Church: another take

THE NEW ANABAPTISTS:
Practices for emerging communities
By Stuart Murray, with contributions by
Alexandra Ellish, Karen Sethuraman
and Juliet Kilpin
Herald. 208 pages. £14.98
ISBN 978 1 513 812 984

In January 1525, in Zurich, a little group met at the home of Felix Manz. They’d been close to the great reformer Ulrich Zwingli. But now Zwingli agreed with the city-state’s government that all citizens must, by law, conform to the ‘new religion’. This included baptising their infants. The deal would get the Bible taught in the city’s Grossmünster.

But, for these rebels, it was a compromise too far. They prayed. George Blaurock asked Conrad Grebel to baptise him. George baptised the rest. People derided them as ‘Anabaptists’ – re-baptisers. In 1527, Felix Manz’s punishment was to be tied up and drowned in the Limmat. He was the first of many Anabaptist martyrs.