The Lord's Supper in AnabaptismA Study in the Christology of Balthasar Hubmaier, Pilgram Marpeck and Dirk Philips Studies in Anabaptist and Mennonite History Series, Vol. 33 |
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Working from source documents of Anabaptism, John D. Rempel shows the diversity of Anabaptist views on communion. He highlights the role of Christology in Hubmaier, Marpeck, and Dirk, and the eucharistic theologies which issue from their different pictures of Christ. These views of the Lord's Supper, shaped by attempts to defend the Anabaptist Supper against both sacramentalism and spiritualism, were taken up and changed in later Mennonitism (and by other radical Protestants) and greatly reduced from their sixteenth-century origins.
Rempel issues a call for Anabaptist eucharistic theology to help correct later developments in the non-Lutheran Reformation which tend to downgrade the Lord's Supper to be merely a human act of remembrance. In the Eucharist, the church embodies the presence of Christ and is sustained by that meeting with God. Anabaptists can share with the wider church the emphasis on communion as the surpassing expression of reconciliation of Christians with God and with each other.
About the Author
John Rempel, pastor of the Manhattan Mennonite Fellowship in New York City, represents Mennonite Central Committee at the United Nations. He was educated at Conrad Grebel College of the Univ. of Waterloo (Ont.) and Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (Elkhart, IN) and completed a doctorate at St. Michael's College, Toronto School of Theology.
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