Anabaptism and Other Denominations
On this 500th anniversary of the beginnings of the Anabaptist movement, Rosedale Bible College’s Beacon articles will look at a wide variety of denominations within the household of faith, highlighting a different denomination each month. We hope to foster a humble, rooted appreciation for how the gospel has come to us and to consider how Jesus might be calling us forward.
In my more prideful moments, I sometimes think of myself as more Anabaptist than most Mennonites. You see, I was born and raised as a Roman Catholic—baptized as an infant, then re-baptized when I joined the Mennonite church at age 18. Of course, this doesn’t mean I’m an expert on either Anabaptism or Catholicism, but I’ve been asked to share something about my Catholic experience and how that relates to Anabaptism.
First, as a Catholic, I was taught about the triune God. There wasn’t much teaching about the Holy Spirit, but certainly about the Father and Son. My focus as a young Catholic was always on Jesus on the cross. I didn’t think in terms of “being saved.” We didn’t use that language, but I knew that Jesus had died for my sins, and I needed to believe in Him.
Later, I came to learn more of the nuances of salvation, as well as how people other than Catholics think about salvation. But for me, sitting in the pew Sunday after Sunday, Jesus was the most important person in my understanding of eternal life. The Catholic Mass is centered around His sacrifice for sin. That idea is central to Catholicism, and I’ve always been glad for some of the foundational ideas about God that I learned growing up Catholic.
But in addition, there were many other unique and more controversial Catholic doctrines which non-Catholics enjoy pointing out to their Catholic friends—things like the role of Mary, prayers to saints, and the doctrine of transubstantiation.
I appreciate that Anabaptism emphasizes that God is present in every moment of every day.
These spiritual practices were indeed part of the Catholic milieu in which I grew up. I dutifully prayed my “Hail Marys,” wore my St. Christopher medallion as a form of protection from harm, and bowed my head when the bells rang during mass, signifying the transformation of the bread into the actual body of Christ.
When I joined the Mennonite church and delved deeper into Scripture, I began to reassess many of the finer points of Catholic theology. The Anabaptist emphasis on Scripture as the final source of authority for understanding who God is and how we should live as His followers is one of the greatest strengths of Anabaptism. Indeed, the rallying cry of the Anabaptists—when they were hauled before the Catholic magistrates—was, “Show us from the Scriptures.”
From its long history, Roman Catholicism has many accretions that I came to realize are not found in Scripture. While this doesn’t automatically disqualify any particular aspect of a “religious” life, it should serve as our highest standard of measurement. Roman Catholics hold their church traditions just as high as they do the Scriptures. Indeed, Catholics speak of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium (the teaching authority of the church to interpret and apply Scripture and Tradition) as a “three-legged stool” that undergirds the church.
This “three-legged stool” idea is something Anabaptists and other reformers rejected as they emphasized sola scriptura (Scripture alone) as the infallible source of authority for the church.
Of course, the longer I’ve been a Mennonite, the more I see that Anabaptists have their own highly valued traditions. They don’t stretch back as far as Catholic traditions, but that’s another article!
On another level, as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to appreciate the sense of awe and worship I experienced in the Catholic church. As a boy, I was taught to be quiet and respectful when we entered the sanctuary. We knelt to pray, and when we were done praying, we sat quietly until the service started. Any failure to comply brought a quick ear-twisting from my mother!
The entire worship service, even though I knew it by heart, inspired in me a sense of God’s presence. Today, I sometimes long for this sense of the sacred when I’m in an Anabaptist service that seems little more than just another way to chit-chat about the weather or gripe about work while waiting on the pastor or worship leader to start the service.
The problem with this more Catholic sense of sacred space is that God can tend to get left behind in that space. The church sanctuary becomes the only place where God is truly present, and it’s all too easy for God to fade into the background in everyday life.
I appreciate that Anabaptism emphasizes that God is present in every moment of every day, not just as a Savior but as a leader and master who teaches us how to live as disciples, no matter where we are or what we’re doing.
I love the Anabaptist understanding of faith. While I could never return to Catholicism, we can glean important things from that historic faith tradition that help us walk more faithfully as disciples of Christ.
Photo credit: pexels/pixaby/Rosary on Top of Opened Bible Book
4 Responses
I appreciate, Roger, the centrality of Jesus in your whippersnapperish experience of Roman Catholicism. Now, if you’d kindly suffer my own whippersnapping for just a moment…
I’m surprised that, when highlighting the differences between Evangelical Anabaptism and Roman Catholicism, you don’t say much about the Gospel itself. You mention, of course, the [sensational] practices [that we all love to talk about], like Marian devotion and Eucharistic piety. You also give a nod to the reverent atmosphere of the Mass… But what about the Gospel?
It seems to me that these divergent practices — including, probably, the importance that Roman Catholics [must] assign to the Mass — stem, on some level, from divergent accounts of the gospel of salvation.
A healthy, biblical distinction between justification and sanctification is, quite literally, anathema to Roman Catholics. Surely, there must be practical consequences to that kind of theology, if taken seriously! This seems, to me, like a bigger and more fundamental problem than all the bowing and scraping toward painted wooden figurines of dead heroes. (And that’s no a small problem, either!)
I’ve come to expect that Anabaptist fellowship will take progressive sanctification seriously, usually under the rubrics of “discipleship” in “community.”We seek growth in holiness. There’s a call to action… an expectation that the Christian life will be dynamic and involve personal transformation.
But — and this is essential — this dynamic part of the Christian life is lived out upon the solid ground of the believer’s justification in Christ: assurance of salvation, anchored upon God’s declaration (“righteous!”) concerning every sinner who repents and believes the Gospel.
That’s quite different from the account of justification in Roman Catholicism. Here, justification is not God’s declaration concerning the repentant sinner, but a process of growth in personal righteousness, undertaken in cooperation with God’s grace. Grace is conceived not first of all as God’s kind and generous disposition, but as a substance (“graces”). The church dispenses God’s graces in installments, on behalf of Christ, through her sacramental system.
For both Catholics and Mennonites, there’s a call to action: to do, to change, to grow. But the kind of solid spiritual ground that I found in the Mennonite Church — solid, because my ground is God’s Word, which will stand forever — was not something that I ever found in Roman Catholicism.
Trent (whether “Horn, the Roman apologist” or “the 16th-century Council of”) dismisses the kind of peace that I now enjoy in Christ as nothing more than “the sin of presumption.” That’s a real problem for sinners like me. It ain’t just a finer point of theology. It’s upstream of everything else.
If I didn’t have assurance in Christ, I’d still probably do some of the same good works I do today. But I’d do them in a very different spirit. And I’d almost certainly be looking for additional sources of spiritual security, which I bet you’d be able to see in my way of life…
Mercifully, many Catholics *don’t* take Trent’s account of salvation very seriously, as reflected in their rather laissez-faire attitude toward “the Sunday obligation” et al. The thing that worries me, though, is that most of those same folks don’t seem to take the biblical account of salvation seriously, either.
I’m glad that God called you into this fellowship, and I pray that more Roman Catholics will come to know the peace that you and I both enjoy in Christ.
Thanks for sharing your story and reflections, brother. Grateful for you.
Matthew, thanks for your response. Your theological emphases are a necessary balance to my more sentimental reflections. The saving power of the gospel as brought to the world by the Holy Spirit can indeed reach into any corner of human existence, experience, and religion. The main reason I can never return to Catholicism is due to those theological ideas you mentioned and others. Growing up as a young Catholic boy I’m sure there was more than one or two priests who would have wished I’d have paid more attention in CCD classes. But I did say I wasn’t an expert on Catholicism. I hope we can connect again sometime soon.
Thank you, Brother, for sharing about your growing up in the Catholic Church.
Thanks, Aquilla. I hope we can meet sometime.