Neo-Anabaptism is a Christian theological movement in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century inspired by classical Anabaptism. According to Stuart Murray, neo-Anabaptists "identify with the Anabaptist tradition and are happy to be known as Anabaptists, but have no historic or cultural links with any Anabaptist-related denomination".
History and beliefs
The sociologist James Davison Hunter and anabaptist minister Stuart Murray have both written at length on Neo-Anabaptism, describing the movement in books such as
To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World and
The Naked Anabaptist, respectively. Neo-Anabaptism is characterized by being unified but not monolithic, as they generally agree on ethics but are denominationally diverse and may differ on many theological points. The unification comes from a general focus on
nonviolence and the ethics of the Sermon on the Mount as opposed to adhering to strict doctrinal creeds or inhabiting the same denomination. The movement has been compared to
New Calvinism in that advocates of each movement tend to be part of various denominations yet are theologically united to some level and find inspiration from
Reformation-era individuals and movements (for instance,
John Calvin and
Calvinism for New Calvinism; Anabaptist theologians and their forebears such as
Ulrich Zwingli,
Menno Simons, and
Jacob Hutter for Neo-Anabaptists).
The original Anabaptism were labeled as "Anabaptists" pejoratively, since critics used the term to highlight the movement's perceived obsession with Believer's baptism, or baptism by full-body immersion in water.
Further reading
