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Course 12 · Lesson 6.3

The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation

11 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 12 outline

Module 1: The Apostolic Fathers and the Early Apologists

  1. Who the Apostolic Fathers were: Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp and the Didache
  2. Church order, worship and martyrdom in the second century
  3. Why Christians wrote apologies: charges, persecution and public defense
  4. Justin Martyr, philosophy and the Logos

Module 2: Irenaeus, Tertullian and Origen

  1. Irenaeus against the Gnostics: the rule of faith and apostolic succession
  2. Tertullian and the beginnings of Latin theology
  3. Origen: biblical scholarship, allegory and speculation
  4. Heresy and orthodoxy: the scholarly debate about early diversity

Module 3: Creeds and Councils: Nicaea to Chalcedon

  1. From baptismal confession to creed
  2. Arius, the Council of Nicaea (325) and Athanasius
  3. The Cappadocian Fathers and the Council of Constantinople (381)
  4. Ephesus (431) and Chalcedon (451): one Christ, two natures
  5. The seven councils and how the churches receive them

Module 4: Augustine, Chrysostom and the Desert

  1. Augustine: life, conversion and the Confessions
  2. Augustine on grace, the Pelagian controversy and the City of God
  3. John Chrysostom: preacher, pastor and critic of wealth
  4. The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Anthony, Macarius and Amma Syncletica

Module 5: The Medieval Church and Scholasticism

  1. The medieval setting: monasteries, cathedral schools and universities
  2. Anselm and the method of scholasticism
  3. Thomas Aquinas: life and the structure of the Summa Theologiae
  4. Aquinas on faith, reason, nature and grace
  5. East and West: the growing divide and the schism of 1054

Module 6: The Reformation and the Counter-Reformation

  1. Luther and the question of justification
  2. Zwingli, Calvin and the Reformed tradition
  3. The Radical Reformation and the English Reformation
  4. The Council of Trent and Catholic reform
  5. Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant readings of the Reformation

Module 7: Modern Theology and Tracing a Doctrine

  1. The Enlightenment and its challenges to inherited doctrine
  2. Schleiermacher, liberal theology and Karl Barth
  3. Vatican II, Orthodox renewal and the evangelical and Pentecostal movements
  4. How to trace a doctrine: development, change and corruption

All courses

Program / Course 12: Patristics and Historical Theology / Lesson 6.3

What you will learn

  • Describe the beginnings and main beliefs of the Anabaptists and say how they differed from Lutherans and Reformed.
  • Explain why the Anabaptists were persecuted and how the Munster episode distorted their image.
  • Outline the stages of the English Reformation from Henry VIII to Elizabeth I.
  • Explain the Anglican idea of a middle way and the historical debate about how popular the reform was.

The big idea

The Reformation was not one movement. Alongside Lutheran and Reformed churches, the Radical Reformation produced groups such as the Anabaptists, who held that only believers should be baptized and that the church should be separate from the state. In England, reform began in a quarrel over the king’s marriage and moved through several stages, reversed under Mary and settled under Elizabeth in a church that kept bishops and a prayer book while accepting Protestant teaching on salvation. These two stories show how widely sixteenth century Christians disagreed about what the church is.

Key terms

Anabaptist
From Greek words meaning baptize again. A name given by opponents to those who baptized adults who had been baptized as infants. They themselves said infant baptism was no true baptism.
Believers’ baptism
The teaching that baptism should be given only to those who personally confess faith.
Magisterial Reformation
A term for Lutheran, Reformed and Anglican reforms carried out with the support of civil authorities (magistrates), as distinct from the Radical Reformation.
Act of Supremacy
A law of 1534 declaring the English king supreme head of the church in England. Elizabeth’s Act of 1559 used the title supreme governor.
Book of Common Prayer
The English-language prayer book, first issued in 1549 under Thomas Cranmer, which shaped Anglican worship.
Via media
Latin for middle way. A description of Anglicanism as a path between Roman Catholic and radical Protestant positions.
Puritan
A member of a movement in the English church that wanted further reform of worship and church government.

Background

In Zurich, some of Zwingli’s followers thought he was moving too slowly. They held that infant baptism had no basis in the New Testament and that the church should be a gathered community of believers, not a whole city. On January 21, 1525, Conrad Grebel and others baptized each other as adults in Zurich. This is regarded as the beginning of the Anabaptist movement. Within a few years it spread to Switzerland, Germany, Austria and the Low Countries.

Anabaptists were persecuted by Catholics and by most Protestants. Many authorities saw rejection of infant baptism as a threat to civil order, since baptism registered citizens. Felix Manz was drowned in Zurich in 1527, and thousands were executed across Europe in the following decades.

England’s reform had a different beginning. King Henry VIII had earlier written against Luther and was called Defender of the Faith by the pope. When the pope would not annul his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Henry broke with Rome. The Act of Supremacy of 1534 made him head of the Church of England. Whether Henry intended doctrinal change is debated, and under him the church kept much of Catholic teaching.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: What the Anabaptists believed

In 1527, a meeting at Schleitheim produced a statement of seven articles, drafted largely by Michael Sattler. It called for baptism only of believers, a discipline of the ban (exclusion for unrepentant sin), a simple Lord’s Supper, separation from the world and from the state’s use of the sword, no swearing of oaths, and the church’s choice of its own pastors. The vision was a community that lived by the Sermon on the Mount.

The tradition was not uniform. Some groups, like the Hutterites, shared goods. Menno Simons, a former Catholic priest, gave a peaceful form to the movement in the Netherlands, and his followers are called Mennonites. The Amish arose from a later division. These groups still exist, and the believers’ baptism tradition influenced Baptist churches, though historians debate how direct the link is.

Step 2: Munster and its shadow

In 1534 to 1535, a group of radicals seized the German city of Munster, set up a theocratic kingdom, practiced polygamy and fought a siege until the city fell and its leaders were executed. This episode was not representative. Most Anabaptists, including Menno, rejected it as a perversion. But opponents used it to justify persecution for generations, and it fixed an image of the radicals as dangerous.

Step 3: Henry, Edward and Mary

Under Henry, monasteries were dissolved between 1536 and 1541 and their property taken by the Crown. English Bibles were permitted in churches. Under his young son Edward VI (1547 to 1553), Archbishop Thomas Cranmer led a more Protestant reform. The Book of Common Prayer of 1549, revised in 1552, put the liturgy in English, and Forty-Two Articles set out doctrine.

Mary I, Henry’s daughter, restored Catholicism and the pope’s authority. About 280 people were burned as heretics in her short reign (1553 to 1558), including Cranmer in 1556. Protestants remembered these deaths, notably in John Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and this memory shaped English attitudes to Catholicism for centuries. Historians note that Mary’s policies also had real support.

Step 4: The Elizabethan settlement

Elizabeth I came to the throne in 1558. Her settlement of 1559 restored the Prayer Book, made her supreme governor of the church, and required public worship to follow it. The Thirty-Nine Articles (1563, revised 1571) set out doctrine in a moderate Reformed form. Bishops and the traditional structure remained. The church combined Protestant teaching on grace and Scripture with elements of Catholic order and worship, which is why it is often called a middle way.

Not everyone was satisfied. Puritans wanted further reform, such as removal of vestments and ceremonies, and some wanted to replace bishops with elders. Catholics who kept their faith faced fines and, in some cases, execution as traitors. Richard Hooker, late in the century, defended the settlement by arguing for the role of reason and tradition alongside Scripture.

Step 5: How popular was reform?

Historians have long argued about how English people received the Reformation. A. G. Dickens argued that Protestant ideas spread widely and quickly. Eamon Duffy, in a well-known study, argued that traditional Catholic religion was vigorous and loved, and that reform was imposed with resistance. Most recent historians hold that the picture varied by place and period, and that England became Protestant gradually over several generations.

  1. Why would a rejection of infant baptism seem dangerous to a city council?
  2. What did the Schleitheim articles ask of a Christian that other Reformers did not?
  3. How should the story of Munster be told fairly to the Anabaptists as a whole?
  4. What motives, religious and political, shaped the English Reformation?
  5. What are the strengths and weaknesses of a church that aims at a middle way?
  6. Why do you think people on all sides persecuted one another?

Examples

A baptism in a house

On a January evening in 1525, a small group met in a Zurich home and, after prayer, baptized one another as adults. They knew they were defying the city council. Within days, authorities tried to stop them.

A new prayer book

In 1549, English churches began to use a service in English written by Cranmer. Ordinary people heard the liturgy in their own language for the first time. Some welcomed this and others resented the change, and in the west of England it provoked a rebellion.

A married clergy

Under Edward, priests were allowed to marry. Under Mary, married clergy were forced from their parishes. Under Elizabeth, marriage was permitted again. A parish priest could see his household affected by each change.

Different perspectives

Anabaptist and Mennonite

Anabaptist heirs honor their sixteenth century martyrs and hold that the church is a community of voluntary believers who follow Jesus in peace, mutual care and separation from violence. Many call for the church to resist state control.

Anglican

Anglicans hold that the Church of England kept the catholic faith and order, with bishops and the creeds, while reforming doctrine according to Scripture. They differ among themselves, with evangelical, Anglo-Catholic and liberal wings, about how Catholic or Protestant the settlement was meant to be.

Catholic

Catholics regard the English break as a schism driven by the king’s marriage and the seizure of church property, and honor the English martyrs of the period. The Catholic Church recognizes the historical complexity, and ecumenical dialogue with Anglicans has addressed the issues for decades.

Lutheran, Reformed and scholarly views

Lutheran and Reformed churches condemned the Anabaptists in their confessions, a judgment that some of their descendants have repented of in recent years. Historians describe the Radical Reformation as various and discuss how it relates to later movements such as the Baptists and the Quakers.

Why it matters

Many Christians today are Baptists, Mennonites, Anglicans or Episcopalians, or belong to churches shaped by them. The questions raised in the sixteenth century, about who should be baptized, whether the church should be tied to the state, and how much of the old order to keep, are still live. The persecutions also teach caution about the use of power in matters of conscience.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: All Anabaptists were violent revolutionaries.

Correction: Most were peaceful, and the violence at Munster was rejected by their main leaders. The vast majority were themselves victims of violence.

Misunderstanding: The Church of England was founded only because Henry wanted a divorce.

Correction: The marriage question was the trigger, but political, financial and religious factors, including existing reform movements, also mattered. Doctrinal change came mostly after Henry.

Misunderstanding: Anglicanism is a compromise with no principles.

Correction: Anglicans say that the middle way is a principled position based on Scripture, the creeds, the early church and reason, though they disagree about its precise shape.

Misunderstanding: Only Catholics persecuted Protestants.

Correction: Persecution was widespread. Catholics burned Protestants, Protestants executed Catholics and radicals, and Protestants drowned and burned Anabaptists.

Knowledge check

What did the Anabaptists teach about baptism and the church?

They taught that only those who personally confess faith should be baptized, so infant baptism did not count, and that the church is a gathered community of believers separate from state power. The Schleitheim articles added discipline, nonresistance and refusal to swear oaths.

What happened at Munster?

In 1534 to 1535, radical leaders seized the city, established a kingdom, practiced polygamy and fought a siege until the city was taken and the leaders executed. Most Anabaptists rejected this, but it was used to justify persecution of all of them.

Describe the stages of the English Reformation.

Henry VIII broke with Rome in 1534 and dissolved the monasteries, but kept much traditional doctrine. Edward VI’s reign brought Protestant liturgy and doctrine under Cranmer. Mary restored Catholicism and burned about 280 Protestants. Elizabeth’s settlement of 1559 established the Prayer Book and a moderate Protestant church with bishops.

What is the via media?

It is the Anglican description of the church as taking a middle way between Roman Catholicism and radical Protestantism. It keeps bishops, the creeds and ordered worship while teaching Protestant doctrines of grace and the authority of Scripture. Anglicans differ about how best to describe it.

Think it through

  1. Is a church better understood as a community of believers or a whole society? What are the dangers of each?
  2. How would you weigh the costs of persecution when the aim was thought to be protecting souls?
  3. What parts of ordinary worship can change without changing the faith?
  4. How should churches remember martyrs who were killed by other Christians?

Independent assignment

A comparison of three churches

In your notebook, make a table comparing Lutheran, Anabaptist and Anglican positions on baptism, the church and the state, and bishops. Use this course and the library confessions. Then write 200 words on which difference seems to you to run deepest. Aim for 350 to 550 words.

Further study