1525–1527

The Anabaptists: a believers' Church separated from the world and the state

The Anabaptists (Grebel, Manz and others) rejected the state church, which included all citizens, and regarded the Church as a voluntary assembly of those who had personally chosen to enter the body of Christ, set apart from the world; it elects its own ministers and supports them by voluntary offerings. The reformers admitted that not all citizens are true Christians but held that the number of the elect in the state church is unknown. From 1525 the Anabaptists baptized only adult believers and excluded the unrepentant from the community. The Schleitheim Confession (1527) fixed believers' baptism, the ban, separation from the world and the Christian's refusal of the magistrate's sword and of oaths; Menno Simons regarded pacifism as the heart of the Gospel.