John Calvin or Menno Simons?

I still have trouble understanding why some Baptists have such a love affair with John Calvin, the Reformation and Reformed Theology, seeing none of these are linked with Baptist history or heritage. Calvin had no love for the Baptists, nor did the Reformers (with the exception of Erasmus). In my readings, I would think that Baptists would be better served with looking toward men like Menno Simons and groups like the Reformation-era Anabaptists, the Mennonites and the Brethren groups.

Comparing Menno Simons with John Calvin reveals a world of difference and theological attitudes.

1. Menno never persecuted anyone while Calvin did.
2. Menno never had anyone put to death while Calvin did.
3. Menno was every bit a scholar as was Calvin.
4. Menno held to religious liberty while Calvin did not.
5. Menno opposed state churches while Calvin didn’t.
6. Menno made a cleaner break with Rome than Calvin did.
7. Menno suffered more persecution than Calvin did (Calvin faced some early in his life, before he came under the protection of a state church, an advantage Menno never had).
8. The Mennonites are much closer to modern Baptists than are the Protestants.

Baptists really should look toward Menno, and the Brethren/Anabaptist/Brethren groups rather than the Reformed Protestants for our inspiration and historical instruction. After all, we are all related theologically, while the same cannot be said of any Baptist relationship with the Calvinistic branch of the Reformation.

I have really come to appreciate the Mennonite/Brethren groups more over the years as a genuine Pilgrim/Remnant movement in church history. Naturally, they have their problems today (who doesn’t?) and no human theological group is perfect. I am well familiar with Menno’s struggles over some issues of Christology. But Calvin had many theological errors as well, such as his teachings of predestination and election, so neither man was perfect theologically. But what a world of difference in reading Calvin and Menno Simons! Menno is not forever quoting Augustine and his language is more more Christian than is Calvin’s. Calvin could almost sound like Peter Ruckman in attacking his enemies. Menno displayed a much better Christian spirit in his life and writings.

Part of my appreciation of the Mennonite/Brethren groups may come from a close geographic association I have with them. There is a sizable Mennonite and Amish population here in central Delaware and I spend a lot of time in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. I’ve always believed that the true “Bible Belt” in the United States is not “down south” but runs from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to near Philadelphia, through southern Pennsylvania, where there is a higher percentage of these Baptistic groups. Mennonites and the Brethren are my spiritual “cousins” and I can have a much deeper affinity with them than I could every hope to have with Martin Luther or John Calvin.

Reformation Day- So What?

One truth of Church History is that Baptists are not Protestants. We pre-dated the Reformation due to our association with the Donatists, Waldensians and other groups. This goes for our spiritual cousins, the Mennonites and Anabaptists. Baptists have nothing to do with Luther, Calvin and the rest of the bunch. Since most Protestants of that era hated Baptist people and even persecuted them (how many Anabaptists were martyred by Protestants?), why should Baptist people “celebrate” Reformation Day? It is a day for the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Methodists, etc, not Baptists. Whenever a Baptist identifies as a Protestant, he forgets his grand and glorious heritage that has very little to do with the Reformers.

Of course, the Reformers were only partially “reformed” as they maintain many Roman Catholic doctrines and practices, including infant baptism, baptism by pouring or sprinkling, state churches, persecution, among others. They went so far, then they stopped when they achieved some degree of political power and independence. Only the non-Reformed Baptists were totally separated from Rome in doctrine and practice. Only the Baptists can be said to be truly “reformed” as only the Baptists made the clean and total break from Rome early on (as early as the 3rd century). The current idol of neo-fundamentalism, John Calvin, worshipped at the foot of the Roman Catholic Augustine, persecuted his theological opponents, ran Geneva like a Soviet gulag and did nothing to advance the ideals of religious freedom. Why celebrate that?