On a winter night in 1525, a group of adults gathered in a home in Zurich, prayed, and then baptized each other. This re-founding of the Church, with no appeal to apostolic continuity, solidified the Anabaptists' breach with the reformer Zwingli and appears unique in Reformation history. In this paper, I will undertake a reading of this peculiar Anabaptist moment and the possibilities hidden in the available account. I will suggest that it reads as a radically combative moment, not merely reforming or separating from an established ecclesial order but claiming the impossible: the authority to re-begin or re-constitute the Church. Yet this founding moment is troubled from the start, its beginnings are
Period
21 Oct 2021
Event title
LEST XIII: Dissenting Church: Exploring the Theological Power of Conflict and Disagreement