Brian Hamilton

The Identity of Arrogance and Courage

• Grebel, Conrad, et al. “Letters to Thomas Muntzer,” in Spiritual and Anabaptist Writers, G.H. Williams and A.M. Mergal, eds. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1957: 71-85.
• Snyder, C. Arnold. From Anabaptist Seed: The Historical Core of Anabaptist-Related Identity. Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press, 1999.

Grebel’s letter to Müntzer, which Klaassen almost casually calls the founding document of Anabaptism, turns out to be the overzealous and even arrogant quibbles of a young man, desperately eager to be a player in the religious goings-on of his day. His introduction is humble enough, or at least it might have been had he not launched from there into an extended criticism against Muntzer’s extraordinary abuses: use of congregational singing (“we find nothing taught in the New Testament about singing, no example of it”) and a stone inscription of the Ten Commandments (“now in the New [Testament the law] is to be written on the fleshly tablets of the hearts”). Here we are, at the threshold of devastating religious upheaval, and Grebel is crying over congregational singing—not to mention on terribly incoherent grounds! Those things we would expect to be central, the rejection of the sword and believers baptism, Grebel only mentions in comparison.

But even this disgust at my peer’s seeming desperation cannot hide that invasive awe at his eloquence and courage. I don’t suppose it will make any sense to you that my scoffing could so quickly become praise, yet I cannot begin to imagine the strength necessary to condemn infant baptism as “against the eternal word, wisdom, and commandment of God” (81). Overzealous or not, Conrad (yes, by his first name now) was not ignorant of the consequences. Just four months after writing this letter, he would re-baptize George Blaurock in a confounding political act, putting himself in danger of torture and execution. This was a man, at 26, able to remind a brother in Christ that “if thou must suffer for [our contrary confession], thou knowest well that it cannot be otherwise. Christ must suffer still more in his members. But he will strengthen and keep them steadfast to the end” (84). This was a man, at 26, who anticipated Müntzer’s atrocities and resounded that most terrifying of Christian commitments:

True Christian believers are sheep among wolves, sheep for the slaughter; they must be baptized in anguish and affliction, tribulation, persecution, suffering, and death; they must be tried with fire, and must reach the fatherland of eternal rest, not be killing their bodily, but by mortifying their spiritual, enemies. Neither do they use worldly sword or war, since all killing has ceased with them. (80)

We must admit as a possibility that Anabaptism survived and thrived because of, and not in spite of, these young leaders’ outrageous rhetoric and reckless social engagement. What can we say, though they offend our modern sensibilities of tolerance and patience? How can we act, when arrogance and courage run together so faithfully? We would likely ask the same of Jesus, were we not so willing to ignore his behavior as becoming only to the Christ.

4 September 2005 |
tags: Anabaptist