Customer Reviews

The Reformers and Their Stepchildren (Dissent and Nonconformity)

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Around 10 years ago I borrowed a copy of this book to read.
After reading it once I borrowed it again to re-read. The author
did a great service in uncovering the European historical records on Christian sects which, during the 400AD to post-Reformation period, were accused as 'heretics' by the 'church'(the one wielding worldly power and influence). It is an excellent scholarly book(the author has the entire text and footnotes in the original languages) covering in detail much of the historical context for the doctrinal fight which the followers of Jesus Christ have had in 'contending the faith' since the Apostle-age. Highly recommended!!- and I hope it's obvious historical value can merit a reprinting.

Leonard Verduin's work, The Reformers and Their Stepchildren, is a rather sweeping work, examining the theology and practice of the Anabaptists (and other reformational and pre-reformational `heretics', all lumped into the general category of "the Reformer's stepchildren"). He explores the historical foundations and reasoning behind all their nicknames by a clever examination of all the slanderous descriptors used in reference to them.

In the first chapter, Verduin delivers an explanation of Donatism in the times of Constantine and examines how many opposed the idea of Christianity becoming the new sacralism of the Protestants. He explains how there always, in some way or another, was a remnant who challenged the institutionalization of the church under Constantine, instead claiming that the true church consisted of only the believers, and how this remnant then emerged in the reformation and was called Donatisten.

The second chapter explores the Stabler, or "staff carriers". He comments on how the Anabaptists and others did not want to allow the state the carry the sword for the purpose of coercing people to belief in the gospel or suppressing heresy, but instead held to an idea of voluntary belief, for which many of them were killed by the state.

The third chapter brings the discussion to the Catharer ("the cleansed"). He states that the Catharer rejected perfectionism but also rejected the idea of conductual-averagism, with was essentially righteousness judged by the `lowest common denominator'. In opposition to this, the Catharer taught that those that claimed to be Christians needed to behave like Christians, and pagan priests were no priests at all.

The fourth chapter examines the Sacramentschwarmer ("Sacramentarians"). Verduin explains that Sacramentarianism was a flat denial of salvation by sacramental manipulation. Beyond that, he comments on how the `stepchildren' opposed the administration of communion as an act that had any power in itself for the administration of grace.

In the fifth chapter Verduin discusses the Winckler ("those who met in the corners"). The Winckler were those who met in `house churches', having unsanctioned communion and religious gatherings. Beyond that, they were those who preached without commission from the church.

The sixth chapter addresses the Wiedertaufer ("Anabaptists"). He explains how the administration of pedo-baptism was an issue of societal control, and interesting how many of the reformers `towed the party line', though they secretly disagreed with the teaching of pedobaptism. Verduin also explains the difference between anti-pedobaptism and anti-Constantinianism, the latter of which was really what was being rebelled against.

Chapter seven observes the Kommunisten ("the community of goods"). He explains how they Kommunisten idea was a reaction to the excessive wealth and pomp of the clergy, who lived in luxury while all other people lived in squalor. Also, he comments on how this idea led to common accusation of the communal sharing of wives.

The eighth chapter closes out the book with examining several of their peculiarities. Verduin talks about the Rottengeister ("people who agitate within a society to form a party") and comments on 4 distinct, separate marks of the `Stepchildren'. He gives time to their refusal of oath taking, Menno Simons neo-docetic views of Christ, cross bearing and suffering and the missionary nature of the Rottengeister.

On the whole, the book was quite a strong work, with strengths that far outweighed the weaknesses. Verduin seemed to take a fairly balanced approach to history, attempting to have objectivity in areas where it would be easy to want to tread lightly out of fear of mass offense. I respected how he admitted some of the failings of Calvin, Luther and the other reformers, and that he admitted how today we would be embarrassed by some of the things that they did and wrote. One can only imagine how any `foul' talk of John Calvin could offend the pants of some people in certain theological circles, but Verduin seemed to be quite accurate and fair in his laying forth of history `as it was'. I also appreciated how he commented on how the reformers were so emotionally involved with the battle of the second front that they were unable to pass a fair judgment on it. It's easy to look back, see all the blood that was shed, and point fingers of judgment (that are fairly deserved). One must remember the time in which those men lived, the unfathomable task of ecclesial reform that was ahead of them, and the threat of death that loomed over them from the Roman Catholic Church. Beyond that, for all the possible finger pointing to the past, one could definitely argue that many from the past could equally point ahead in shame at the modern church that tolerates everything and anything, and places issues that they deemed worthy of defending unto death "on the $.99 menu" of theology.

For all his strengths, Verduin had a weakness or two. He did seem to be superlative with the descriptive language at times. An example is his comparing the medieval church to a totalitarianism, complete with "brainwashing" (45). Leonard may be correct in his assessment, but his articulation carries connotations that seem a little too Hollywood and are easily make the middle ages sound a bit like a comic book. I was also wondering exactly what he meant when he commented how the Old Testament was exceeded by the New (211). Not a big deal (most likely reflecting a covenant theology understanding), but just a question.

On the whole, I found that I learned much from The Reformers and Their Stepchildren. I really appreciated the opening explanation of the sacral society, explaining how a society was "held together by a religion to which all the members of that society are committed" (pg. 23). I also enjoyed the explanation of the idea of idolothyta; how in a sacral society, all meat was placed before an idol (27). He had an interesting take on Constantine's adoption of Christianity as a new sacralism in order to unite the empire (31), and it was certainly interesting how he explained the significance of the Anabaptists speaking, praying and reading the scripture in the vulgar tongue. The most dominant lesson I learned from Verduin was the one that resonates throughout the entire semester: heresy is always accompanied by trifling or acrobatic hermeneutics. With the improvement of proper, applied hermeneutics always comes improvement of doctrine (on paper and in flesh). I must include final thing that I learned:

"When the Waldensians wish to go to their conventicle they first rub an ointment on their palms...as well as on a stick, and ointment supplied to them by the devil. Then they straddle this stick and fly to whatever place they wish to go, over cities and forests and lakes...They congregate about the tables decked with wine and bread. Devils in the form of billy-goats, or dogs or apes are present; sometimes in the form of a man...They worship these, kissing the billy-goat's derriere, with candles in their hands...Then they tread on the cross, spitting on it despite of Jesus Christ and the holy Trinity. Then they present their buttocks to the sky, in derision of God..." (175)

That is definitely something new that I took from Verduin. The Anabaptists were the original 'witches' ('Wicca' in it's modern sense didn't exist back then; 'Wicca' was simply run-of-the-mill 'Paganism'). In one sense, it's simply ludicrous and an entertaining quote, but on another sense it's hard to believe that sane people would invent such bizarre and unbelievable stories in order to attack a deviant sect of theology. The outright propagation of clear and explicit deceit, especially in the form of such `fantasy', amazes me almost as much as the penchant for the proletariat to believe such nonsense. Sadly, that kind of horribly baseless exaggeration exists to this day.

This book is a worthwhile read on the subject of Anabaptism and the Reformers. Rev. Verduin has done considerable research. However, with respect to a related matter, infant baptism, the book contains a flaw. It attributes a quote to the Reformer Zwingli incorrectly. The practice of infant baptism should be cleared of this error. Dialogos Studies has done research into this matter. Don't let this error mislead you!

By the author's own admission, the radical reformers ("the stepchildren") receive a more sympathetic treatment in this book than that which is common. But, as the book amply demonstrates from direct quotes from all sides, there are two good reasons for this treatment: (1) the history as written by the "winners" at the time (the mainline reformers) is largely slanderous--ungenerous and inaccurate; this brings some balance. (2) History has largely proved the radical reformers correct. Little by little, conservative evangelicalism has adopted the very precepts for which these radical reformers stood, and for which they were persecuted--and at times murdered--by the popular heroes of the reformation.

It has given me a great understanding of the historical background of the Reformation, including the pre-Reformation ideals of the radicals that can be traced back to the time of Constantine. It has also given a better understanding of what was at stake and in the minds of the founders of this country where--finally--the great experiment of a non-sacralist state was attempted and blossomed.

It also serves as a warning to all generations that otherwise noble men can have blind spots that make them wrong, embarrassingly wrong, in certain areas. Unfortunately, such men can argue for such false views with just as effective rhetoric as the truth, and lead the impressionable masses to do unspeakable horrors. For the committed evangelical Christian, it is a warning to be wary of those with eloquence of speech and always search the Scriptures as the final authority--much like the radical reformers were committed to.

Since the trend in churches today is fiction and very light doctrine, books of depth and history are all but forgotten. But for any believer who genuinely wants to understand why so many things are the way they are, and not just what they currently are, this book will shed valuable light. Its vocabulary and syntax are meant for the more educated reader, and it is a shame the foreign-language footnotes are not translated for the English-speaking reader, but the message of the book is one that should not be lost. History repeats itself because we forget, and we are very distracted and busy. It is also a valuable resource when debating various points online, as so many have simply presumed that the history taught in seminaries is complete and accurate.

Verduin's thesis in The Reformers and Their Stepchildren is the Church at large should reach back to the "stepchildren" of the Reformation to more fully appreciate the origin and meaning of many of the beliefs about soteriology and ecclesiology that we take for granted today. The author begins his work with a grand introduction, outlining what he has set out to accomplish in his writing and the course he intends to take to illustrate his thesis. In this introductory material, he also explains who the Stepchildren of the Reformers were -Christians who objected to the combination of state and church power-- and why he calls them "stepchildren," rather than some other name.

Once he has introduced his topic, Verduin lays the material out by examining the meaning and background of various terms the Reformers and Catholic churches used to refer to these believers outside their folds. In each case, he describes the theological position the various groups outside the state approved churches took as a reflection of a term of derision.

In his first chapter, called Donatisten, for instance, the author begins at the beginning of the Donatist movement, explaining their origin in relationship to the merging of church and state power under Constantine. Verduin explains while the Church was persecuted, Christians felt no need to align themselves with state power -in fact, they believed themselves to be set apart from the state, using Jesus' statement, "give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and unto God that which is God's," as their basis for taking this view.

With the conversion of the leaders of the Roman Empire to Christianity, however, everyone was made to be a Christian whether or not they liked or believed it. The Christian religion was turned to the same purpose as the Roman religion before it had been, to bring together disparate people into a single body. The Donatists rebelled against this idea, stating this merging actually was a form of a fall, harming the purity of the cause of Christ.
Verduin calls this combination of state and religious power sacrilism, after the concept of sacrilizing an object, or rather making a secular object an object of religious worship or affection. He carries this terminology throughout the rest of the book, with chapters on the name Stabler, Catharer, and others.

The primary strength of Verduin's argument is his command and use of the original source materials combined with his understanding of the problems with combining religious and secular power under a single structure. He understands his topic well, and uses his understanding to present the best possible argument against combining church and state.
The strength of his argument is also undergirded by his ability to understand why the Reformers took the opportunity to combine state and religious power in a single structure; it is easy to look back with disdain on these mistakes, it would have been far harder to undertake a course that is any different in the actual circumstances the Reformers faced.

He is also able to understand and explain the connection between this choice to connect church and state with its theological implications. For instance, the tie between baptism and circumcision was primarily conceived as a way to bring people into a common bond of experience, and the importance of infant baptism related to its value as a rite of passage from outsider to citizen. That baptism became a major battleground between the Reformers and their Stepchildren is no wonder considering the implications for state solidarity placed on the shoulders of the rite of baptism.

The two primary weaknesses of the book are its repetitive nature -primarily brought about because of the organization of the material-- and the final chapter, where the author attempts to construct a case for Christian socialism. Given the climate of the times in which the book was written, the middle of the 1960's, it's understandable Verduin thought socialistic governmental systems were bound to be victorious, and that these systems were actually supported Scripturally. Looking back from the vantage of 50 years of communitarian history, combined with a better understanding of the nature of the book of Acts, today's reader can see the weakness of this argument.

The point Verduin is making throughout this book is of great relevance to the climate of the United States in the first decade of the third century, as well as to my study of Christian history.

The first point I confronted reading this is the modern church must be very careful of using state power to achieve its ends. The more moral the ends might seem, the more strongly the Christian must resist the temptation to use state power to achieve those ends. A careful separation needs to be made between evangelism, theology/ecclesiology, and building a society with acceptable moral boundaries. While the third is a responsibility of the state, the first two are clearly not.

The second point I confronted was the impact of mixing the state and religion on Christianity itself. When the state and Christianity combine, it is always the state, the political power, that wins. Theology is always and ever bent to the shape the state most wants to support the survival of the power of the state itself. This might even be seen in the high decades of church influence in modern America, when there were censors on television and only Protestants could be elected to high office. How much of the thinking of theologians of that time impacted by their desire to use the levers of state power to encourage Christian belief?

Finally, there are grave lessons to be learned in the current state of America, and the probable outcomes of our current trajectory in regards to state and religion. When Christianity was dispensed with as the national religion, it was not replaced by nothing. In Christianity's stead a new secular religion has sprung up. This new religion is using the power of the state to destroy Christianity in a Biblical sense, and replace it with a substitute more acceptable to the continuance of state power in its current form. Christians in America might soon find themselves in the same position as the Stepchildren were in relation to the Reformers in the near future.

A sobering thought indeed.

Leonard Verduin seeks to explore many facets of Anabaptist history, beliefs, and relationship to the mainline Protestant Reformation. He does so by examining a number of derogatory terms applied to Anabaptists by the leaders of the Protestant Reformation (e.g. Luther, Calvin, & Zwingli). The whole book seeks to portray the Anabaptists as existing primarily as a protest against "Christian sacralism": the unscriptural system in which church and state are united (beginning with Constantine, carried forward by the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval period, and emulated by the Protestant Reformers). There is certainly a wealth of historical research here, but there were a few things that took away from my enjoyment of the book.

1. The author views virtually everything about the Anabaptists through the lens of "sacralism vs. separation of church and state" which means he just argues the same point over and over again from slightly different points of view rather than actually examining various facets of the Anabaptists.

2. The author is so obsessed with showing that most groups labeled as "heretics" down through the ages espoused major Anabaptist doctrines that he glosses over major doctrinal aberrations in some of these groups (aberrations that probably would have horrified the Anabaptists).

3. Major quotes in the frequent footnotes are left untranslated. I could pick my way through the French and Latin ones, but I could not read the far more numerous Dutch and German quotes.

Overall: Lots of great historical research, but the author's obsession with the evils of "Christian sacralism" is more on display than the actual history and beliefs of the Anabaptists, and unless you can read Dutch and German you will miss out on many crucial quotes

This book was recommended to me by my pastor, and I actually got it from the publishers - The Baptist Standard Bearer. Amazon sells it for a few bucks less, I think. I have read several works on non-conforming or dissenting Christians, and this one is probably the best so far. Basically, author Leonard Verduin traces Christian dissenters and non-conformists throughout history beginning with Rome becoming a "Christian" empire under Constantine. From then on, he argues, there has always been an underground "Free Church" of believers who have consistently resisted the abuses of the church/state societies of Europe. He gives these dissenters the names "Second Front", "Restorationists", or "Stepchildren of the Reformers." They eventually became known as Anabaptists. Up until very recently, church history has held Anabaptists in contempt, either for being too radical or for espousing outright heresy. They were an embarrassment to the rest of Christendom for their uncompromising views about what the church believes and how it should behave. Verduin's overarching goal is twofold: First, to prove that the Anabaptists have been wrongly maligned because of the gross misunderstanding of their theology and practice. Secondly, he tries to prove that those past and present churches (and specifically the Roman Catholic Church) who either try to dominate or capitulate to secular governments are not true churches (though he never asserts that all members of these churches are not Christians). He says that Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, and the other major Reformers ultimately failed to fully restore the church to it's original and truest form - that of the primitive Christian church. He divides the chapters of the book into 8 basic distinctives of the Anabaptists and their like-minded contemporaries (Waldensians, Donatists, etc.).

Verduin's basic theory throughout the book is not new. It is loosely related to the Old Landmarkist Baptist theory called the "Jerusalem-Jordan-John" (JJJ) hypothesis. Landmarkists claimed that the Baptist church has always been the only true church of Christ, arguing that it was Baptists, though not always in name, who had existed all along since the baptism of Christ by John the Baptist. Of course, this fallacious "JJJ" theory has long since been abandoned by all but the most hardcore Landmarkists. Verduin's more moderate theory here cannot be so easily dismissed. His points are very well documented and he argues for them convincingly.

I gave the book four stars because a novice to this subject would have a rough time reading this if he/she were not familiar with the subject already. Verduin assumes the reader knows much about the Reformation and about theological issues of the day, like transubstantiation, "sacralism", pedo- versus credobaptism, and hermeneutics, to name a few. Overall, along with Estep's "The Anabaptist Story", this is an essential resource for anyone interested in studying the Radical Reformation.

Since time immemorial man has had the God-given drive to be free. Afterall the primairy obligation of man to believe in Christ is impossible unless he experiences in his heart freedom of conscience.
Jesus Christ came to set man free - free from sin and free to choose. Verduin shows how it was Jesus himself Who laid the foundation for freedom of religion and how his faithful followers have always been guardians of this right even to the point of paying the highest price.
This is really is a wonderful book for anybody who cherishes this foundational and God-given right. If you like this book you certainly also want to read The Anatomy of A Hybrid in which Verduin shows in a structured and comprehensive way how God has introduced this right in the world.

This was an amazing book. Contrary to what one reviewer mentioned, I found the book extremely interesting and devoured it in a few days.

This book details the history and developments of Anabaptists and other precursor groups by highlighting derogatory names they were given by the established church. These derogatory names are shown to be elements of what the true church has always been: a Bible obeying, separate, non violent people who preach the Gospel and not "Christian Nationalism."

This book is a great companion to other Anabaptist interests such as "Martyr's Mirror" or "The Anabaptist Vision."

Some of the things the mainstream, popular "reformers" such as Luther, Zwingli, Calvin and others stood for during their lives was atrocious. They promoted and applauded the murder of these Radical Christians and thought they were doing God service at the same time. This book does will in exposing the brutality of those reformers.