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The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism

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Gives the historical background, foundation, and progress of the "re-baptizers" as their critics called them. The ministries of the early Anabaptist leaders are followed in detail in both Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. After a historical review of each leader's influence on the movement, the latter half of the book provides a detailed examination of these leaders' positions on matters of doctrine such as infant baptism, the trinity, pacifism, the swearing of oaths, the ban, and civil authority.

Perhaps the most interesting sections of this book relates to the ongoing and violent persecutions which befell the early Anabaptists. Not only the dominant Catholic hierarch but their fellow Reformers made martyrs out of the early Anabaptists. The arguments and misrepresentations made against the Anabaptists by their Catholic and Protestant tormentors helps to define what these people did, in fact, believe in.

A great book for understanding where the Mennonites, Hutterites, and other Anabaptists came from.

This book helps to trace the remarkable strands of this brave movement. All of today's Christians owe a great deal to these pioneers in the demolition of sacralism. Today, if we choose to let our children decide for themselves whether or not to be baptised into the faith, we must credit the people described in this book with the opportunity to do so. As monumental as their thinking was, they are accurately portrayed in this book as the same sort of flawed human beings that we are. The writing is simultaneously sympathetic and honest - an excellent balance.

I read this book for an Anabaptist history class at a denominational school with direct lineage to the Anabapist movement. I myself did not grow up in this tradition, but have grown to love many aspects of it. This book has surely contributed to this. Estep does a great of job cutting out the fluff and writing a straight forward book on the movement. I particularly liked the last section of the book which focused on the probable Anabaptist connection to the Baptists. Since my theology leans more towards Baptist thinking, particularly the Reformed variety, this was most interesting to me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the Anabaptist movement and its contributions to modern Christianity.

This book gives the reader a thorough introduction to anabaptist history in the sixteenth-century. You do not need to be familiar with the anabaptist background in order to read this book,it gives you a complete introduction from scratch. The book covers the different anabaptist directions in Europe,it gives an informative portrait of the various anabaptist leaders and their theological viewpoints while it at the same time covers the prosecutions which the anabaptists suffered from the Catholic and to some extent the Lutheran churches. I strongly recommend this work of literature to those who want a short but informa- tive introduction to anabaptism in the Middle Ages.

In this book, Mr. Estep provides a very interesting overview of those who led the "radical reformation" in the 16th Century. The author does an excellent job of describing the various leaders, churches, communities, and doctrines which were formulated by the "re-baptizers" during this important time in the Church's history. I really learned a lot from this book about the Anabaptists, especially in terms of their doctrine.

I did have two small problems with the book. First, the author is a little too sympathetic to the Anabaptists when defending the formation of their doctrines. Of course, that is his background so this did not come as a complete surprise. Second, the author does not describe the Munster incident in much detail, if at all. It is a little irresponsible as a historian to brush over this significant event in a book about 16th Century Anabaptism.

Despite these two problems - it is a good book which I recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the radical reformation. If you do not know much about this period of Church history, like me, this is a great starting point.

It's hard for us in the United States to believe that people were once attacked by so-called fellow Christians over their views on water baptism that they actually sought to back up their teachings on baptism with the Bible! However, while "death by burning" is not a choice many make today, many do attack those who seek to follow the Bible completely and who believe the Bible is the final Word of God (2 Timothy 3:16-17; 2 Peter 1:16-21).

In this work, Dr. Estep takes us through the history of the Anabaptist tradtion. Where did it start? What doctrines seperated them from other movements? Historically, who has followed in their doctrines and practices? Dr. Estep traces these paths.

The book is not easy reading however. It is a study of history and not theology. While Dr. Estep does touch on theological issues, the majority of the book is on the people involved. It is the story of the anabaptist.

Overall this is a solid work on the Anabaptist movement. You will see the faith of these baptism reformers who sought to take the Church back to the authority of Scripture and be baptised by immersion (Acts 2:38; 8:36-37) as a disciple of Jesus (Matt. 28:19; Mark 16:15-16).

William Estep's The Anabaptist Story takes on a big task, summarizing in a little over 300 pages an incredibly diverse movement from four hundred years ago, a movement that has most of its historical documents written in a different language. The Anabaptists are one of the most reviled and least understood Christian groups and Estep has done them and the broader church a great service with this history. Written in an accessible manner while still being thorough and accurate, Estep shows that the common misconception of the Anabaptists (i.e. that they were kooks and heretic and that the best example of the movement was in the apocalyptic kingdom of Muenster) is false. I have engaged with a number of people who speak negatively about the Anabaptists while never bothering to actually read up on the subject. They would benefit from reading Estep's masterpiece and might find that the Anabaptists are far from heretics. In fact I would suggest that many of their doctrines and practices are far more in keeping with the New Testament than many traditional evangelical churches.

While there is not perhaps a direct line from the 16th century Anabaptists to the free churchers/Baptists we know today, certainly many of their ideals are present. Not merely believers baptism but also church government, the view of the sacraments, the separation of church and state. Many evangelical Christians have no idea the suffering and sacrifice endured by the Anabaptists at the hands of other alleged Christians but Estep brings their story to life. I wish more evangelical Christians would read The Anabaptist Story to see what sort of sacrifices produced the comfortable church culture we live in today, a marked contrast to the day when refusing to baptize an infant would get you ostracized, arrested and often murdered. I also wish more of my Reformed friends would read this book. The Anabaptists are often the whipping boy for many Reformed believers which is ironic because few of them seem to have bothered more than a cursory study of the Anabaptists and the very Reformers many of us idolize were the ones persecuting and even murdering Anabaptists. When you read the story from a different perspective, you start to wonder which of the three major groups in the Reformation (i.e. Roman Catholics, Protestants or Anabaptists) really were reflective of Jesus Christ.

I did quarrel with Estep's assertion that the modern descendants of the Anabaptist of the 16th century have minimal impact on the culture. That may be true of the Amish and to a lesser extent some of the Hutterites, but certainly the Mennonites and other traditional Anabaptists I know are very involved in evangelism and mercy ministries. Other than that quibble, I can heartily recommend The Anabaptist Story to anyone who is interested in church history or the Reformation or who simply wants to know more about the men and women who came before us, taking up their cross and suffering for His sake. The lessons to be learned from the Anabaptists are likely to be very pertinent in the days to come for the followers of Christ.

I was required to read this as part of a class on the reformation of the 16th century. this is by far the best way to start any study of anabaptist history. it is a very quick and enjoyable read. it really is an extraordinary book on the subject.

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