"We are all equal” (Omnes sumus aequales): A Critical Assessment of Early Protestant Ministerial Thinking

The frequently proposed truism that the Believers Church tradition represents a church type of its own is not uncontested at all. Protestants and Baptists alike owe their ecclesial existence int.al. to Luther’s maxim that all Christians are equal in the sight of God (“Omnes sumus aequales” [We are all equal]). Yet, if we study Protestant opinion about ecclesial office and concomitant awareness of equality, we come to the conclusion that conflicting insights, and consequentially the parting of the ways between reformed and radicals, were originally ignited by basic disagreement concerning the dispensability of the congregation in matters of spiritual discernment, and concerning Christocentric visibility of the church, as was clearly displayed in the city of Zurich in the middle of the first half of the 16th century. With reason Believers Church congregations label themselves as a third church type.