The Anabaptists
(the Mennonites and Amish)
4 Insane Ways The Catholic And Protestant Churches
Dealt With The Anabaptists
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For
those not familiar with the term Anabaptist,
it is a title given to the Christians that believed Baptism should done as an
adult when one made the free choice to follow Christ.
They
were hated by the Catholic church for baptizing adults and also hated by the Protestant
churches for many reasons, including baptism.
In
1527, the leaders of Bavaria gave orders that the imprisoned Anabaptists should
be burned at the stake, unless they recanted, in
which case they should be beheaded.
In Catholic countries the Anabaptists were executed
by burning at the stake; in Lutheran and Zwinglian states, Anabaptists were executed by
beheading or drowning.
Here
are 4 of the most insane methods used to deal with this rowdy bunch we now
know to be the Mennonites and Amish.
4. PERMANENT
BAPTISM
One of the ways the Anabaptists could be both
killed and also mocked was by giving them an adult baptism of another kind.
In
this baptism they would not be emerging from the water. The first Anabaptist to
be martyred in this way, and possibly the most famous, was Felix Manz.
Felix
was one of the co-founders of the Anabaptist faith. He engaged in great
scholarly debate with the reformed leaders of his time about adult versus
infant baptism.
Unfortunately,
the councils having these debates came to the conclusion that infant baptism
was the only acceptable practice and demanded that Felix and the Anabaptist
baptize their children.
Felix
refused and was then drowned as were many other Anabaptists. To make this even
more repulsive the council led by Zwingli was a reformed movement.
3. BURNED
& ROASTED AT THE STAKE
Naturally
you had to know that some of them got burned at the stake.
Perhaps
the most discussed execution by burning was that of Dirk Willems.
Dirk
was imprisoned by the Catholic church for receiving adult baptism and for
baptizing others himself.
In
a miraculous feat he was able to escape his imprisonment.
However,
after his escape he was pursued and the man who was pursuing him ended up falling
threw the ice on a small pond and nearly drown.
Being
the good Christian that he was, he turned back to save his pursuer’s life. He
was then promptly re-captured and then burned alive.
In
another case, 12 Anabaptists were burned alive at the stake all at once.
This
was done by a mob of Spanish Catholics. These occurrences were not rare nor
were they isolated to the Catholics.
In
some cases they would even slow roast people alive in an effort to prolong the
suffering and maximize the pain.
2. THE
RACK
As if being drowned or burned alive was not bad enough, sometimes they needed to be tortured and then murdered.
One
of the favored methods of that time was putting them on “the rack.” This device
bound the ankles and wrists and then slowly pulled them apart.
The
result of the rack was dislocated hips, shoulders, torn muscles, ligaments
snapping, and even limbs being ripped off depending on who was performing the
torture.
Once
on the rack it was also typical for torturers to inflict of forms of torture since
they were so incapacitated.
Once
such torture that was common was using hot tongues to remove body flesh. Many
people died on the rack from being stretched all the way until the body was
dismembered bled out.
One
account said that an Anabaptist was racked so thin that the sun shone through
him.
1. THE
CAGES
One
of the ways that ruling bodies try to stamp out a new trend is to make an
example out of someone publicly.
Possibly
it would deter someone else from following in their footsteps.
One
such way this was accomplished was by hanging the Anabaptists up really high on
a bell tower in a cage.
While
in the cage they would be naked and exposed to the elements. They would have no
clothes and no food.
They
had nowhere to use the restroom except through the bottom of the cages. They
would remain hanging there for years, long after they were just bones and dust.
One
of the most notable times this was used was in 1536, when there was a rebellion
in Munster.
This
particular group of German Anabaptists had no intent on being peaceful like the
rest of their brethren. They actually took the city of Munster over briefly
before the military put the rebellion down.
The
leaders of the Munster rebellion (Jan van Leiden, and two others) were hung in
the cages seen in the picture above.
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