Separation and the Sword in Anabaptist Persuasion inaugurates a new epoch in Anabaptist studies. For one thing, it brings a new discipline—that of rhetorical analysis—to the study of Anabaptist texts. Rather than seeing texts as static entities of distilled truth, rhetorical analysis treats texts as living statements that function as strategic assertions in a context whose contours are not fixed. A series of significant results follow from the application of this discipline new to Anabaptist texts. This methodology provides an answer to a question that has long challenged interpreters of Anabaptism, namely how to account for the presence of sword bearers in a movement that came to be known as a pacifist or nonviolent movement. Whereas Harold S. Bender had declared Schwertler outside the circle of true Anabaptists—while more recent interpreters used their presence to declare that Anabaptism was not necessarily a pacifist movement or simply moved rejection of the sword out of the "core" and into a category of items on which Anabaptists disagreed—Biesecker-Mast’s rhetorical analysis shows how rejection of the sword was an operative motif, intrinsic to the movement even with the presence of Schwertler. In a most important argument, Biesecker-Mast’s methodology challenges the idea of Anabaptism as a movement that withdraws from the world. He shows that "separation from the world" is not the same as withdrawal. Separation is in fact a strategy for engagement of the world—without a sense of separation, Anabaptists would not be able to witness to the civil order, its authorities and established church. These observations in turn lead to a new understanding of Anabaptist identity. Beyond the eponymous name Anabaptist that derived from adding water to adults, previous efforts to define or characterize Anabaptism searched for an "essence" or a "core" identity, some kind of distilled essence that would finally define the finished character of the movement and account for all Anabaptists. In contrast to all such efforts, Biesecker-Mast’s rhetorical analysis reveals Anabaptism to be a strategy for living as a Christian, a strategy for living that starts with the narrative of Jesus and his rejection of the sword. This strategy results in a structure that is distinguishable—that is, separate from the social order—but which can and does exist in manifold ways, both in the sixteenth century and in the twenty-first century. Thus in Biesecker-Mast’s interpretation, Anabaptism emerges as a dynamic movement, shaped by a set of assumptions close to Bender’s original three-fold Anabaptist Vision but existing in multiple versions and which together comprise a way of being Christian that is new to the sixteenth century. This way of being Christian does not arrive in full-lown fashion from early leaders, and these leaders did not develop this program and set out to implement it. Rather, Anabaptism originated when early leaders asked questions about social and ecclesiastical realities that led them to challenge the established church. The eventual result was a dynamic Anabaptism, with change directed by practices understood to be consistent with the story of Jesus. It is this dynamic orientation that has allowed Anabaptism to become a movement still in existence, in recognizable continuity with sixteenth-century figures but also markedly different as it has evolved to address issues in the modern world. As such there are people today calling themselves Anabaptists—sometimes gathered in organized congregations, other times retaining membership in another denomination—across Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia, Africa, and North and South America, who respond to the vision of being Christians that pose a christologically focused, nonviolent witness to the structures of the social order. The analysis of texts in this volume will introduce readers to the sixteenth-century forms of this Anabaptism, as it also establishes a new norm for understanding Anabaptism in the twenty-first as well as the sixteenth century. This book has had a long gestation period, but Gerald Biesecker-Mast’s attention has never wavered. It has been a pleasure to work step by step with Gerald in the production of this manuscript, whether it concerned a nuance of interpretation, using the Internet to secure the cover illustration from the Zentral Bibliothek in Zürich, updating bibliographic entries, or sorting through the details of endnote format. I trust that readers will appreciate this effort as well. On behalf of Bluffton University, I express much appreciation to Gary Alvin and Susan Lee Weaver for their generous support of this volume of the C. Henry Smith Series. —J. Denny Weaver, Editor Separation and the Sword orders:
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