Comparison Of Swiss Brethren And Anabaptism

1 Introduction

Some say they are conservative Protestants, they would probably consider themselves Anabaptists and yet others would classify them as a part of the European Free-Church Family along with Mennonites, Brethren Quakers and other groups. At least one can say for sure, that they are Christians, whose baptism and lack of evangelism sets them apart from todays’ Christianity. As many other religions they believe, that one must be separated from sin to receive salvation, which can only be achieved through segregation from the world.

In this term paper I will discuss Amish life and maybe come to a conclusion whether they are a parallel society and if not which label suits them best.

2 History

2.1 Swiss Brethren and Anabaptism

Worldwide trading opened the borders to new countries and worldviews and the people started to aim for something new. The 16th Century is also famous for its religious reformers. One of them was Martin Luther, who found the Protestant Church in 1517, whose ideas were later used for reforms in Swiss churches by priest Huldrych Zwingli along with Manz, Grebel and Blaurock. Those three left Zwingli after disagreements concerning their beliefs in 1525. They thought, that the Reformation wasn’t going far enough in distancing itself from the Roman Catholics. That’s why they set up the Swiss Brethren, who rejected infant baptism in favour of believer’s baptism. They chose to be re-baptized as believing adults, who are capable of sin, and said, that the church should not be part of the civil society, wherefore they wanted the separation of religious and civil authorities and that Christians should not serve the civil government. In some way they also were pacifists. The name Anabaptist was given them by their opponents. Anabaptists were already baptized to the Catholic Church, but in January 1525 they started re-baptizing each other, because they believed that baptism is only valid for the ones who understand what it means. The Anabaptists follow Jesus way of life, they live by the principle of forgiving and forgetting. The Catholics, the Protestants and the Calvinists felt threatened by them, because of their position regarding the church’s relation to political power. To stop the threat, re-baptizing became a crime, which was punished by death. This lead to the Radical Reformation, which spread rapidly through Switzerland over to Germany and the Netherlands. The Catholic Church decided to send hunters, who stalked and convicted the Anabaptists back to the church. John Calvin, who spread