On Dec. 8, 2024, seven young adults shared their testimony, stepped into a livestock tank on the sanctuary stage and were baptized by the associate pastor. Our congregation, including guests of those being baptized, applauded and cheered each one. Not once that morning did we fear that a government official or a leader from another church would burst into the building and take those being baptized to prison. We didn’t worry they would be labeled heretics and tortured or even killed. Our baptism service was not a radical act of rebellion.
But these were the dangerous consequences our spiritual ancestors faced on Jan. 21, 1525, when a group of men rebaptized one another. The actions of the early Anabaptists challenged and frightened society, and Anabaptism quickly became an underground movement that lost virtually all its leaders in the first two years.
Historians agree that while the early Anabaptist movement was not unified by a common church order or common leaders, the Anabaptists did share common core beliefs: believers baptism, authority of Scripture, primacy of the New Testament, the discipleship of following Jesus, compassionate discipline, simple living, separation of church and state, rejecting violence and war, and accepting the way of witnessing and suffering.
Reading Anabaptist history, I am inspired by how men and women were motivated by their convictions to believe and live differently from those around them. One historian writes, “A 16th century man who did not drink to excess, curse or abuse his workmen or family could be suspected of being an Anabaptist and thus persecuted.”
Many of the stories we have from this time highlight men and women who experienced hardship because their involvement in the Anabaptist movement changed them. In this issue, we begin a one-year column, “Radical Reformers,” that will introduce six early Anabaptists who shaped the movement and suffered for it.
But there are hundreds of early Anabaptists who remain anonymous—men and women who were martyred without coming to the attention of those in charge of court records. One example is an unnamed 14-year-old boy who refused to recant and became one of the youngest of all Anabaptist martyrs.
I am amazed at this young man’s conviction, a teen similar in age to three of the young people whose baptism I witnessed in early December. It makes me consider my own convictions. Early Anabaptists gave concrete form to their desire to obey God through believers baptism, and it rocked the established order of their day. As we begin a year during which we will commemorate our Anabaptist heritage, what radical action can we take in 2025 to demonstrate our obedience to God?
Connie Faber joined the magazine staff in 1994 and assumed the duties of editor in 2004. She has won awards from the Evangelical Press Association for her writing and editing. Faber is the co-author of Family Matters: Discovering the Mennonite Brethren. She and her husband, David, have two daughters, one son, one daughter-in-law, one son-in-law and three grandchildren. They are members of Ebenfeld MB Church in Hillsboro, Kansas.
