Young Anabaptist Radicals

Monthly Archive: November 2013

The Christian’s Constitution

There was one text in the Bible that has been the most influential on my life. It was this text that really helped convince me to become a Christian, and it was this text that brought me into radical politics. The passage I am referring to is the Sermon on the Mount.

It was when I was in middle school that I was first introduced to this famous sermon, and it ignited my interest in the gospel. By reading its words, I fell in love with the man who spoke them, and I wanted to apply the sermon to all aspects of my life. It was a big reason that I became interested in left-wing and anti-war movements as well. It would be years later, when I read Leo Tolstoy’s The Kingdom of God Is Within You, that I really started to realize just how much was packed into Matthew 5-7. Recently, a friend of mine who I know from both Young Anabaptist Radicals and MennoNerds, said, ”The Sermon on the Mount or Plain is the Christian’s constitution.” I think there is a lot of truth to that. (more…)

November 13, 2013 Anabaptism, Church, Economics, empire, Ethics, neo-Anabaptism, Nonviolence, Politics, , , , , Read more >

“Unity is the Highest Adornment in Love”

This is the final installment of a three-part overview of the life of Pilgram Marpeck, Anabaptist radical and lover of Christ.

From 1532 to 1542 , Pilgram and Anna Marpeck wandered from German city to city, Pilgram getting an engineering job here and there, and trying to encourage local Anabaptists wherever he went. He wrote letters and held meetings in various places.

In Moravia, where there was the greatest freedom for Anabapists to thrive, Marpeck found the greatest level of dissension between the different groups of Anabaptist. It is there that Marpeck realized that the greatest enemy of the true Christian church is not persecution, but disunity.

“Unity is the highest adornment of love. This treasure, unity, brings with it all other virtues and treasures, namely peace, joy, comfort in the Holy Spirit, as well as humility, meekness… I do not write this to accuse you but to entice you to emulate the true and proper humility in Christ.” (Marpeck, p.216)

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November 3, 2013 Anabaptism, Four Streams of Anabaptism Series, Read more >