Menno Simons: Dutch Reformer Between Luther, Erasmus, and the Holy Spirit a Study in the Problem Areas of Menno Scholarship

In 1962 the Reformation scholar Hans Hillerbrand said the following of Menno Simons For the past four hundred years he has been a man with a bad press criticized not only by all of his foes outside his tradition but also by many of his friends within Outsiders accused him of at the very least sympathizing if not actively supporting the revolutionaries involved in the notorious Mnster uprising of 1534 1535 the jihadists of the sixteenth century Many insiders at first fearful that this might indeed be the case sought early to distance themselves from him calling themselves Doopsgezinde rather than Mennists Later other insiders having moved beyond Menno theologically under the influence of the Enlightenment and Rationalism criticized him for being overly dogmatic and narrow minded Only a few pietists like Jung Stilling and pietistically influenced Dutch Mennonites like Johannes Deknatel together with the occasional Baptist scholar like J Newton Brown spoke highly of him Indeed the latter said of Menno But there stood one among them the great reformers whom they knew not who was greater than they more truly eminent in the likeness of their common Lord In a first section this study begins with a chapter on the problem of reform in the sixteenth century A second section on the 1534 1535 Mnster uprising that has so bedeviled Menno historiography follows Both sections seek to recreate at least to a degree the larger context of Menno s life and activity and free him from the prejudices of the past It does so by making the case not made heretofore that Menno was powerfully influenced not by the revolutionaries but by the two intellectual giants of the age Martin Luther and Desiderius Erasmus But the study also takes seriously Menno s repeated assertion that he had experienced a life transforming conversion through the power of the Holy Spirit in early 1535 With this as background the study then investigates in a chronologica