Radicals and Reformers: A Survey of Global Anabaptist History
Ebook
With Bibles and baptism, a movement was born.
From renegade gatherings of Christian believers in the 1500s to a global communion of more than 2.1 million members, the Anabaptist-Mennonite movement has been marked by faithfulness and failure, continuity and conflict, radicalism and reformation. In this engaging history, Radicals and Reformers traces the origins and development of the Anabaptist and Mennonite movements from their beginnings in Europe through their spread across the globe.
In this new authoritative introduction to Anabaptist history, historian Troy Osborne reflects on the ways that Anabaptists have defined their identity in new settings and in response to new theological, intellectual, geographic, and political contexts. Drawing from current scholarship and a range of written and visual sources, this book provides an overview of how Mennonites from Zurich to Zimbabwe have adapted to or resisted the world around them.
Foreword
Introduction
- “Good and Right Order”: Late Medieval Christendom
- Repentance and Reform: Radicals in Swiss Lands
- South German Anabaptists: Mysticism and Community of Goods
- Apocalypticism in the North: Melchior, Münster, and the Mennonites
- The Earth Is the Lord’s: Seeking the Peace of the City
- Renewal and Revitalization: Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Anabaptists
- Movement and Modernity: The Nineteenth Century
- To the Ends of the Earth: Anabaptist Missions
- Age of Cataclysm: 1914–45
- A Transformational Era: 1945–present
- Continuity and Change: Anabaptists in Africa
- Conversion and Adaptation: Anabaptists in Asia
- Migration and Mission: Anabaptists in Latin American
- Renewed Identities and New Realities in the West
- Faith in Changing Times: Evangelism, Anabaptism, and the Old Orders in the Twentieth Century
Conclusion: Ties That Bind a Global Movement
Notes
Bibliography
The Author
“A tightly written and original work that brilliantly weaves together global Anabaptist history from Europe to Africa to Asia and across the Americas. Radicals and Reformers adds great depth to our collective understanding of Anabaptism across geographies, languages, and cultures.”
“Radicals and Reformers is the first text that truly integrates the history and evolution of Anabaptists and Mennonites across the globe from their origins to present-day realities. Troy Osborne is to be commended for outlining a complex story that balances a people’s feats and foibles in equal measure and introduces little-known actors and events to offer new perspectives on familiar tales.”
“I have been waiting for this book for my entire teaching career. Troy Osborne has synthesized research from the past forty years into an engaging new global narrative that is concise enough for use as an undergraduate college textbook. Employing a transnational approach, Osborne brings the long and complicated sweep of Mennonite history into the twenty-first century. Through explicit discussion of how faith has interacted with culture, modernization, colonialism, indigeneity, and globalization, the book provides rich fodder for discussion of Mennonite reality today.”
“Radicals and Reformers tells the challenging story of Christ-following communities captivated more by the enactment of faithful practices than by the affirmation of key doctrines or the maintenance of enduring institutions. Such a story of concrete discipleship is difficult to tell because it involves a constantly shifting cast of characters and contexts, with persistent disagreements that disrupt as well as energize spiritual renewal. Troy Osborne gives us an expansive and inclusive Anabaptist story, full of both faith and failure, whose coherence arises from radical Christian hope harbored amidst contested communal convictions.”
“Radicals and Reformers is a gift to undergraduate classrooms—pedagogically flexible with expansive possibilities for drilling down or connecting to other areas of study. Inclusive of a wide range of Anabaptisms, Troy Osborne’s focus on the ways that Anabaptist-Mennonites have responded to the realities of their contexts across time and space makes this text particularly relevant to today’s academic challenges, as well as those that face the church.”
“Troy Osborne has presented a remarkable work that delves into the Anabaptist movement’s history, spanning over five centuries and five continents. It is an excellent resource for anyone seeking a comprehensive understanding of the Anabaptist tradition’s past and present. It is highly recommended!”
“This welcome new study lays out the five hundred-year story of Anabaptism in compelling and sometimes provocative ways. It is the fruit of extensive research and well-balanced analysis. Both scholarly and accessible, the volume brilliantly captures the multivalent tapestry of an evolving tradition that began in Europe and grew to become a global reality.”
“The analysis made by the author of this wonderful book takes the reader on a journey through the history, origins, and preservation of the religion and cultural identity of the Anabaptists since late medieval times. At the same time, it invites readers to reflect on the movement’s principles and how they endure even in new generations around the world, since they have resisted the influence of other groups or religions and adapted their way of living nowadays.”
“Troy Osborne links Anabaptist themes of radical faithfulness and reconciliation with God and humans across five centuries and five continents in one sweeping and accessible narrative. Vivid personal stories illustrate how everyday encounters with a living God embodied in this specific tradition of biblical interpretation and discipleship redirect lives whether in twentieth-century Africa, sixteenth-century Europe, or other places and times this movement has appeared.”
- Title: Radicals and Reformers: A Survey of Global Anabaptist History
- Authors: Troy Osborne, David R. Swartz
- Publisher: Herald Press
- Print Publication Date: 2024
- Logos Release Date: 2023
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781513813332, 9780836199888, 083619988X, 1513813331
- Resource ID: LLS:9781513813332
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-05-08T09:58:46Z
Troy Osborne is dean and associate professor of history and theological studies at Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, Ontario, where he teaches courses on the Reformation and Mennonite history. He has a PhD from the University of Minnesota and degrees from Goshen College and Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. His articles have appeared in Mennonite Quarterly Review, Archive for Reformation History, and Church History and Religious Culture. Osborne and his wife Emma have two daughters. He is a member of Waterloo North Mennonite Church.