter into another federal election season, and as many of us have been observing the U.S. presidential race, perhaps it’s time to re-engage with a passage of scripture that has continuing relevance for us as Christians today – and whose significance many of us don’t seem to grasp. It is perceived as bizarre and out-dated, or conversely as a kind of guide for deciphering the events that will lead to the end of the world. Both views, unfortunately, don’t do this magnificent passage justice. The passage is Revelation 13. And, just as it spoke prophetically to the early church of Asia in the late first century, so too does it continue to speak to us today: not about how we will escape into the heavenly realms, but rather about how faithful Christians are to respond to politics. Or, more precisely, about how we are to faithfully respond to politics that devour.

To begin to engage with this passage, one must first understand it within its own historical context: as a distinctly Christian apocalyptic prophecy. John, no doubt, would have viewed himself as standing in the Old Testament prophetic tradition, writing during the moment in history when those very prophecies were being fulfilled in the Messiah Jesus.

In the opening verses of Revelation 13, we are given a carefully constructed description of the first beast that rises out of the sea. The beast’s physical characteristics resemble that of each of the four beasts in Daniel 7, for in John’s eyes this beast was the summation and epitome of all beasts that had come before. Its origins as coming from the sea, on top of the rich imagery of its seven heads bearing blasphemous names, is a clear allusion to the Roman Empire. For John, this beast — Rome — was a devouring beast, given authority and power by the Enemy. It demanded the worship and allegiance of its citizens, and whoever opposed its supposed divine status would meet its brutal might. Indeed for Rome, might was right, establishing a Pax Romana — Roman peace and security — through its military might. Yet John calls on his readers to resist the temptation to buy into the beast’s deception. They were to worship the slaughtered Lamb alone, who conquered not with the sword, but with the cross. Faithfulness to the true Lord was to be the mark of Christ’s disciples, not allegiance to a system that devoured in order to maintain the status quo. Evil is self-propagating; only Suffering Love can break its power.

The second beast we are introduced to rises not from the sea, but from the land, suggesting that it was something indigenous to the people of Rome. The imperial cult would have been a religious group well known to John’s readers. In the province of Asia, it was controlled by a body known as the commune, made up of representatives from major towns including priests from the cult itself. In all matters relating to local government, it would have wielded the power of Rome itself. What’s more, scholars suggest that it would have been responsible for taking the initiative in elevating Roman emperors to the status of divine beings. John’s second beast — which looks like a lamb but speaks like the dragon — is a clear parody of Christ. It appears to wield divine power; but beware, it is a murderous beast. At the conclusion of this passage, we are given the infamous number of the beast: 666.

Contrary to popular culture and the claims of stringent dispensationalists, John’s readers would have swiftly picked up on who this number referred to: the Roman emperor Nero. John utilises the practice of gematria, known to both Jews and Greeks of his day. But, more than just being a numerical representation of Nero, John would have employed the number 666 for its symbolic significance as a triangular number which not only constantly falls short of the perfect number 7, but also as a parody to the number of Jesus Christ: 888. Thus, the message is clear. Nero, as an anti-Christ figure, represented the beast, that idolatrous creature that sought to wage war on God and on God’s people. Rome and Nero were the embodiment and completion of ancient Babylon, demanding total allegiance from humanity.

What, then, could this possibly mean for us as Christians today? We may not have literal emperor-like figures demanding our worship. But, we would be foolish to ignore the beast-like political systems which devour in our world today - the systems and political powers which, in often covert ways, demand our allegiance and punish those who refuse to comply with ‘business as usual’. Revelation would have not justbeen read by Christians who were outright oppressed by the Roman Empire. Many Christians were, in fact, wealthy and compromising within the beastly, oppressive system. Perhaps we are the comfortable ones that God is disturbing today through John’s Revelation. How do our prosperity, security and wealth come at the expense of the innocent who experience violence, scapegoating and bloodshed? John continually calls us back to faithfulness to the One who is true and faithful. On April 9th, we remembered the life of German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, whose resistance to the beastly political power of the Third Reich led him to death. It is Bonhoeffer who said, in his sermon ‘My Strength is Made Perfect in Weakness’, that:

Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness, and pride of power, and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear… Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than we are doing now. (In The Collected Sermons of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, ed. Isabel Best, Minneapolis, Fortress Press, 2012, 169)

As we behold the politics that devour around us today, may we be patiently faithful in our witness as the alternative community of God. For we worship and follow the Crucified and Risen One, whose politic does not devour, but brings truth, healing, justice and peace.

Shane Fenwick is a young Christian from Sydney who is deeply passionate about theology and its implications for discipleship, mission and engagement with a hurting world. He is a case manager with Mission Australia as he undertakes his Master of Theology through Charles Sturt University.