Book Review: Chapter 6, “No Other Foundation: Menno Simons,” from Theology of the Reformers by Timothy George

“Menno showed the un-Christlike character of the ‘proponents of the sword philosophy’ and called for a life of nonresistance” (261). He was very much against the short-lived “kingdom” in Munster, although he believed the little lambs had been misled and were without a shepherd. He worked hard to distinguish his ministry from that of those who bore the sword, much as Luther distinguished himself from those leading the Peasants’ Revolt.

“Their practice of adult baptism earned them the name Anabaptist, but they clearly insisted that an experience of the new birth was a prerequisite for water baptism. Baptism sometimes came as the climax of conversion, a process which often involved an intense emotional struggle” (265). But this is no fair summary of all their beliefs. Menno’s doctrine of original sin “sounds very tradition, yet at one decisive point Menno departed from the orthodox doctrine of original sin. While all persons inherited a corrupt nature which inevitably leads to actual sins, the death of Christ on the cross removed the guilt of original sin for everyone! This is one of Menno’s major arguments for not submitting infants to baptism. Although they were capable of neither faith nor baptism, infants were universally in ‘a state of grace’ until they reached the age of ‘shame’ or of the ‘discrimination of good and evil’ ” (268).

There were other differences between him and the magisterial reformers. “Menno, and Anabaptists generally, did not accept Luther’s forensic doctrine of justification by faith alone because they saw it as an impediment to the true doctrine of a ‘lively’ faith which issues in holy living” (269). He tried to steer a ship between the works righteousness of Romanism and free righteousness by faith. “Menno shared with all adherents of the Radical Reformation a stiff aversion to the twin doctrines of predestination and bondage of the will” (271). Regarding Scripture, “Menno accepted the apocryphal writings as canonical. The Reformation principle of sola scriptura raised a new the question of the canonicity of the Bible” (277). They sought to implement “New Testament churches,” and so they “denied the legitimacy of [appealing] to the Old Testament” in support of doctrines, like infant baptism (276).

Menno also departed orthodox Christology. Menno’s view of the incarnation can be summarized in that “Jesus Christ was conceived in Mary through or from the Holy Spirit, but He was born out of Mary and not from Mary. . . . Mary contributed nothing to the origin of Jesus’ human nature” (283). He considered the heavenly Seed to have been implanted in Mary and to have grown in her, obviously not having a modern scientific understanding to provide a corrective measure. Regarding the Christian’s relation to the state, “Menno and the Anabaptists denied the legitimacy of the corpus christianum, whereby church and society formed an organic unity and religion was undergirded by the coercive power of the state” (286). “In Anabaptist thinking, the authority of internal governance [the ban, discipline] was in some sense parallel to the power of the magistrate” (295).

Three “major emphases” of Anabaptism may be identified: “(1) a new conception of the essence of Christianity as discipleship; (2) a new conception of the church as a brotherhood; (3) a new ethic of love and nonresistance. . . . For Menno following rather than faith was the great word of the Christian life” (304). This is without doubt demonstrated in the writings and hymns of the Anabaptist tradition which highlights bearing the cross and following Jesus in martyrdom.