By Frank Ramirez
The temperature on the thermometer read two degrees below zero as hundreds of Anabaptists of all persuasions (and garb) gathered for worship the evening of Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2025, at College Mennonite Church in Goshen, Ind. It was 500 years to the day after a small group of believers met in a private home in Zurich to study scripture together and perform baptisms, an event considered the beginning of the Anabaptist movement.
Anabaptism, a movement that includes many different denominations including the Church of the Brethren, is distinguished by emphases on believer’s baptism, obedience to the words of Jesus, and imitation of his actions including loving one’s enemies, nonviolent resistance to evil, and emphasis on the community of believers.
The evening’s service was titled “Looking Back, Living Forward: A Worship Service Celebrating 500 Years of Anabaptist Faith and the Launch of the Anabaptist Community Bible.” The study Bible includes comments in the margins written by Anabaptist scholars, voices from the past, and the contributions of over 600 churches from around the world including many Church of the Brethren congregations.
John D. Roth, project director of “Anabaptism at 500” for MennoMedia, spoke about the arrival of Ulrich Zwingli in Zurich, the development of the Reformation in that city, and the motto, “For God’s sake do something courageous.” Ultimately, Zwingli took up the sword and led an army in the name of Christ against a Roman Catholic army. At the same time, the core group who had gathered to study the Bible in a private home began a truly radical reformation of Christianity.
“Five hundred years ago, a small group of Zwingli’s former students met to discuss questions of faith.” They set about to live a faith founded in love, to receive baptism, and to remain steadfast even to death. “They gave witness with their love and their lives,” Roth said, adding that they practiced a faith based on the Sermon on the Mount, “an ethic of love, a refusal to swear loyalty oaths, and an alternative version of human relations.”
Below: The choir at the celebration. Photos by Frank Ramirez
Roth asked, “What does it mean to do something courageous for God’s sake today?” Although in many ways our world is much different than it was 500 years ago, Roth noted that some feel the Christian faith is under threat and “in the face of these perceived threats strong voices have emerged for good Christians…to fight fire with fire, to mobilize armies to expand the borders of a Christian nation.” He concluded, “We are here to recognize and to honor a different kind of courage.”
Roth insisted that despite the efforts of some to marginalize Anabaptist distinctives like peace, “our distinctives are not a quirk but at the very heart of the gospel…. We bear witness to the truth of the gospel when we display the courage to love (even) those who don’t deserve it.”
The service included choral music, with one number taught to the choir by Mennonite students from Ethiopia; hymns; reading of scripture; and prayers of dedication for the Anabaptist Community Bible. The several participants included Madalyn Metzger, chief marketing officer at Everence and past moderator of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference.
— Frank Ramirez is a retired pastor and ordained minister in the Church of the Brethren, a writer and frequent contributor to Newsline, Messenger, and Brethren Press.
Purchase the Anabaptist Community Bible through Brethren Press at www.brethrenpress.com/searchresults.asp?search=anabaptist+community+bible
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