Pilgram Marpeck

Pilgram Marpeck PDF

Author: Stephen B. Boyd

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1992-07-22

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780822311003

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This intellectual and social history is the first comprehensive biography of Pilgram Marpeck (c. 1495 - 1556), a radical reformer and lay leader of Anabaptist groups in Switzerland, Austria, and South Germany. Marpeck's influential life and work provide a glimpse of the theologies and practices of the Roman Church and of various reform movements in sixteenth-century Europe. Whereas many leaders of radical religious groups at the time were clerics, educators, or artisans, Marpeck came to this role as a former civil mining magistrate. Drawing on extensive archival data documenting Marpeck's professional life, as well as his numerous published and unpublished writings on theology and religious reform, Stephen B. Boyd traces Marpeck's transition from mining magistrate to Anabaptist leader, establishes his connections with various radical social and religious groups, and articulates aspects of his social theology. Boyd demonstrates that Marpeck's distinctive and eclectic theology focused on the need for personal, uncoerced conversion. It rejected state interference in the affairs of the church, denied the need for a monastic withdrawal from the secular world, and called for the Christian's active pursuit of justice before God and among human beings.

The Writings of Pilgram Marpeck

The Writings of Pilgram Marpeck PDF

Author: Pilgram Marbeck

Publisher: Kitchener, Ont. : Herald Press

Published: 1978

Total Pages: 628

ISBN-13:

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This extensive collection of Pilgram Marpeck’s writings, translated and edited by Walter Klaassen and William Klassen, is the most complete English volume of this popular early Anabaptist’s writings.

Marpeck: A Life of Dissent and Conformity

Marpeck: A Life of Dissent and Conformity PDF

Author: William Klassen

Publisher: MennoMedia, Inc.

Published: 2008-09-24

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0836198328

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During the 16th century’s tumultuous years of religious reformation and revolution, Pilgram Marpeck consistently but discreetly stood up to the ruling powers, calling for freedom of religion and separation of church and state. Walter Klaassen and William Klassen, editors of The Writings of Pilgram Marpeck, have deeply mined Marpeck’s writing and dialogue with other Reformation leaders. They place his life, work, and theology in the context of his violent, changing times. This thorough biography shows how Marpeck, perhaps more than any other early Anabaptist figure, helped lay the theoretical and practical foundations of the believers church.

Covenant and Community

Covenant and Community PDF

Author: William Klassen

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2021-01-26

Total Pages: 213

ISBN-13: 1725286181

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One of the problems in interpreting the Bible has always been the question of how much freedom the interpreter is allowed to take with the text. In approaching this problem William Klassen decided that at no point in the history of the church was this question raised as urgently as in the sixteenth century. The recent discovery of a number of writings by Pilgram Marpeck, an outstanding leader among the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century, made him a logical point of departure for this study. Accordingly, the book begins with a brief description of Marpeck’s life and writings, then moves on to an analysis of the two central concepts in his theology––the covenant and the Christian community. For Marpeck, the covenant is determined by Christ, and not by the Old Testament, and so the interpreter must take very seriously the way in which Jesus Christ has illuminated all of scripture. In addition, the interpreter works within a community, a community of people who have covenanted with each other to follow Christ. The covenant is taken very seriously within the community, requiring a different approach to holy scripture from that adopted by the individualist. After his analysis of Marpeck’s theology, Klassen proceeds to examine the relationship of this sixteenth-century discussion to present hermeneutical debates. It is noted for example, that certain religious groups have had a great deal of difficulty coming to agreement on the relation of the old and the new covenants, and that in many seminaries today it is the major theological question. But the nature of the Christian community is also one which directly affects each congregation. Therefore the book addresses itself not only to the trained theologian, but to the congregation which seeks to take seriously its mandate to study the Bible.

A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology

A Contemporary Anabaptist Theology PDF

Author: Thomas N. Finger

Publisher: InterVarsity Press

Published: 2010-02-26

Total Pages: 610

ISBN-13: 9780830878901

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In this comprehensive volume Thomas N. Finger takes on the formidable task of making explicit the often implicit theology of the Anabaptist movement and then presenting, for the sake of the welfare of the whole contemporary Christian church, his own constructive theology. In the first part Finger tells the story of the development of Anabaptist thought, helping the reader grasp both the unifying and diverse elements in that theological tradition. In the second and third parts Finger considers in more detail the major themes essential to Anabaptist theology, first considering the historic views and then presenting his own constructive effort. Within the Anabaptist perspective Finger offers a theology that highlights the three dimensions of its salvific center: the communal, the personal and the missional. The themes taken up in the final part form what Finger identifies as the convictional framework of that center; namely, Christology, anthropology and eschatology. This book is a landmark contribution of Anabaptist theology for the whole church in biblical, historical and contemporary context.

A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace

A Pilgrimage of Justice and Peace PDF

Author: Fernando Enns

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2023-04-05

Total Pages: 496

ISBN-13: 166671383X

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This edited volume includes contributions by scholars, ministers, artists, and NGO workers from around the world who are interested in topics of Mennonitism, peacebuilding, and theologies of nonviolence. The papers published together here reflect the richness and diversity of peacebuilding interests and approaches within the current global Mennonite family and offer interdisciplinary explorations of peace and conflict with attention to historical, theological, and lived perspectives. The book includes papers based upon research and insights that were shared at the Second Global Mennonite Peacebuilding Conference and Festival (2019) at Mennorode in the Netherlands. The findings presented here are structured thematically with attention to key points of current concern and research--including, among others, studies on historical and current peacebuilding efforts pertaining to migration and refugee care, ecological justice, gender justice, interreligious dialogue, church-state relations, and racial justice.

Nonviolent Word

Nonviolent Word PDF

Author: J. Denny Weaver

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2020-02-21

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 1725257017

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This book displays how the nonviolent Word of God made visible in Jesus Christ is expressed in the contemporary idiom of the peaceable grain of the universe. Moving between historic Anabaptist understandings of Jesus as revealing the “Word of God” and more recent expressions of Jesus as disclosing the “grain of the universe,” the book invites a reading of Scripture centered in Jesus’ life and teachings as told by the narratives of the New Testament. This approach to the Bible discovers there a persuasive witness to the power of nonviolent action in both historic movements and contemporary settings. Beginning with the radical wing European Reformation, the book explores how new understandings of biblical authority expressed in the language of that era have relevance now over five centuries later when stated in a contemporary language for evangelical, ecumenical, and anti-racist Christian witness. To that end, chapters in Part One explore how Reformation-era Anabaptists expanded or went beyond the received understandings of Scripture and Word in confronting their crises. In Part Two the chapters apply this expanded understanding of the Word to contemporary understandings of the Bible and theology, dialogue across black-white lines, and in nonviolent witness and activism.

Interfaces Baptists and Others

Interfaces Baptists and Others PDF

Author: David Bebbington

Publisher: Authentic Media Inc

Published: 2014-07-08

Total Pages: 415

ISBN-13: 1780783140

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The book is a collection of twenty-one essays discussing how Baptists throughout the world have related to other Christians and to other institutions and movements over the centuries. The theme of this collection of twenty-one essays, 'Baptists and Others', includes relations with other Christians and with other institutions and movements. What, the authors ask, has been the Baptist experience of engaging with different groups and developments? The theme has been explored by means of case studies, some of which are very specific in time and place while others cover long periods and more than one country. In the first half the contents are arranged by period. The first section examines early Baptists, the second nineteenth-century Baptists in Britain and America and the third Baptists in the twentieth century. The second half turns to various parts of the world. There is a section on Australia, another on New Zealand and a third on Asia and Africa. The overall picture is one of a complicated series of relationships as Baptists defined themselves as different from other bodies and yet, especially in the twentieth century, tried to co-operate in mission and ecumenical endeavour. 'Baptists are often regarded as enthusiastic separatists and unenthusiastic ecumenists. These essays, based on hard evidence rather than passing impressions, are a necessary correction to superficial prejudices and show the reality to be much more complex and nuanced, as well as varied over time and place. The book is a smorgasbord of delights. Yet, readers should avoid the temptation to pick and choose from the menu, ensuring rather that each offering is digested so they enjoy a balance and nutritious meal.' Derek Tidball

Profiles of Anabaptist Women

Profiles of Anabaptist Women PDF

Author: C. Arnold Snyder

Publisher: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press

Published: 2010-10-30

Total Pages: 464

ISBN-13: 1554587905

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During the upheavals of the Reformation, one of the most significant of the radical Protestant movements emerged — that of the Anabaptist movement. Profiles of Anabaptist Women provides lively, well-researched profiles of the courageous women who chose to risk prosecution and martyrdom to pursue this unsanctioned religion — a religion that, unlike the established religions of the day, initially offered them opportunity and encouragement to proselytize. Derived from sixteenth-century government records and court testimonies, hymns, songs and poems, these profiles provide a panorama of life and faith experiences of women from Switzerland, Germany, Holland and Austria. These personal stories of courage, faith, commitment and resourcefulness interweave women’s lives into the greater milieu, relating them to the dominant male context and the socio-political background of the Reformation. Taken together, these sketches will give readers an appreciation for the central role played by Anabaptist women in the emergence and persistence of this radical branch of Protestantism.