Rise of the Neo-Anabaptists

Jordan Ballor points out a trend that I too have noticed over the past few years:

Some years ago Robert Benne wrote an essay in First Things called “The Neo-Augustinian Temptation,” which he describes as a movement “committed to the construction of an independent and distinct churchly culture based upon the full narrative of Israel and the Church as it has been carried through the ages by the Great Tradition.”

But in light of Mark Tooley’s incisive piece appearing this week at the American Spectator , I think the trend might just as well be dubbed the “Neo-Anabaptist tempatation.”

As Tooley writes, “Traditional Anabaptists, such as the Mennonites, foreswore military service and public office while not contesting the civil state’s responsibilities, including armed force. But the new neo-Anabaptist movement is more aggressive, demanding that all Christians, and society, including the state, bend to pacifism. Traditional separatism has also compromised, with today’s many outspoken neo-Anabaptist voices pushing many insistent political demands that invariably align with the secular left and religious left.”