Why I Am an Anabaptist

1
Why I Am an Anabaptist
2
Questions

• What relevance has a marginal bunch from the
  Sixteenth Century got for anything?
• Why make such a specific and peculiar affiliation
  when Christianity itself is hard enough to
  swallow?
• Isnt any particular identification just a red
  herring?
• Isnt Anabaptism too marginal to be of any
  interest or have any impact?

2
3
Jesus

• Christocentrism
• Birth, Life, Death, Resurrection
• Emphasis on person not doctrine
• Emphasis on humanity
• Following in the Footsteps
• Normative
• Invitation
• Jesus Christ has no unclean members Dirk
  Philips
• Life-experience

3
4
Community

• Sharing
• Economic
• Social
• the least of these who are members of my
  family
• Interpretation
• Interpretive community
• Interpreting community
• Gentleness
• Coherence and diversity

4
5
History

• Four-and-a-half centuries of tradition
• Family resemblances
• Stories
• Births
• Lives and deaths
• Persecution and marginalisation
• Prophetic non-conformists

5
6
Narrative

• Story-formed
• Sub-version
• Simplicity
• Spirit and spirituality
• Shalom

6
7
Third Way

• Neither Catholic nor Protestant
• Not reform but restoration and restitution
• Freedom, not coercion
• Non-violence
• Post-Christendom
• Prophetic voice

7
8
Life

• Jesus
• Discipleship
• Courage
• Margins
• Community
• Gentleness
• Harmony
• Conversation

8