Community and Catastrophe: An Ecclesio-Political Reading of the Schleitheim Confession

This book examines, from a contemporary perspective, one of the most influential document in Anabaptist tradition: the Schleitheim Confession.Van Hoogstraten develops seven constructive readings of the Confession’s articles, each of which discuss practices to shape the church community.

Written in the wake of defeat at the Peasants’ rising in 1527, the Confession represents the attempt by radical reformers to outline collective, nurturing practices in the wake of external catastrophe. Van Hoogstraten sets loose a lively conversation with this text that illuminates a sense of life and togetherness in trying times. In the of this hands sophisticated and interdisciplinary scholar, the Confession becomes a vital source for constructive theology and ethics in the Anabaptist tradition.

This fresh take on the Confession is sure to be of interest to Anabaptist theologians as well as students of the wider fields of political theology, Continental philosophy and ecclesiology.

Marius van Hoogstraten is Lecturer at the Amsterdam Mennonite Seminary and VU Amsterdam, The Netherlands.