Early Seventeenth Century Mennonite Confessions of Faith: The Development of an Anabaptist Tradition

grantor: University of St. Michael's CollegeScholars have long agreed that in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, Mennonites in the Netherlands produced a significant number of confessions of faith. Differences of opinion, however, have emerged on the question of the relationship between the confessions and their Anabaptist heritage. Some scholars have understood the adoption of confessional statements by Mennonites as a development inconsistent with Anabaptism, which, it has been argued, was more concerned with moral or social reform than doctrinal precision. Others have observed a degree of correspondence between the confessions and Anabaptism, noting, in particular, areas of doctrinal continuity. The present thesis—a historical-theological study—concedes that with the advent of fully developed confessions of faith, something essentially new in the Anabaptism tradition emerged. Further, it recognizes that the theological perspectives reflected in the confessions were not necessarily identical to Anabaptist views. Nevertheless, the central argument of the thesis is that the confessions of faith, as represented by the Short, Jan Cents and Dordrecht confessions—confessions adopted by the largest Mennonite groups in the early seventeenth century—in the main, stand in historical and theological continuity with sixteenth century Anabaptism. The thesis does not disregard the moral and social dimensions of Anabaptism and Mennonitism. It brings into view, however, something that has often been overlooked; namely, that the Anabaptist and Mennonite concern for moral and social reform was in fact deeply rooted in a particular way of believing and thinking about God, Jesus Christ, salvation and the church.Ph.D