Christian Service Through the Military: A Baptist Perspective from Church History
Brigadier General Michael Sproul
Understanding Baptist views of military service and patriotism is valuable in giving Baptists a deep and rich history. Serving in the military does have a long history among Baptists, beginning with the connection with and influence of the Anabaptists of sixteenth-century Europe.
THE INFLUENCE OF PACIFISM BY THE ANABAPTISTS
Some in the German and Swiss Anabaptist movement of the 1520s were pacifistic, while the noted German pastor and scholar Balthasar Hubmaier was not. Consistent with most in the evangelical wing of the continental Anabaptist movement in Europe, the Schleitheim Confession was pacifist, opposing wars, violence, and all military action. Some attempt to dismiss the Anabaptists from our lineage by claiming their pacifism disqualifies them. This is historically inaccurate, since Baptists have never asserted pacifism as a core tenant of their self-identification. Thomas Armitage, the favorite Baptist historian of Charles Spurgeon, did not believe that the continental Anabaptists should be removed from our ecclesiastical family tree because of their theological, ecclesiastical, and civic views.[1] Neither did the New England Baptists of 1640, who defended the continental Anabaptists of a century before, even though they held to pacifism. Dr. Ernest Pickering, in his seminal book Biblical Separation, identifies numerous separatist Anabaptist groups through the ages as part of our heritage, despite their pacifistic perspectives about military service and war.[2]
The pacifist wing of the continental Anabaptists wrestled with pacifism and military service in a European civic culture in which both Protestants and Catholics espoused a strident Christian nationalist view. In that era of Christian nationalism, where civil servants and the military were called on to execute or torture Anabaptists, it is understandable that godly Anabaptists like Michael Sattler, the author of the Schleitheim Confession, would be unlikely to accept judicial or military appointments. The continental Anabaptists also argued that Christ’s kingdom was not of this world and that the early church never sought an earthly kingdom. They were attempting to reassert a primitive church view after what was, in their view, 1,200 years of decline. These views certainly would not push them out of the “Baptist genealogical tree.” Heinrich Bullinger, Zwingli’s successor, openly asserted that Anabaptists should be martyred by the Protestants, just as Zwingli had done.[3] These Christian nationalist views in Europe would have naturally pushed godly Baptists, as well as Anabaptists, away from military or judicial service.