Anabaptists
Short answer: Anabaptists were Christians of the sixteenth-century Reformation who believed the New Testament must be obeyed literally by a voluntary, gathered church. From Matthew 5:38-48 they concluded that Jesus forbids personal retaliation, so they refused to bear the sword, swear oaths, or coerce anyone's conscience in matters of faith. They baptized only confessing believers, which is why their opponents called them Anabaptists, meaning rebaptizers. They were not a single organization but a family of movements, including Swiss Brethren, Hutterites, and Mennonites, and later the Amish and others. Their reading of the Sermon on the Mount was not a side issue; it shaped how they treated their enemies, how they related to the state, and how they read the rest of Scripture. Many were executed by both Catholic and Protestant authorities for their convictions, becoming, in the words of the old phrase, the church of the martyr.
What the name Anabaptist actually means
The word comes from Greek roots meaning to baptize again. It was not a name these believers chose for themselves; their opponents gave it to them. At the time, nearly everyone in Europe had been baptized as an infant, and to insist on baptizing a confessing adult was understood as rebaptizing. The accusation stuck, which is why the label still appears in histories written today.
In practice, the movement arose in Zurich in the 1520s among former students of the reformer Ulrich Zwingli. When the city council delayed reform, Conrad Grebel and others baptized each other in 1525, and the Swiss Brethren were born. It is worth noting that the name describes their position on one doctrine, while the broader movement was also marked by discipline, shared goods, and missionary preaching.
So a question like, what is an Anabaptist, has two answers. The narrow answer is someone who rejected infant baptism in favor of believer's baptism. The wider answer is someone who belonged to a church that treated the Sermon on the Mount as a rule of life, not an ideal for a future age. Both answers are needed.
Matthew 5:38-48 and the refusal to retaliate
Jesus begins with the familiar law, and Matthew 5:38 says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.’” The passage then goes beyond retaliation itself to the heart that demands it. Turning the cheek, giving the cloak, and going the second mile are pictured as the normal posture of a disciple, not an extraordinary heroism reserved for saints.
What drew Anabaptists to this text was its closing logic: love your enemies, and you will be sons of your Father in heaven. The command is not merely to restrain anger but to imitate the character of God, who sends rain on the just and the unjust. If God treats his enemies with generosity, his children cannot treat theirs with vengeance.
Anabaptist writers concluded that this teaching ruled out carrying the sword for personal defense, serving as a magistrate who executes judgment, and joining military campaigns. Faithful Christians have differed on how directly this applies to the state and to the offices a believer may hold. Anabaptists did not usually deny that government has a role in restraining evil; they denied that they themselves could take that role while following Jesus.
Where the movement began and how it spread
The first congregation formed in Zurich, but persecution scattered the believers quickly. From Switzerland the convictions traveled along the Rhine into southern Germany, into the Low Countries, and into Moravia, where the Hutterites developed community of goods. In the Netherlands, Menno Simons organized congregations that survived when many other groups were crushed, and Mennonites still carry his name.
Later migrations took these churches to Russia, then to the Americas, and to other regions. The Amish came from a later division among Swiss Anabaptists in the 1690s over questions of discipline and separation. Today the family is diverse: some groups are highly separated from surrounding culture, and others are thoroughly integrated, running schools, relief agencies, and missionary societies.
It is misleading to treat all of them as one thing. A conservative Amish congregation and an urban Mennonite congregation may share a name and an ancestry but differ on dress, technology, and much else. The common thread is a gathered church, voluntary membership, and a serious reading of Jesus' teaching, not uniformity in practice.
Believer's baptism and the gathered church
Anabaptists reasoned that baptism in the New Testament follows repentance and faith. A baby cannot repent or believe, so the sign should wait for the reality it points to. This was not a minor adjustment; it meant that the entire population was not automatically the church. The church became a body of people who had chosen to belong, which then made church discipline meaningful.
That shift had social consequences. In a society where citizenship, guild membership, and legal standing were tied to the parish, refusing infant baptism could look like refusing society itself. Authorities often treated the refusal as sedition, which is one reason the penalties were so severe. The issue was not simply a ritual but who counts as a member of Christ's body.
Acts 4:18-20 records the apostles facing a similar pressure. “They called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.” The apostolic answer was that they must obey God rather than men. Anabaptists read their own situation through that scene and concluded that a magistrate cannot command the conscience.
The sword, the oath, and the magistrate
Alongside nonresistance, Anabaptists commonly refused to swear oaths, taking Jesus' teaching about plain yes and no as binding, and refused to hold offices that required the sword. This was not contempt for order. It was a conviction that the Christian's weapons are not carnal and that the church advances by witness, not by power, whether the power is the sword or the state church.
Paul's instruction in Romans 12:17-21 shaped this. “Repay no one evil for evil. Respect what is honorable in the sight of all men.” The passage goes on to place vengeance in God's hands and to command feeding a hungry enemy. Anabaptists took that as a description of ordinary Christian life, not a counsel of perfection for a spiritual elite.
This created genuine difficulty. Could a Christian serve as a judge, a soldier, or a mayor? Some Anabaptist groups allowed members to hold minor offices that did not involve capital judgment; others forbade all of it. The disagreement persists among their descendants and among other Christians who admire the tradition. Honest readers should acknowledge that the New Testament does not spell out every case, and that godly people have reached different conclusions.
Why so many were executed, and by whom
The sixteenth century was not a time of religious tolerance anywhere in Europe. Rulers generally assumed that a single church was necessary for public order, and both Catholic and Protestant authorities enforced that assumption with law and force. Anabaptists, by rejecting infant baptism and the state church, appeared to deny the foundation of the whole arrangement.
They were drowned, beheaded, and burned across Switzerland, Germany, the Low Countries, and beyond. The first martyr often named is Felix Manz, executed in Zurich in 1527. A few decades later, Menno Simons wrote in defense of a movement that had already lost many of its first leaders. Popular accounts sometimes say more people died than we can document; the records are incomplete, and it is better to speak of many than to invent a number.
It is also honest to note that a violent episode at Münster in the 1530s, where a radical group seized the city and imposed a reign of terror, was used to tar all Anabaptists with the same brush. Menno and others explicitly rejected that path. Persecuted groups are not automatically innocent, and Anabaptists themselves have had to distinguish their convictions from the fanaticism of a few.
The Lord's Supper and a shared life
Anabaptists treated the Lord's Supper as a church ordinance rather than a mystical sacrifice and connected it closely with the commitment of the congregation. It was a meal of a gathered, disciplined body, often preceded by examination and reconciliation among members. The bread and cup were signs and seals, received by faith, not a re-sacrifice offered by a priest.
Paul's account in 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 anchored this practice. “For I received from the Lord that which also I delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took bread.” The words of institution were read and applied directly to the assembly, which meant that unworthy participation was a serious matter and that the meal bound the members to one another and to Christ's death until he comes.
The Hutterites went further, holding goods in common after the pattern of the early Jerusalem church. Other groups stopped short of full community of property but practiced generous mutual aid. Their descendants still run relief and service agencies, and the impulse is consistent: a church that refuses the sword has to care for its own and for strangers in concrete ways rather than in words alone.
What Anabaptists can and cannot teach us today
Every generation of believers has to decide how to read the Sermon on the Mount and how to relate to the state, and Anabaptists offer a serious, tested answer. They remind us that the church is a body of confessing people, that Jesus' teaching about enemies is not embarrassing, and that discipleship can be costly in ordinary ways, not only in dramatic ones.
At the same time, their tradition has real tensions. A separated church can drift toward pride or toward legalism. A refusal to bear the sword raises the question of who then protects the innocent. Faithful Christians have answered that question differently, and the differences do not track neatly along denominational lines. Anyone learning from Anabaptists should be willing to say where they are persuaded and where they are not.
The safest lessons are the plain ones. Baptism should be joined to faith and repentance. Church membership should mean something. Enemies are to be loved rather than repaid. And if the teaching of Jesus is true, then taking it seriously is not fanaticism but obedience, whether or not it ever costs us anything visible.
Biblical fidelity check
Matthew 5:38-48 genuinely commands a posture of non-retaliation and love for enemies, and it grounds that command in the character of God. What it does not do is settle every question of politics, policing, or warfare. Jesus is addressing his disciples about their personal conduct and the kingdom that is breaking in; he is not offering a constitutional theory of the state. Paul elsewhere speaks of governing authorities and the sword in Romans 13, and Anabaptists themselves acknowledged that tension rather than hiding it.
A common misreading is that the Sermon on the Mount is merely an impossible ideal meant to drive us to grace, so it cannot be a command for life now. That reading empties the passage of its plain imperatives and makes Jesus say the opposite of what he says. Another misreading is that Anabaptists were simply pacifists in a modern political sense; their convictions were shaped by a gathered church and a literal reading of Scripture, not by later ideologies. Both errors flatten a text and a history that deserve care.
Other passages that speak to Matthew 5:38-48
The theme of a church united and called by God runs through 1 Corinthians, and these studies explore it: What Does 1 Corinthians 1:10 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, What Does 1 Corinthians 1:9 Mean? Context, Theology, and Application, 1 Corinthians 1: Called, United, and Boasting in the Lord, and 1 Corinthians 10: Warnings and Freedom.
Frequently asked questions
What did Anabaptists believe about baptism?
They held that baptism is for those who have heard the gospel, repented, and believed, so they rejected the infant baptism that was universal in their setting and baptized confessing adults instead. Their opponents called this rebaptism, which is where the name Anabaptist came from. They saw baptism as a sign of an inward reality already present through faith, closely tied to joining a disciplined congregation, rather than a rite that automatically made a person a Christian by birth into a Christian society.
Why were Anabaptists persecuted?
Mostly because they rejected the state church and infant baptism, which authorities viewed as the glue holding society together. In a century with almost no religious toleration, that looked like rebellion, and both Catholic and Protestant rulers used force against them. Many were drowned, beheaded, or burned. It is also true that a violent radical takeover at Münster in the 1530s was blamed on all Anabaptists, even though most groups and leaders, including Menno Simons, rejected it outright.
Are Anabaptists the same as Mennonites and Amish?
Mennonites and Amish are descendants of the early Anabaptist movement, along with Hutterites and several other groups. Mennonites trace their organized identity to Menno Simons in the Netherlands. The Amish came from a later division among Swiss Anabaptists in the 1690s over discipline and separation from the surrounding culture. So the terms overlap but are not identical: Anabaptist is the broad family name, while Mennonite and Amish name specific branches with their own histories and practices.
