Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Reformation had several strands, including the “Radical Reformation,” which refers to all individuals and groups who rejected both the Roman Catholic tradition and the mainstream Protestant alternatives. Many radicals and their leaders, mostly literate ex-clergy, rejected any connection with the state and any state church. They appealed to the same audience and used some of the same anti-Roman or anti-clerical arguments as did the preachers of the mainstream Reformation, but they had a more popular social base. Often called Anabaptists, or “rebaptizers” by their contemporary Catholic and Protestant enemies, they advocated adult rather than infant baptism and saw the church as a body of saints in which membership was voluntary, and the most severe form of discipline was banning or shunning. In their separation from the temporal domain, many Anabaptist groups refused to serve the state as magistrates or soldiers, and some even refused to pay war taxes. In Switzerland, Anabaptism developed from Conrad Grebel's circle and priests from the outlying areas of Zurich. Seeing the Bible as an alternative authority to Rome, these “Swiss Brethren” sought to purify the city's religion of Catholic elements like the mass and establish self-governing people's churches in the rural communities. They opposed tithes, or the payment of one-tenth of produce as tax to the church. In 1525 their ... log in or subscribe to read full text