The nuttiest of the 16th century were, without question, the Anabaptists. Philip Schaff does a fine job of describing why-
The early history of the Anabaptists exhibits a strange chaos of peaceful reforms and violent revolutions—separatism, mysticism, millenarianism, spiritualism, contempt of history, ascetic rigor, fanaticism, communism, and some novel speculations concerning the body of Christ as being directly created by God, and different from the flesh and blood of other men.
We’ll get to their modern counterparts in due course. For now, Schaff continues
They were Protestant radicals, who rejected infant baptism as an invention of the Roman Antichrist, and aimed at a thorough reconstruction of the Church. They spread mostly among the laboring classes.
Unsurprisingly
Some of their preachers had no regular education, despised human learning, and relied on direct inspiration;
But fortunately for them
… others were learned and eloquent men, as Grebel, Manz, Hetzer, Hübmaier, Denk, Röublin, and Rothmann.
It was this sort of Anabaptist that arrived in Münster in early 1534 and followed their learned Pastor Rev. Rothmann.
If only the people of Münster had continued to listen to Rothmann. Unfortunately, they instead began listening to the maniacal and ignorant baker (dilettante) Jan Matthijs. When Matthijs was joined by John Beukels of Leiden the two of them led the city to destruction. Matthijs, the super-dilettante, declared that Christ would return there, led the re-baptizers to take control of the city, decided that it was the New Jerusalem, and set himself up as King. He enacted a policy of polygamy and burned every book in the city library except the Bible. Communal ownership was introduced and so was wife swapping. Anyone who rejected his insanity was exiled or expelled. Over 2000 were forced out.
When the Princes of the territories adjoining the city learned of the lunacy taking place there Catholics and Protestants joined forces (!) and attacked the city on the 4th of April, 1534. Matthijs was so convinced of his chosen-ness that he thought God had made him invincible. So, he led troops from the safety of the city’s walls to the field of battle and was almost immediately killed by the United German forces.
Unfortunately that wasn’t the end of the matter, as the previously mentioned John Beukels (a failed tailor’s apprentice) named himself king in replacement of Matthijs. He enacted even stricter regulations (think Sharia law but 100 times worse) and made polygamy compulsory.
During his ‘davidic reign’ (as he styled it) the city remained under siege. Famine ensued, naturally, and eventually the United German forces breached the wall and slaughtered nearly everyone. Rothmann died in battle but Beukels was captured. It had taken 16 months to bring the city to its knees and the Princes of the United army were in no mood for mercy. Beukels was publicly and vigorously tortured to death even though he partially recanted. Then his body was placed in a cage and hung from the tower of St. Lambert’s church as a fitting warning.
This explains why all of Europe came to see the Anabaptists as completely untrustworthy and dreadfully dangerous. Schaff continues
They [the Anabaptists] were regarded as a set of dangerous fanatics, who could not be tolerated under a Christian government. Their supposed or real connection with the Peasant War, against the tyranny of landholders (1524), and with the bloody and disastrous excesses at Münster (1534), increased the opposition.
Yeah no kidding. When you think 16th century nuts, you are virtually forced to think of Rothmann, Matthijs, and Münster.
Their doctrines were condemned in the Lutheran and Reformed Confessions. The Reformers, even the mildest among them (Melanchthon, Bucer, Bullinger, and Cranmer, as well as Luther, Zwingli, and Calvin), felt that their extermination was necessary for the salvation of the churchly Reformation and social order.
With good reason, if the events described above are any indication.
And yet they must have known worthy men among them; Calvin himself married the widow of an Anabaptist pastor. Protestant and Roman Catholic magistrates vied with each other in cruelty against them, and put them to death by drowning, hanging, and burning.
Because, as far as 16th century Europe was concerned, the Anabaptists were a cancer which could not be allowed. It must be excised or the Christianity itself would be destroyed.
When I think of people who would be the end of Christianity (were it possible to end Christianity) if they were set free to do so, the names of Matthijs and Beukels spring to mind. They are the quintessential Anabaptists and their modern counterparts, the ‘spiritualists’ and ‘emergents’ are equally dangerous though far more subtle in their demonic mission.
Indeed, what Matthijs and his kind were to the 16th century, emergent ‘christianity’ is to ours. Both abandon Scripture and set themselves up as the final authority. You show me an emergent, and I’ll show you Jan Matthijs.
