The book calls for notice primarily as a major milestone in the rehabilitation of the sixteenth-century free churches by Protestant theological thought. The very first serious historical studies treating Anabaptism in an objective, scholarly way appeared just a century ago. But only in the last thirty years has the new historical material been unearthed in sufficient quantity and interpreted in sufficient clarity to gain the attention of thinkers beyond the ranks of Reformation specialists and to precipitate a revision not only of historical commonplaces but even of theological assumptions. It is no longer possible intelligently to speak of the Reformation and of occidental church history since then without dealing with the major church type which was reborn in the midst of fear and trembling in a clandestine prayer meeting a few steps up the alley from Zürich’s Grossmünster, one January night in 1525.

But what matters is not that a long-standing wrong of official historiography is being righted. Far more significant than this is the fact that the conception of the church and of the Christian life whose exemplification in Anabaptism is being rediscovered is today of extraordinary relevance. This is true firstly because the Reformation’s attempt to maintain a “Constantinian” pattern of responsibility for society is being recognized to have been both pragmatically and theologically dubious, and European thinkers within the Volkskirche tradition are denouncing it, raising the question whether there is an alternative more consonant with the gospel. Secondly, the rediscovery of Anabaptism is significant because it coincides with a mighty surge of interest in the doctrine of the church, stimulated by a new current in Biblical theology, by a revived awareness of the missionary task, and by the ecumenical movement. The Anabaptist rejection of the concept of “Christendom” is now followed by men like Lesslie Newbigin,2 even though their churches are historically unexplainable apart from mass-church assumptions.

Thirdly, the rediscovery of the Anabaptist vision is crucially important for that small segment of the church which stands in the Anabaptist-Mennonite tradition and faces the staggering task of redefining its stance of faith in modern terms, deciding whether and how to deny that the only choice is between a culturally buttressed isolation and a conformity to prevailing culture rendered less distasteful by a slogan like “responsibility.”

Seen from these three viewpoints, it is providential that a fresh understanding of the Anabaptist example should have been won just now. Concern is in a real sense a child of this rediscovery; Concern No. 1 can best be understood as a testimony to the discovery that the “Anabaptist Vision,” both as a Christian goal and as a regulative concept in Christian thought, was more true, more basic, and more crucial than we had previously realized.

But is it right for Christians to give this much attention to one narrow slice of church history? Is it not out of place in the “ecumenical age” to give renewed attention to a small group’s peculiar heritage? Could not the study of the New Testament and of the needs of our day lead committed Christians to discover the fullness of God’s will for them without their borrowing a crutch from the sixteenth century? This is a very reasonable objection. If Christian faith were a system of disincarnate generalities, it would in fact be an invincible argument. Yet to point to it to disqualify the study of the lessons of church history would be to deny that we are already involved, not only by error but also by virtue of the gospel, in the triumphs and treasons of the church across the ages.

The fundamental problem which faces the advocates of church renewal is a question with which neither Bible study nor the analysis of the present scene will suffice to answer. For the question is not what the Bible teaches, but whether this teaching can be applied in another age than that of the Bible; not whether the Christian faith must be expressed in forms relevant to contemporary man, but whether in order to do this the original faith itself must be modified. The answer of most church leaders since the fourth century and of most influential thinkers today is that there exists so fundamental an incompatibility between the message of the New Testament, calling out a pilgrim people to follow their Master in warfare against this present age, and on the other hand the dictate of the contemporary situation, demanding total involvement in society, that certain basic aspects of the New Testament view of the church and the world must be abandoned or thoroughly redefined. This was the view of the Protestant Reformers, as it is today that of most Protestant teachers. Here, and not on the level of Biblical interpretation, is the crucial issue. This is the question to which neither the New Testament nor the modern scene speaks, for it asks how the two are related. Here it is that the Anabaptists were both original and clear. The position they took was clearer, just at this point, as far as present scholarship knows, than that of any other major movement of renewal within Christendom. Their testimony was, as ours must be, that the New Testament view of the church is in its core just as final, just as authoritative, just as adequate for other ages, as the New Testament doctrine of justification by faith. They maintained this view in a context where the refrain, “times have changed,” was just as believable as today. For this reason, they merit our attention in a special way.

Concern intends to publish writings which should not appear elsewhere because they are not fully “ripe.” A normal Christian periodical, especially a denominational organ, is responsible to edify its readers, in the best sense of that term; this means that some kinds of wrestling with problems not yet resolved, and seeking to understand phenomena not yet fully grasped, are not in their rightful place in such a publication. Such wrestling and seeking must be done, and there are good reasons for their being shared in writing with Christian brethren, but until some conclusion is reached, they are not ready for propagation. Every issue of Concern thus far has therefore carried the statement that “since articles are published for the sake of study and discussion, they do not purport to be definitive.” Concern’s sponsoring circle has had and continues to have certain preoccupations and convictions in common; but the publication itself means to further discussion, not to propagate ...