"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.