Baptism and Citizenship, II

Another quotation from the aforementioned article: "The abolition of compulsory baptism at birth was the most radical kind of sacramental reform ever conceived in the 16th century. In fact, it implied not only separation from the old compulsory Church, but also secession from the State: adult baptism, based on freedom of choice and conscience, brought along with it not only the constitution of a selective church, composed only by the few elected by grace; it also meant separation from the City or the princely community. The choice of voluntary membership in a Baptist community implied the refusal of the territorial basis of the 'multitudinarian' Church, to whom
all inhabitants within a territory must belong: therefore, it implied also secession from membership to the State, to whom all subjects inhabiting the same territory must belong. . . .

"Adult baptism – refusal to belong to the one Church, including all since birth – went along with the refusal to belong to the State and shoulder its duties: to swear the citizenship's oath of fealty, to pay taxes to the State and to serve in its militias. For this reason, Baptists or Täufer were set apart from all other new confessions or new 'heretics'; after an Imperial Order of 1528 they were persecuted with the death penalty, even without legal process and by summary military justice, as being guilty of sedition against both Church and State (laesa maiestas divina et humana). All the different authorities of the Holy Roman Empire, as well as all the States outside it, except perhaps Holland, set Baptists apart in this way, and throughout the 16th century submitted them to the harsh penalty of death as political as well as religious rebels."

Three points: First, the fact that the Reformers retained infant baptism is a sign of their continuity (with revisions) with the medieval vision of Christendom. Second, the claim that modern politics is "Anabaptist" in inspiration is not metaphorical, but a strictly historical judgment. Third, politically, we are all (or virtually all) Anabaptists now, and the intervention of the Anabaptist outlook makes it virtually impossible for us to grasp the political and cultural significance of baptism meant prior to the 16th century.

posted by Peter J. Leithart on Tuesday, February 27, 2007 at 12:23 PM

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