Balthasar Hubmaier was also a contemporary of Martin Luther and one of the early Protestant Reformers that aligned himself with Anabaptist theology. He was one of the Reformers that like Zwingli sought for the sole authority of the Scriptures to where he advocated a total revamped orthodoxy apart from Catholicism. Martin Luther was an advocate for the authority of Scriptures but also believed that the Catholic church had strayed from it's pure beginnings. As a result, Martin Luther did not call for a full departure of the Catholicism which explains as to why he posted his 95 thesis. As a result, the Catholic church would excommuinate him and also placed a death warrant for him.
In the beginning stages of the Reformation, there were zealots like Karlstad and Thomas Muntzer that advocated a physical resisting and overthrowing the magistrate authorities in order to set up a more biblical one. But others like Zwingli and Hubmaier instead advocated for a steady persisting unlearning process from Catholicism and convincing others to do so as well. They sought to replace the traditions they grew up with for the pure undefiled teachings of the Scriptures without the use of physical force to existing authorities.
Hubmaier was different from the other Reformers in that he thought that the Scriptures could be use to challenge the existing authorities in how they went about their managed the cities and sought for a more biblical approach. The primary dispute in this with him and others in the Anabaptist camp was their reluctance to take up the "civil" sword. As Martin Luther was being protected and accepted by the Germany elites like Frederick the Wise and Phillip of Hess, he began to advise based on Romans 13, that the German authorities have the right to have the sword and to use it to deal with rebel uprisings. As a result, the Anabaptist leadership began to distrust the leadership like Martin and a rift was developing between the Reformers. Luther would an inability to even remain unified with Zwingli concerning the Lord Supper. This left the Swiss Reformers to work out issues of like that of infant baptism and the use of the "sword" with the Anabaptist leaders like Conrad Graebel and Balthazar Hubmaier. The Anabaptist would continue to hold their perspective on believer's baptism over the acceptance of infant baptism the process toward unity was breaking down. It also did not help that the process of unity was being disrupted by the unruly zealots that associated with some in the Anabaptist camp. With pressure by the magistrates to conform to civic expectations, teachings like that of Martin Luther, and the acts of the zealots, the Anabaptists would be generalized with the zealots as troublemakers. Even the great Baptist historian William Estep concludes that Anabaptists were being confused as rebel rousers along with those who followed men like Karlstad and Muntzer.
With their reluctance to the "civil" sword and convictions to their beliefs, Anabaptists pretty much wanted to be left alone to themselves and would settle in various places in Northern Europe. The connected their faith identity to those in Hebrews 11 as "those longing for a better country - a heavenly one." As the issue of how to deal with heretics arose, the magistrates in Northern Europe were accepting to ideas made in Geneva concerning how to how deal with the teaching of heretics that could damn citizen. The issue was that the death penalty could be applied because that if such teachings would lead to souls being damned then the death penalty could be justified physically. As a result, the magistrates in various provinces would apply such tactics on the Anabaptists.
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