Anabaptist is from the Greek [ana] meaning again, and [baptismos] meaning baptism i e , to re-baptize The anabaptists were a radical sect that prospered during the start of the Reformation (1520-1580) who taught that infants should not be baptized, denied predestination, and believed that Christ had a celestial flesh, and He did not develop from the mortal flesh of Mary The term was used in a Pejorative fashion [back]
Name deriving from practice of re-baptizing new adherents The Anabaptists formed in the early 16th Century concurrently with the Reformation, but were held as heretics by all the great reformers
a member of a group within the Christian religion that thinks that only people who believe (and therefore not very young children) should be baptized. Member of a movement of the Protestant Reformation characterized by adult baptism. Anabaptists held that infants were not punishable for sin because they had no awareness of good and evil and thus could not yet exercise free will, repent, and accept baptism. Denying the validity of infant baptism, they accepted adult baptism, which was regarded as a second baptism by those outside the group who identified them as Anabaptists (from the Greek for rebaptizers). Confident of living at the end of time, early Anabaptists sought to restore the institutions and spirit of the primitive church. The first adult baptisms took place outside Zürich in early 1525. Most Anabaptists were pacifists and refused to swear civil oaths. Thomas Müntzer advocated a more violent eschatology that called for the overthrow of the rich by the poor and was executed after leading the Thuringian peasant revolt (1525). Another group of Anabaptists, led by John of Leiden, took control of the city of Münster and sought to establish the millennial kingdom. Their excesses led to their violent suppression in 1535 and further persecution and martyrdom of the Anabaptists. Many Anabaptists settled in Moravia, where they stressed the community of goods modeled on the primitive church at Jerusalem. This branch continues as the Hutterite movement, primarily in the western U.S. and Canada. Increasingly persecuted throughout Europe, Anabaptists in the Netherlands and northern Germany rallied under the leadership of Menno Simonsz. and survive as the Mennonites
n lit 'Re-Baptiser ' Any member of a sect which believes that only adults can make the decision to follow Christ, and therefore rejects the Catholic and Lutheran practice of infant baptism on the grounds that an infant cannot comprehend the responsibilities involved in joining the body of believers or even prepare a simple 'Jell-O' mould for the monthly fellowship lunch Anabaptists also believe in peaceful non-resistance, which was handy for the Catholics and Lutherans who wanted desperately to burn them at the stake for their heretical stance on baptism
A pickpocket caught in the fact, and punished with the discipline of the pump or horse-pond
A name sometimes applied to a member of any sect holding that rebaptism is necessary for those baptized in infancy