Sacred Roots: The Radical Reformation: A Model for Our Time

Strength to Strength welcomed Dean Taylor for a conversation on the Radical Reformation—that fascinating yet often misunderstood period that followed the medieval and magisterial reformations.

Historians have sometimes described it as “the left wing of the Reformation,” suggesting that its participants, especially the Anabaptists, were radicals who discarded all tradition in pursuit of spiritual purity.

But that’s not quite right. The irony of the so-called “Radical Reformation” is that its most enduring voices from the Anabaptists were precisely those who refused to throw everything away. Admittedly, there was great diversity among the movements of the sixteenth century—among Catholics, Magisterial Reformers, and Anabaptists alike. Yet those who survived and continued—whose faith communities we still recognize today—did so because they preserved what was ancient, true, and enduring.

Now that said, the early Anabaptists did indeed call for a radical return to the early church. Their reform was not a revolution of rejection but a restoration of essence—a re-centering of Christian life upon Christ Himself. In an age of upheaval, they offered something desperately needed: a return to the simplicity of apostolic faith, a community shaped by obedience and love rather than by coercion or power.

Dean will conclude that this balance—a kind of catholic spirit in the best sense of the word, coupled with genuine solidarity with the Anabaptist witness—is essential if we are to represent a faithful, enduring testimony in our own century.

An interactive question-and-answer period follows.

Recommended by Dean Taylor in this Talk: “Peter Riedemann’s Hutterite Confession of Faith”

Dean Taylor is an author of several books, most notably A Change of Allegiance, which chronicles the journey of him and his wife leaving the U.S. Army to become peacemakers. He is a church historian; his website Radical Reformation attests to his broad knowledge and experience.