In July, any Lake District holidaymakers passing through the doors of Lake Road Chapel in Keswick were treated to a sobering slice of church history. David Earnshaw, an experienced minister and church historian, spent three Thursdays providing an in-depth analysis of Anabaptism and its lessons for today.
Anabaptism was a radical branch of the 16th-century Protestant Reformation. Its adherents went against the grain by advocating believer’s baptism rather than infant baptism. They also pressed for separation of the church from secular oversight and emphasised godly living as much as theological understanding. An early Anabaptist leader, Hans Denck, wrote that ‘to believe is to obey God’s Word’.
