In 1527, amidst a political and religious climate of intense persecution, a faction of leading Swiss Anabaptists gathered in the town of Schleitheim to develop seven articles of Anabaptist faith through consensus. The resulting document, known as the “Schleitheim Confession,” yielded a set of principles for a reform movement lacking coherence or formal structure. This seminal confession was not only a radical theological statement of belief but a revolutionary political testament as well. As a result of their shared skepticism of authority, commitment to communal living, and desire to lead non-violent lives, the subversive political theology of these Anabaptists suggest an anarchist political order with concomitant practices such as decentralization, nonconformity, non-violence, mutual aid, and localism. While these early Anabaptists never fully articulated a truly anarchist vision – most still recognized the divine legitimacy of state power – this impulse courses through the Anabaptist political theology of the Schleitheim Confession and its authoring community.

Anabaptist political theology traditionally centers itself around its version of two-kingdom theology: the kingdom of the world in opposition to the kingdom of Christ. As Walter Klaassen describes it, “the kingdom of Christ was characterized by peace, forgiveness, nonviolence, and patience, [while] the kingdom of the world, or Satan, was strife, vengeance, anger, and the sword that kills. Government belonged to this kingdom of the world.”¹ In rejecting the kingdom of the world in favour of the kingdom of Christ, the earliest Anabaptists demonstrated a revolutionary politics in contrast to the Lutheran and Catholic establishments of sixteenth-century Europe. While most of the articles of the Schleitheim Confession predominantly apply to the doctrine and rule of the Anabaptist community, those that concern separation, the sword, and the oath most clearly express the subversive political theology of the Schleitheim Anabaptists.

Article IV on separation from evil clarifies the dualism of their two-kingdom theology. Christians must choose good over evil, light over darkness, and belief over unbelief.² In their view, the true Christian community should have no association with those who remain in disobedience and active rebellion against God; Christians must be in the world, but not of the world. The Schleitheim Anabaptists agreed that government was a worldly institution, and therefore an evil in which Christians should have no part.

Schleitheim’s position on the sword stems from this two-kingdom principle. Article VI solidified the theological notion that violence must not be used in any circumstance, as, “the sword is an ordering of God outside the perfection of Christ.”³ Hence the use of the ban for dealing with sinners in the community, rather than violent retribution. Schleitheim was insistent that all evil must be resisted including the use of “weapons of violence” such as the sword and armor.⁴ This emphasis on nonviolence is patterned after the life and teachings of Christ, who never exhibited violence in the face of persecution or as a punishment for sin. Rather, they upheld Christ’s command to “go, and sin no more” was upheld as the alternative to perpetuating violence against those who sin.⁵ 

Likewise, Schleitheim forbade Christians from serving as magistrates. Again, the confession points to the example of Christ, who “suffered (not ruled).”⁶ In their view, a magistrate primarily acts according to the rules of the world, not according to the rules of heaven; while their weapons are worldly, the weapons of a Christian are spiritual.⁷ Positions in government require the use of the sword, a form of violence from which Schleitheim sought total separation from.

Through their seventh and final article regarding the swearing of oaths, the Schleitheim Confession reinforced Anabaptist separateness from secular authority. By refusing to swear oaths, these Anabaptists refused to pledge allegiance to any authority other than that of Christ and his kingdom. With this article, Schleitheim effectively declared their non-allegiance to state power and reaffirmed their commitment to nonparticipation in a worldly system. By contrast, these Anabaptists declared that their primary obligation was to God and following the ethical teachings of Christ found throughout the New Testament.⁸ 

Notwithstanding this self-distancing from government, Schleitheim still recognized the divine legitimacy of state power. According to the Confession, “[the sword] punishes and kills the wicked, and guards and protects the good. In law the sword is established over the wicked for punishment and for death, and the secular rulers are established to wield the same.”⁹ Despite their insistence that Christians must refrain from the use of violence in any circumstance, Schleitheim still recognized the sword as a necessary function to punish the evil and reward the good. Klaassen explains that for these early Anabaptists, “[government] kept order by force in a world in which the spirit of Christ had not yet captured all hearts and made them obedient.”¹⁰ Since government was appointed by God, it had to be obeyed, so long as it did not contradict with Christian principles of faith.

Already in sixteenth-century Switzerland, these Anabaptists recognized the inherent and inescapable violence of state power. This is due, in part, to the fact that violent persecution characterized their political experience in early Reformation Europe, where, “as social and religious non-conformists, the Anabaptists were clearly targets in the government’s efforts toward consolidation in political as well as religious life”¹¹ The only way to exemplify Christ for the Schleitheim Anabaptists was to themselves practice the nonresistance exemplified by Christ, resulting in their pacifistic and defiant political separateness. This decisive rejection of worldly power was both the cause and result of a hopeless political situation, wherein the refusal to embrace violent resistance typically resulted in complete submission to existing authorities. For Schleitheim, it was more righteous to be persecuted for their separatism than to be tolerated for their accommodation to worldly power.

In a variety of ways, anarchism corresponds to this political theology. Anarchism is best understood as a set of theories and philosophies principally defined by a skepticism of authority and power, most notably political power.¹² The central maxim of anarchism is that the state inevitably produces more oppression, violence, tyranny, and injustice. This ideology encompasses a diverse set of positions all united, however, under one maxim: people are most free in voluntary, stateless societies. Of the two major streams of anarchist thought, individualist and social, the latter is the most relevant for this discussion on the Schleitheim Anabaptists.¹³ 

One of the Archetypal thinkers of classical socialist anarchism, or anarcho-communism, was the late-nineteenth, early-twentieth-century Russian intellectual Peter Kropotkin, who developed his anarchist theories mainly in critical response to the centralizing tendencies of Marxism. His socialist approach focuses on the development of social and communal groups, which are thought to thrive outside of hierarchical and centralized political structures.¹⁴ His anarchist theory stresses the value of mutual aid, communal living, and decentralized, redistributive, and reciprocal economics. Moreover, anarcho-communism emphasizes the importance of social groups and the bonds that hold them together, through common principles, meta-narratives, and ethics, and maintains that human flourishing and productivity occur best within such social structures. A major tenet of Kropotkin’s anarcho-communism is that noncoercive consensus-building through direct democracy at the local level is the ideal form of political organization.¹⁵ 

While Kropotkin places significant emphasis on the economic imperative of his anarchist theories, other thinkers, such as the noted Russian novelist and contemporary of Kropotkin, Leo Tolstoy, stressed the religious principles that naturally imply anarchism. Regarded as the father of Christian anarchism, Tolstoy stressed a connection between his own Christian pacifism and anarchist political philosophy later in his career.¹⁶ Though not himself an Anabaptist, Tolstoy radically claimed that the concept of a “Christian state” is a contradiction in terms, and that “Christianity in its true meaning destroys the state.”¹⁷ There is an elegant logic to Tolstoy’s position according to political scientist Robert Goehlert: “because the state, law, property, and money are tools of violence and are diametrically opposed to the law of love, those institutions must be abolished.”¹⁸ In other words, because the state must use violence and is intrinsically coercive, Christian anarcho-pacifism views it as immoral, as ultimately unsupportable. Tolstoy even claimed that Christians have a duty to disobey political power and refuse to swear allegiance to any such authority.¹⁹ 

The fusion of these two streams of anarchist theory remarkably resemble the thought and practice of the Schleitheim Anabaptists, who demonstrated both the decentralized communal aspects of Kropotkin’s anarcho-communism and the elements of nonviolence and nonparticipation found in Tolstoy’s Christian anarcho-pacifist thinking. For these reasons Kropotkin even stated: “in the Anabaptist movement … there was a considerable element of anarchism,” and traced one of the earliest expressions of European anarchism back to these early reformers.²⁰ 

In these articles of faith put forward by the Schleitheim Anabaptists there is a clear articulation of proto-anarchist thought. For one, Schleitheim’s insistence on separation from the world was a clear rejection of the whole state apparatus, a refusal to engage with the trappings of the political paradigms of sixteenth-century Europe. Within their two-kingdom theology, government remained an institution of sin, regardless of whether or not it ruled justly. Therefore, nonparticipation in the state came automatically to Schleitheim. These Anabaptists implicitly refused to accept the notion of a Christian state, seeing it as a contradiction in terms, not unlike Tolstoy. To them, such a polity was an earthly one–worldly, secular, innately violent, and thus anti-Christian. This synthesis could not be upheld in the dualistic framework of the Schleitheim Anabaptists. Other Protestants and Catholics rightly saw this position as treasonous, hence the persecution that rained down on Anabaptist believers.²¹ 

The Christian commitment to non-violence and rejection of the sword found in the Confession was not just an individual ethical commitment but was also a repudiation of the state. While there is a recognition that force is necessary for the state to punish the guilty, such violence is to be renounced by the believing community. Since violence cannot be used by Christians, one cannot participate in government or in the administration of the state. This assertion that Christians cannot be magistrates was in clear opposition to the Magisterial reformers, establishing the Schleitheim Anabaptists as profound social non-conformists.²²

Likewise, the Anabaptist’s political subversion was felt in their refusal to swear oaths. In sixteenth-century Europe, oaths bound much of society together. They formed the basis of trade and contracts, and they were used to give assurance that the truth was being told in courts and in every-day life, but ultimately, they were used to swear allegiance to the state. In refusing to take the oath, the Schleitheim Anabaptists refused to give their allegiance to the state, and they insisted that truth-telling was to be the precondition for any relationship between believers. This legalistic refusal reinforced the moral and practical separateness of the Anabaptists, and only enhanced their social and political alienation.

Moreover, the remaining articles concerning baptism, communion, the election of shepherds, and the ban each point to the ideal anarchist commune espoused by Kropotkin. Here one may find a profound demonstration of distinctness and independent thought, a local and communal economy, the direct democracy of church leadership, and a mechanism for exercising discipline within the community without resorting to violence or external authority.²³ Bound together by shared experiences of persecution and societal alienation, a consensus on main theological issues, and a strongly felt communal life, these early Swiss Anabaptists effectively acted out the principles of an anarcho-communist framework centuries before its full articulation.

Because of their subversive political theology, the experience of the Schleitheim Anabaptists and many other early Anabaptists was one of constant persecution by secular and religious power.²⁴ Most notably, Michael Sattler, the formative leader in the creation of the Schleitheim Articles, was executed at the stake shortly thereafter in 1527, followed by his wife, Margaretha, and other Anabaptists.²⁵ This relentless persecution likely worked to further their internal sense of political and religious separation, along with their theological and communal consolidation. With the Schleitheim Confession, these Anabaptists offered a rebuttal to this cycle of violence by refusing to partake in the violence of the world in favour of the peace exemplified by Christ. These radicals maintained an integrity to basic Anabaptist principles foundational to the history and faith of the Anabaptist tradition, and paid for it with their lives.

Rooted in the earliest foundations of the Anabaptist faith tradition, the proto-anarchist vision of the Schleitheim Confession offers both political and theological ammunition to those who seek a Christian belief system as an alternative to modern statist ideology, so long as they can bear the consequences.

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