"The Naked Anabaptist" Core Conviction #2

Last week, I looked at the first of seven core convictions of Anabaptism that Stuart Murray discusses in his book The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith. This week, I will be continuing my look at these core convictions.

Murray describes the second core conviction of Anabaptism as “Jesus is the focal point of God’s revelation. We are committed to a Jesus-centered approach to the Bible and to the community of faith as the primary context in which we read the Bible and discern and apply its implication for discipleship.”[1] There are two essential elements in this core conviction. First, as we are reading and interpreting the Bible, the story of Jesus is the central, one might even say most important, part of the Bible. The rest of the texts must be read in light of the revelation of the Gospels. Second, the reading and interpretation of the text takes place in the midst of the community of faith. Rather than relying on our own interpretation, as Anabaptists we seek to test our interpretations in the context of our community of faith.

When we look back at the start of the Church of the Brethren in Schwarzenau, Germany, the dual forces of this core conviction become plain. The early Brethren gathered as a community to interpret the Bible, and were deeply moved by the Gospels. It is clear that the stories of Jesus in the Gospels informed the interpretation of the rest of the scriptures in that early group of Brethren.

In our own congregation, we live out this core conviction in several ways. Both of our Sunday School classes look to spend time interpreting the Bible together, in community. The group that meets together for Bible studies on Tuesday mornings embodies this desire to interpret the Bible as a community of faith as well. Time and again, when we turn to the Bible, as a group, and individually, we use the stories of the Gospels to help us interpret other, less familiar texts.

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[1] Stuart Murray, The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith, Scottdale, PA: Herald Press 2010, 178.

"The Naked Anabaptist" Core Conviction #1

Last week, I began a series looking at the book The Naked Anabaptist, by Stuart Murray. This week I’ll be continuing that series by looking at the first of the seven core convictions of Anabaptism that Murray discusses in his book.

The first core conviction that Murray gives is “Jesus is our teacher friend, redeemer, and Lord. He is the source of our life, the central reference point for our faith and lifestyle, for our understanding of church and our engagement with society. We are committed to following Jesus as well as worshipping him.”[1] As this statement indicates, the Anabaptist movement holds Jesus in a high regard. The teachings of Jesus are extremely important to those of us in the Anabaptist movement. That is not to say that Jesus is not important to other Christians, but that for Anabaptists, his teachings play a critical role in our understanding of his life, death, and resurrection. For some Christians, the teachings of Jesus are not as important as his death and resurrection.

And within our own Church of the Brethren tradition, the Sermon on the Mount, has played a critical role within our understanding of what it means to be a Christian church. Jesus’ instruction in Matthew 5:43-48 to love our enemies has been one of the verses that informed the formation of our peace witness. We seek to not only be believers of Jesus, but also to follow what he said.

As an Anabaptist congregation, we devote a considerable amount of our time to trying to understand the teachings of Jesus. Since I’ve been here, one of our Sunday School classes has been focusing on the Sermon on the Mount, seeking to understand how Jesus’ teachings contained therein might be applied to our lives now. We continue to seek ways of being Christian that involves not only belief in Jesus, but following his teachings as well.

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[1] Stuart Murray, The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith, Scottdale, PA: Herald Press 2010, 177.

"The Naked Anabaptist" Introductory Post

At Annual Conference this July, I picked up a copy of the book “The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith” by Stuart Murray. I’d heard about it before, and I’ll admit what intrigued me the most was the title. I wondered what does he mean by “The Naked Anabaptist?” Certainly it would be something other than simply an Anabaptist going around without any clothes on, wouldn’t it?

Murray describes an encounter that led to the title of his book. A friend was asked at one point “What does Anabaptism look like without the Mennonite, Hutterite, or Amish culture in which it is usually clothed in North America?”[1] Murray’s friend responded by saying “Ah, you mean ‘the naked Anabaptist,’ do you?...Anabaptism stripped to down to the bare essentials.”[2] The book, then, seeks to explore the basic beliefs that are inherent in the majority of Anabaptist understandings of Christianity.

Overall, this book does a good job of introducing the basic beliefs that undergird the majority of Anabaptist traditions today. Murray is a part of a group called “The Anabaptist Network,” a group of people in the UK who are interested in Anabaptism in their own context. They have come up with “7 Core Convictions”, the discussion of which forms a good portion of Murray’s book.[3] In future weeks, I hope to look at each of these convictions, and discuss how I see them fitting into our congregation here at Daleville.

As I close this week, I would like to give a couple of links to sites that might be of interest as I begin this time of looking at Murray’s book:

Amazon link for the book “The Naked Anabaptist”

The Anabaptist Network – UK group exploring Anabaptist ideas in UK

7 Core Convictions – Link to 7 Core Convictions Murray explores in his book.

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[1] Stuart Murray, The Naked Anabaptist: The Bare Essentials of a Radical Faith, Scottdale, PA: Herald Press 2010, 15.

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid., 44-46.

"Cotton Patch Gospel"

Last night, Tasha and I watched a video of the play “Cotton Patch Gospel.” It’s a very interesting take on the Gospel story, which updates the story of Jesus by placing it in the context of the South. At times funny, and at times very thought provoking, it is a wonderful testament to the lasting message of the Gospel.

Throughout this version of Jesus’ life, we are shown what it might have been like for Jesus to have been born in a time very different from his own. One scene has a televangelist describing Jesus’ healing coming from demonic influences, which he knows for sure because “Jesus didn’t charge anything for it.” The retelling of the parable of the Good Samaritan features the head of a large church organization and a Gospel quartet who pass by, with the role of the Samaritan being taken by a black truck driver. (The story is set during the time segregation was still in place).

This retelling of the Gospel story forces us to think about how Jesus’ ministry might have played out in the culture of the American South during the middle of the 20^th Century. It also invites us to think about how it might play out now. How would we receive Jesus if he came into our congregation? Who might the Samaritan be now? The story of Jesus is not limited to the historical period some 2000 years ago. It is still alive and working with in our midst even now. I’d invite you to ponder how we might retell the story of Jesus in our cultural context today, much as it was re-imagined in the stories of the musical “Cotton Patch Gospel.”