Sources: Conrad Grebel’s letters; Michael Sattler, Schleitheim Confession (1527); Menno Simons, Foundation of Christian Doctrine (~1539); Harold Bender, The Anabaptist Vision (1944).

The Anabaptists (“re-baptizers”) were the radical wing of the Reformation who rejected infant baptism and demanded believer’s baptism, separation of church and state, and nonviolence — positions that made them enemies of both Catholics and magisterial Protestants. The first Anabaptist baptism occurred in Zurich, January 21, 1525, when Conrad Grebel baptized Georg Blaurock against Zwingli’s explicit opposition. The Schleitheim Confession (1527) articulated the core commitments: believer’s baptism, the ban (church discipline), the breaking of bread (simple memorial Eucharist), separation from the world, shepherds/pastors chosen from the congregation, nonresistance (refusal of the sword), and rejection of the oath. The persecution: Anabaptists were executed by Catholics, Lutherans, and Zwinglians alike — drowned, burned, beheaded. Felix Manz (the first Anabaptist martyr) was drowned in Zurich’s Limmat River by Zwingli’s council in 1527. The Martyrs’ Mirror (~1660) documents thousands of executions. The legacy: Mennonites (from Menno Simons), Amish (from Jakob Ammann’s 1693 split), Hutterites, and Brethren communities descend from Anabaptism. The Anabaptist emphasis on voluntary church membership, separation of church and state, and pacifism influenced the Baptist movement and, through Roger Williams, the American constitutional principle of religious liberty.