The Anabaptist Story: An Introduction to Sixteenth-Century Anabaptism

Rating:
Summary: Good historical review of the early Anabaptists.
Review: Gives the historical background, foundation, and progress of the "re-baptizers" as their critics called them. The ministries of the early Anabaptist leaders are followed in detail in both Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. After a historical review of each leader's influence on the movement, the latter half of the book provides a detailed examination of these leaders' positions on matters of doctrine such as infant baptism, the trinity, pacifism, the swearing of oaths, the ban, and civil authority.

Perhaps the most interesting sections of this book relates to the ongoing and violent persecutions which befell the early Anabaptists. Not only the dominant Catholic hierarch but their fellow Reformers made martyrs out of the early Anabaptists. The arguments and misrepresentations made against the Anabaptists by their Catholic and Protestant tormentors helps to define what these people did, in fact, believe in.

A great book for understanding where the Mennonites, Hutterites, and other Anabaptists came from.

Rating:
Summary: A good tribute to the unsung heroes of the reformation
Review: Gives the historical background, foundation, and progress of the "re-baptizers" as their critics called them. The ministries of the early Anabaptist leaders are followed in detail in both Switzerland, Germany, and Holland. After a historical review of each leader's influence on the movement, the latter half of the book provides a detailed examination of these leaders' positions on matters of doctrine such as infant baptism, the trinity, pacifism, the swearing of oaths, the ban, and civil authority.

Perhaps the most interesting sections of this book relates to the ongoing and violent persecutions which befell the early Anabaptists. Not only the dominant Catholic hierarch but their fellow Reformers made martyrs out of the early Anabaptists. The arguments and misrepresentations made against the Anabaptists by their Catholic and Protestant tormentors helps to define what these people did, in fact, believe in.

A great book for understanding where the Mennonites, Hutterites, and other Anabaptists came from.

Rating:
Summary: A good tribute to the unsung heroes of the reformation
Review: I read this book for an Anabaptist history class at a denominational school with direct lineage to the Anabapist movement. I myself did not grow up in this tradition, but have grown to love many aspects of it. This book has surely contributed to this. Estep does a great of job cutting out the fluff and writing a straight forward book on the movement. I particularly liked the last section of the book which focused on the probable Anabaptist connection to the Baptists. Since my theology leans more towards Baptist thinking, particularly the Reformed variety, this was most interesting to me. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about the Anabaptist movement and its contributions to modern Christianity.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting overview of Radical Reformers
Review: In this book, Mr. Estep provides a very interesting overview of those who led the "radical reformation" in the 16th Century. The author does an excellent job of describing the various leaders, churches, communities, and doctrines which were formulated by the "re-baptizers" during this important time in the Church's history. I really learned a lot from this book about the Anabaptists, especially in terms of their doctrine.

I did have two small problems with the book. First, the author is a little too sympathetic to the Anabaptists when defending the formation of their doctrines. Of course, that is his background so this did not come as a complete surprise. Second, the author does not describe the Munster incident in much detail, if at all. It is a little irresponsible as a historian to brush over this significant event in a book about 16th Century Anabaptism.

Despite these two problems - it is a good book which I recommend to anyone interested in learning more about the radical reformation. If you do not know much about this period of Church history, like me, this is a great starting point.

Rating:
Summary: A positive but realistic introduction to the topic
Review: This book gives the reader a thorough introduction to anabaptist history in the sixteenth-century. You do not need to be familiar with the anabaptist background in order to read this book,it gives you a complete introduction from scratch. The book covers the different anabaptist directions in Europe,it gives an informative portrait of the various anabaptist leaders and their theological viewpoints while it at the same time covers the prosecutions which the anabaptists suffered from the Catholic and to some extent the Lutheran churches. I strongly recommend this work of literature to those who want a short but informa- tive introduction to anabaptism in the Middle Ages.

Rating:
Summary: A positive but realistic introduction to the topic
Review: This book helps to trace the remarkable strands of this brave movement. All of today's Christians owe a great deal to these pioneers in the demolition of sacralism. Today, if we choose to let our children decide for themselves whether or not to be baptised into the faith, we must credit the people described in this book with the opportunity to do so. As monumental as their thinking was, they are accurately portrayed in this book as the same sort of flawed human beings that we are. The writing is simultaneously sympathetic and honest - an excellent balance.