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Stripped to essential core
By John A. LappPage:
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On my desk is The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith by Stuart Murray, published by Herald Press, 192 pages, $13.99.
Lapp
In spite of the title, this is a superb book. It is spritely written, with a profound understanding of the radical tradition within Christianity since the early church.
Stuart Murray sees the church in context, both past and present. His exposition of seven core convictions defining the Anabaptist network is a fresh, vital statement of contemporary Anabaptist thought and practice.
Murray is the director of church planting and evangelism at Spurgeon’s College in London and chair of the Anabaptist Network in the United Kingdom.
He says this book is an attempt to answer five questions: “What is an Anabaptist? Where did Anabaptism come from? What do Anabaptists believe? Can I become an Anabaptist? What is the difference between Anabaptists and Mennonites?”
While these questions emanate from the witness of the Anabaptist Network in the U.K., Murray has discovered these questions are also asked on the European continent and in North America. Using his understanding that we are living in a post-Christendom era, Murray suggests the radical Christian tradition, including Anabaptism, may represent a vision whose time has come.
I found refreshing the constant reference to the insight and experience of contemporary Anabaptists, mostly in the U.K. Murray describes how to be radically Christian when the organized church is conspicuously weak as a public witness.
That is why the Anabaptist Network is an attractive model for radical Christians. The network is in part the result of 30 years of a pioneering missiology by Mennonite Board of Missions, now Mennonite Mission Network.
As one participant, Linda Wilson, observed: “The emphasis on community, eating, sharing together and valuing each other as a base for mission represents for me the essence of church. Relationships … should be the basic building blocks of the church.”
Murray describes seven core convictions as discerned by the Anabaptist Network. These deal with Christology, revelation, separation of church and state, being good news to the poor and powerless, being “communities of discipleship and mission, places of friendship, mutual accountability and multi-voiced worship,” spirituality and economics, and peace.
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Comments
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Like Nelson Kraybill wrote to Newsweek long ago during the streaker phenomenon, perhaps we should "just grin and bare it." ;--)
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@Gerald...
GROAN...I see that my beloved former seminary professor just couldn't help himself.
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For a young adult take on The Naked Anabaptist read Maegan Yoder's review here http://emu.edu/blog/work-and-hope/2010/07/19/review-the-naked-anabaptist/
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Mennonite groups and other Anabaptists.
