"One Bad Thread" - from The Radicals

My July 4th tribute. Should serve as catalyst for rethinking the relationship of church and state... and that mysterious thing called baptism.




This video clip collage is taken without permission from the excellent and thought provoking film titled The Radicals. Please seriously consider purchasing the DVD for 15$ from www.visionvideo.com (search there for keyword of "radicals").

The "one bad thread" that is woven through the last 1,700 years of church history is that of adding man's authority to the church life. This film did a great job of showing this drama from three angles in 16th century Switzerland. It's a great introduction to the radical reformation. This collage ends with the forming of the Schleitheim Confession.

Adapted from the DVD jacket:

The year is 1525. Michael and Margaretha Sattler have fled their Catholic orders. They seek to restore the church to the purity of its earliest days when communities of believers practiced peace, endurance, compassion and sacrificial love. The Sattlers join a group called the Anabaptists (the twice-baptized in a time when an adult baptism was an act of treason against the state) and together challenge the 1,000 year control of the Church by the State. They call for baptism to once again become, not a mark of citizenship, but an adult and voluntary decision to follow Christ. As their movement grows, so does the determination of their enemies (both Protestant and Catholic) to stop them by any means necessary. In 1527, Michael is burned at the stake and Margaretha drowned.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• anabaptists
• schleitheim
• baptism
• church
• radical
• reformation
• early

[cthaun]

It might be fair to say that many modern evolutions of Anabaptist Christianity have adopted a "social gospel" rather than a by grace alone through faith alone based on the the penal substitutionary atonement. However, many in the Anabaptist flow also would probalby say their version of evangelism is more hard core than that of most Evangelicals. They're more interested in quality rather than quantity? Many evangelicals have opted for the "just ask Jesus into your heart" nonsense gospel.

[cthaun]

Eden? Hardly.

Like sheep among wolves.

The main character in this video, Michael Sattler, was actually arrested, condemned as a heretic (for the treason/heresy of re-baptism), his tongue was cut out, red hot tongs were used to tear out about seven pieces of his flesh, and then he was burned at the stake. The other men were executed in different ways. The women were drowned (the third baptism). The rebaptists were persecuted by Catholics and by Protestants.

[02Blackbeard]

The Anglican Church is the Establishment at prayer, full of Freemasons, Papists and evil doers.

[droptozro]

great movie exposing the true Biblical Christians versus those who kill thinking they do God a service--though I have a few doctrinal differences with (ana)Baptists---I love reading about their fire... I only pray something of the same comes about again soon within these United States.

[frnz444]

we need another radical reformation today. Anabaptist have gone soft on evangelism. It is time for a change.

[pietzsche]

"They seek to restore the church to the purity of its earliest days when communities of believers practiced peace, endurance, compassion and sacrificial love."

So it's another Eden myth?