Anabaptist View of the History of the Church

It is not hard to sympathize with the 16th century Anabaptist impulse to write off more than a thousand years of church history. The Anabaptist reformers looked back to the pre-Constantinian era in which the church as a persecuted diaspora engaged in unprecedented mission activity as a source for inspiration and imitation. In his latest magnum opus, Diarmaid MacCulloch's has written a comprehensive history of  Christianity from its Hebrew origins to its present expansion throughout the developing world. His monumental Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years is a fascinating and yet somewhat dispiriting history of Christianity. It is fascinating in the sense that the history of Christianity is peopled with characters of all kinds, from the merely venal to the pious to the utterly diabolical. All this is the stuff of humanity and humanity is inherently fascinating. From saints to villains, from monks to kings, from women to men, the "rogues' gallery" of the Christian church compares with any other religion. No, the church through the ages described here never was the fellowship of the pure nor the remnant of the righteous no matter what the intentions of pious individuals were. That is not the dispiriting element about MacCulloch's book. What is dispiriting to me is his description of the cynical use of power and position by the crown and ruling class to co-opt the church in their quest for influence, prestige and power. Not only that but then the Church then develops its theology and church government as a way of enlarging its own political, economic and spiritual domination over not only nations and rulers but over the simple peasants who looked to it for spiritual direction and hope. The Church learned its lessons well. MacCulloch's description of the medieval church and the development of sacramental theology to extend the grip of the clergy into every facet of one's life suggests a calculating, power-hungry institution. Even the "heroes" I had in Christian history, Augustine of Hippo, Jerome, Gregory the Great, seemed to have less charity then I remember.

I can well imagine the Anabaptists, the spiritual "step-children" of Luther, Zwingli and Calvin looking at the incredible edifice of the Church and wondering how in God's name that beast grew out of the words and life of Jesus. No wonder there arose the hue and cry to return to the Scriptures. Anabaptists believed that the Scriptures should be read in a thorough-going way in which not only one's spiritual destiny was addressed but also one's life. They wanted not the "half-hearted" readings of the other Reformers which stopped before the level of praxis, leaving ecclesial power still concentrated in the hands of the state and spiritual power in the hands of the clergy. Rather they wanted a deep and wholistic reading which took the claims of Jesus seriously and offered a new vision of the spiritual life, the life of a disciple following Jesus. Of course, the Anabaptists weren't entirely successful either. Their spirituality was not pristine; far from it. But their call to return to the documents of the origins of Christian faith, the Christian Scriptures, was long overdue and it is a call which I maintain still echoes today.