Wes Harrison adds that "missioners were among the most respected of the brethren, especially in the golden years," Andreas Ehrenpreis and Hutterite Faith and Practice, Studies in
Anabaptist and Mennonite History 36 (Kitchener, Ont.: Pandora, 1997), 54.
Later a staunchly Catholic schoolmaster in Munster and other cities in the region, Kerssenbrock witnessed the beginnings of the
Anabaptist takeover as a child, before being expelled from the city in early 1534.
In the context of commenting on the authority of the classic creeds, he wrote about the
Anabaptists: "They assumed the Apostolic Creed....
Part two is shaped around the nature of the "new creation," which Finger is convinced is the heart of
Anabaptist theology, examining it from the personal, the communal, and missional.
F.'s careful research provides for dialogue on multiple levels of theological methodology: among Mennonite sources, between contemporary
Anabaptist theological scholarship and 16th-century positions, and between Mennonite convictions and the classical theological heritage.
For example, he tells the story of Hille Feyken, a 15-year-old
Anabaptist girl who, inspired by the ancient biblical story of Judith and Holofernes, attempted to save Munster through an act of deception, as well as the story of Henry Graes, an
Anabaptist missionary whose return to Munster was hailed by the
Anabaptists as an example of God's miraculous power, but who in the end turned out to be a traitor and an agent of the prince-bishop.
James Stayer is known for his monograph on
Anabaptists and the Sword (1972, rev.
An `overview' of the great variety of
Anabaptist groupings is then offered.
Unmarried women had to accept as husband the first man who asked them, a practice that led to a disorderly competition for the most wives.(14) Married
Anabaptist women found additional wives for their husband, as Sarah had done for Abraham in biblical times and Mormon wives would do for their husbands in the 1800s.
Torbet identified as the "
Anabaptist spiritual kinship theory" of Baptist origins.
Like Charles Zika before him in respect to Jews, Gary Waite notes the resonances between the imputed behavior of
Anabaptist women and that of witches.
Murray even critiques what he characterizes as a comfortable North American Mennonite culture that shows little evidence of excitement over core
Anabaptist principles.