Anabaptist Spirituality and Nachfolge Christi Belief Term Papers

The Anabaptist belief in the Nachfolge Christi or “Bitter Christ developed early in the radical Reformation movement and strongly influenced the Anabaptist approach to spirituality and their way of life.  The Nachfolge Christi concept emphasized the suffering of Christ not as a remote event that occurred in the distant past, but as a continuous process that all followers of Christ should embrace. In order to actualize this concept, the Anabaptists practiced self-abandonment in all aspects of their lives, which led to a passive surrender to dangers such as persecution and martyrdom.  As a result, the Anabaptists of the sixteenth century developed a high regard for individuals who visibly suffered for the sake of their beliefs, creating what can be viewed as theology of martyrdom martyrs that was part of the covenantal bond holding the congregations together.  Because of the decentralized nature of the Anabaptist movement, the Nachfolge Christi received different interpretations by spiritual leaders and believers, which led to variable emphasis on the elements of discipleship and martyrdom implicit in the concept.

The term Nachfolge Christi translates as the discipleship of Christ, with the emphasis on the bitterness of Christ’s suffering.  This focus on suffering became embedded in the term through the various interpretations of the meaning of discipleship provided by Anabaptist theologians during the course of the sixteenth century.  The Nachfolge Christi concept is not precisely defined in Anabaptist belief, largely due to the large number of interpreters of the concept and the absence commonly agreed upon foundational theological writings.  The concept implies that discipleship is based on a degree of solidarity in suffering between Christ and his believers, the necessity for believers to abandon the self in order to achieve solidarity, and the need to live the Christian life as mirrored in the gospels.  In effect, the reenactment of the suffering of Christ on Calvary was seen as an ongoing process that included the daily struggle to abandon the self as well as the more direct tribulation of persecution to the point of martyrdom. Believers could not find true discipleship unless they fully embraced the abandonment of the self and joined with Christ in redemptive suffering.  To a large degree, the Nachfolge Christi belief was an extension of the traditional mysticism of the High Middle Ages, which emphasized surrender to the will of God and the transitory nature of life on earth.

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