Making It Plain: Why We Need Anabaptism and the Black Church

Anabaptism and the Black church can help the West to reform a “mainstream Christianity” rooted in power, control, and domination, according to this thought-provoking treatise from Hart (Trouble I’ve Seen), an associate professor of theology at Messiah University. The author traces how Western Christianity was birthed from “Christendom” that emerged in the ninth century as the Holy Roman Empire sought to “implement Christianity” via conquest and forced conversion. Such a Christianity, according to Hart, has functioned throughout history as a “coercive, top-down,” state-associated faith that seeks to “impose itself over the social order,” fueling the transatlantic slave trade, Native American displacement, and Jim Crow. Hart finds an antidote in the peace and “nonviolent resistance” of Anabaptism, a denomination that emphasizes the baptism of adults, and the liberative justice of the Black church–values that Jesus lived by, and that run counter to those promoted by today’s Christianity, which, in the author’s view, has seized on political and social issues as a skewed and morally damaging shorthand for belief. While Hart can be wordy, he’s consistently eye-opening in unpacking what it actually means to model one’s life after Christ, and he highlights the benefits of Anabaptism and the Black church while remaining clear-eyed about their faults. For example, he notes that some Black churches can be patriarchal and must extend “God’s justice” to all marginalized people, including by welcoming LGBTQ+ Christians and appointing women to leadership roles. Curious believers will find plenty to chew on. (Sept.)