Müntzer appealed to the Saxon princes to implement his program, but they banished him. He found a following among the rebels of the German Peasants’ Revolt (1524–25) and led them at the Battle of Frankenhausen, where they were butchered, and he was captured and beheaded. Luther execrated Müntzer’s memory because he seized the sword in defense of the gospel and challenged the social order. Some Marxists, on the other hand, later exalted Müntzer as the prophet of social revolution because he was the only one of the reformers who had a deep feeling for the suffering of the socially oppressed. In grasping the sword he did not essentially differ from Huldrych Zwingli, Gaspard de Coligny, or Oliver Cromwell—three other militaristic Protestants. Zwingli and his influence
Zwingli (1484–1531), the great figure in Swiss Protestantism before Calvin, was more committed to military action than Müntzer and died in battle. He became a reformer independently of Luther, with whom he agreed concerning justification by faith and predestination, but with whom he disagreed concerning the rite of communion. The Lord’s Supper was understood by Zwingli simply as a memorial to Christ’s death and as a public declaration of faith by the recipient. Zwingli, in fact, denied that Christ was present in the bread and wine of communion and thus rejected the teachings of both Luther and the Roman Catholic Church. Although Luther, Zwingli, and others met at Marburg in 1529 to resolve their differences, they could not find common ground on the doctrine of the Lord’s Supper. Luther and Zwingli’s failure to create a unified front among Protestants at the meeting had fatal consequences for Zwingli.
His other teachings reveal further differences but also similarities with the other reformers. Zwingli drew from Erasmus and Karlstadt, notably from their disparagement of the sensory aids to religion. Zwingli, though an accomplished musician, considered that the function of music was to put the babies to sleep rather than to worship God. Consequently, the organ was dismantled and the holy images removed from the cathedral at Zürich. Like Luther, Zwingli retained the baptism of infants, a rite that he believed recognized that the child belongs to the people of God just as the child in the Hebrew Bible belonged by circumcision to Israel. Analogy with Judaism applied at many points because Zwingli, like many before him, regarded the Christian congregation as the new Israel of God, an elect people, reasonably identifiable not by the new birth Müntzer anticipated but by adherence to the faith. This company could be called theocratic in the sense that it was under the rule of God, whom church and state should alike serve in close collaboration. The identification of the whole populace of Zürich with this elect people was the more tenable because those not in accord with the ideal were disposed to leave. Zwingli approved of an aggressive war to forestall interference from the Roman Catholic cantons. In 1531, he fell in the second war of Kappel but left an important legacy, especially for the group who formed the mainstay of the radical Reformation. The Anabaptists
The radicals restricted their biblicism to the New Testament and espoused three tenets that have come to be axiomatic in the United States: the separation of church and state, the voluntary church, and religious liberty. They called themselves Baptists but were called Anabaptists by their enemies because they were accused of rebaptizing adults. They believed, however, that immersion of infants was not true baptism because the rite itself was not regenerative but the outward sign of an inner experience—the rebirth in the spirit—of which only an adult was capable. The Anabaptists also believed in the possibility of a Christian society whose members were marked both by the conversion experience and by a highly disciplined deportment. In obedience to the New Testament, they repudiated swearing oaths and recourse to violence, whether at the behest of a magistrate or in war, respectively. The saints, they believed, should withdraw from the wicked world.
The Anabaptist program was perceived as a threat to the social and political order by Catholics and Protestants alike. The Diet of Speyer in 1529, for example, subjected the Anabaptists to the penalty of death with the concurrence of Catholics and Lutherans. One of the first Anabaptist leaders, Felix Manz, was drowned in Zürich in 1527, and persecution eliminated other Anabaptist leaders, most of them educated and moderate men, over the next decade. Less temperate spirits came to the fore, sustaining their courage by setting dates for the speedy coming of the Lord. One band of Anabaptists filled with apocalyptic zeal and led by John of Leiden, gained control of the town of Münster in Westphalia in 1534. Contrary to the pacifist tenets of their fellows, they seized the sword and, in accord with Old Testament practice, they restored polygamy. The town was captured by an army of Catholics and Lutherans who executed the leaders and publicly exhibited their bodies in iron cages hung from the tower of St. Lambert’s Church. Other groups
In Holland Menno Simonsz (c. 1496–1561), the founder of the Mennonites, returned to the original Anabaptist teachings and repudiated violence, polygamy, and the setting of dates for the coming of the Lord. The Mennonites survived partly by acceding to military service in Holland, partly by migration first to eastern Europe and then to the Americas. The Hutterites, followers of Jakob Hutter (died 1536), were allowed to establish themselves on the estates of tolerant Moravian nobles who accepted excellent craftsmanship in field and shop in lieu of military service. Because of subsequent persecution the Hutterites also migrated to the New World. The Swiss branch, called the Amish, still survives in the United States. The entire pattern of ideas has reappeared in various combinations in subsequent history, not only among the Church of the Brethren and the Quakers but among all of the free churches disclaiming a state connection. The role of Calvin
Another form of Protestantism was Calvinism, named for John Calvin (1509–64), a French humanist and doctor of law whose conversion to the Protestant reform forced him to flee France. In Basel, at the age of 27, he published Institutes of the Christian Religion, which in successive editions became the manual of Protestant theology. Calvin agreed with Luther on justification by faith and the sole authority of Scripture. On the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper he took a position between the radical Swiss and the Lutheran view. Thus he believed that the body of Christ was not present everywhere, but that His spirit was universal and that there was a genuine communion with the risen Lord. Calvin likewise took a middle view on music and art. He favoured congregational singing of the Psalms, which became a characteristic practice of the Huguenots in France and the Presbyterians in Scotland and the New World. Calvin rejected the images of saints and the crucifix (that is, the body of Christ upon the cross) but allowed a plain cross. These modifications do not, however, refute the generalization that Calvinism was largely opposed to art and music in the service of religion but not in the secular sphere.
In contrast to Luther, Calvin began his Institutes not with justification by faith but with the knowledge of God. Luther found refuge from the terror of God’s dispensations in the mercy of Christ. Calvin could more calmly contemplate the frightfulness of God’s judgments because they would not descend upon the elect. Luther, as noted, saw no way of knowing who were the elect. He could not be sure of himself and throughout his life struggled for faith and assurance. Calvin had certain approximate and attainable tests. He did not require the experience of the new birth, which is so inward and intangible, though to be sure later Calvinism moved away from him on this point and agonized over the signs of election. For Calvin there were three tests: the profession of faith, as with Zwingli; a rigorously disciplined Christian deportment, as with the Anabaptists; and a love of the sacraments, which meant the Lord’s Supper, since infant baptism was not to be repeated. If a person could meet these three tests he could assume his election and stop worrying.