Guides: Radical Reformation/Anabaptist studies: Home

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Introduction

"Anabaptism was a radical renewal movement, contemporaneous with the sixteenth-century Reformation, in territories which now comprise Switzerland, Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, Alsace and the Netherlands. Its distinguishing characteristics included Christocentrism, emphasis on new birth and discipleship in the power of the Spirit, establishment of believers' churches free from state control, commitment to economic sharing, and a vision of restoring New Testament Christianity." -- Stuart Murray. "Anabaptists." In The Dictionary of Historical Theology. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000): 13.

One might infer from the above quotation that Anabaptist studies involves research into the history of a long dead and fossilized 16th century religious movement. It is not.

Just like the Lutheran and Reformed traditions of the Reformation, the Anabaptist heritage continues into the Twenty First century, through Mennonite and other affiliate branches of Anabaptist thought and practice.

The resources in this guide are primarily focussed on the 'magisterial' or early and formative period of the movement, in the 16th century. But many of the resources in this guide also provide access to contemporary Anabaptist voices and perspectives. So whether your interest is strictly historical or contemporary, you should find material in these pages to help acclimatize yourself to the topic and get started.

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Baylor Central Libraries have substantial holdings of resources for Anabaptist/Mennonite studies.

Search suggestion: one efficient way to rapidly locate materials for a topic in Anabaptist studies, is to perform a Subject Headings search.

To get started, simply locate the subject headings provided on "Accessing Journal Articles" page (left hand column) of this guide, copy the heading most applicable to your research interest from the subject links, paste it into the OneSearch search box. Then run the search!