Anabaptist History (Day 15) the Munster Tragedy and Melchior Hoffman — Dean Taylor

Okay, well, to give, I started, I found this little summary here done, I think, by Christianity Today or something, and I have it on your paper there, and this is just to kind of remind us all to give us a review and to bring us up to date of where these things, when these things happen, because we're going to now go to Holland and northern Germany, but, you know, we have all the Switzerland stuff, and then we went to Moravia and saw the Moravian Anabaptists, but, of course, while all this was happening, the Dutch stuff was all happening, but I wanted you to follow a group of people instead of so much following an age, and so that's why we're following these groups of people, and you definitely get a different feel in these different groups of people, some good things, some bad things, some challenges that each of these groups give to us even to this day.

The Dutch Mennonites and the Wider Anabaptist Movement

So today we're going to start talking about the Dutch Mennonites, that's where we get the name Mennonite, from Menno Simons and all that. You know, it's funny, we're on the fourth week, and we haven't even talked about Menno Simons yet, but it does give you an idea of how broad and how diverse even, well, not so much diverse, so broad the Swiss Brethren and the Moravian Anabaptists and all those had a lot to say even before these teachers from Holland began to intermix with these Brethren from the Swiss Brethren and those down in the south.

The differences and the problems that they run into are also particular to their area, and if you thought the Swiss Brethren had some problems, wait until you finish today. And when we get to Menno Simons tomorrow, Lord willing, if we get to him, usually people say, wow, he sure was awful tough, I mean, towards the end of his life he seems almost, you know, pretty belligerent at times and all this, but hopefully today you'll get an idea of the desperateness of what was happening in Holland and how Anabaptism was started on a very bad foot up there, and if it wasn't for some of the good leadership of Menno Simons, the Phillips Brothers and some of those, then it could have been a disaster just like the Moravian Anabaptists with Jacob Hutter took this and brought it into an organization that served the Lord, but even more than the Swiss Brethren, you're going to see Holland had a tremendous challenge.

Anabaptist History from Zurich to the 1530s

So just to give you a little bit of timeline so that we can kind of get all back in sync here, I appreciated this. It's not completely right, I noticed just this morning, but it's close enough. In 1521 they talk about Hubemeyer at Waldhut and he becomes a friend of Zwingli, that was when he was in his peasant war stage, and 22, Simon Stump and Rubling, Challenges of the Paying of Tithe, Hubemeyer, 23, goes to these different things.

We go right on in to the beginning of the Swiss Brethren, 24, 25, and of course the big year there, you see all that is mentioned in 1525, which is where we have the first baptism and all that exciting thing that we talked about in Zurich.

26, Grebel dies out from the plague somewhere, and 1527 we have the Schleitheim agreement there, they say brotherly union. 1527, also Felix Mons is drowned, although that's before the Schleitheim, it's a little off there, but same year.

Sattler burned, same year as well, and then just goes on. So it just kind of gives you an idea as you go through there, and I thought it was good. Hutt dies in Augsburg in 1527, that's Hans Hutt dies there.

Hubemeyer burned in Vienna, remember that, over there in Nickelsburg, all the guys that were there and all that in 1528. The Moravian Anabaptist became the Hutterites around 1529, then now we have Milkor Hoffmann meets the Anabaptists in Strasburg, we're going to talk about him in 1529.

Blaurock is burned in 1529, Hoffmann baptizes 300 people, a revival, we're going to talk about that, and we go to these different things, and now taking us into 1530s, 1533 we get into the Munster tragedy.

Again, just to kind of give you an idea of all these very early times of Anabaptist things that were going on. Menno Simon still is not really part of the scene, at this time he's studying the scriptures, hearing some of this stuff, particularly he hears this stuff from Munster, maybe one of his brothers are here mixed up with all this, his younger brother, it's thought, and so he begins to be aware of these things and challenged by these things.

Melchior Hoffman’s Prophetic Theology and Early Influence

But if there's anybody to put the beginning spirit and attitude and ethos and feeling on the Dutch Mennonites, it is Milkor Hoffmann, turn to page three of your handout, and there's a nice little picture of him in prison in Strasbourg, and looking there, he probably didn't look so nice and neat in his prison cell, but there's the picture that's typically shown of him.

Interesting guy, interesting guy, although quite a dreamer, quite a visionary, and he opened the door, a very dangerous door, of the concept of that the scriptures are not complete and that we can get divine revelations.

But we'll get to there, let's talk about him. Milkor Hoffmann, born in 1495, received a good education and become a furrier, I mean, you know, make fur coats and that type of thing, and that's what he did.

From the earliest age, though, he was interested in the mystics, he liked some of those writings that were coming out of those times that you could get where people were deeper spirituality than just church dogma and things, and he began to study the mystics, but then later he began to get involved and started to read the writings of Luther.

He was very excited about the writings of Luther and becomes a very enthusiastic follower of Martin Luther. He starts to preach, becomes a lay preacher, begins to preach around, people get challenged one way or another, but early on, Hoffmann begins to be very concerned about end times events.

Remember, there were some other people, and anybody can remember some of the other guys at this time who were involved with end times events, some of the radical reformers that came off of the Lutherans, Thomas Munzer was one in particular who led that big peasant revolt and ended up being killed.

Hoffmann was involved with the end times events very early on. He considered himself, he soon considered himself a prophet, called to testify of the imminent final judgment and stir people to repentance.

Later on, he starts to follow Luther's teachings, tries to get in the circles with them, and he ends up becoming a preacher. Apparently, he was a very good preacher. A layman, not classically educated, not classically ordained through the normal Lutheran channels, even the early Lutheran channels, but nevertheless, apparently a very good preacher.

And he was bold. By 1529, he began to discuss some of his views, and he started to have more of a Zwinglian concept of the sacraments. Which was even a lighter view. Remember, Martin Luther believed that the Eucharist, the communion, he talked about consubstantiation, but he still believed in a real presence in the communion.

Zwingli argued that it was just a spiritual partaking, and Hoffmann began to pick that up as well. In 1529, when he was getting into some of the debates, and he brought some of the different lords of the area in there to discuss these things with him, he was pretty bold.

And here's a quote that I found when they were surprised how bold he was. They said, If all the emperors, kings, prince, popes, bishops, and cardinals should be together in one place, nevertheless the truth shall and must be known to the glory of God.

May my Lord and God grant me this. And that's the way he was presenting his case to these lords. So, even though this guy wasn't ordained formally, he was a pretty bold fellow right from the start. And you've got to remember, all that we've talked about over these weeks, I think you start to have a better idea of just the somewhat chaotic nature of Europe at this time.

It's 1529, remember? The Ottoman Empire is now already coming upon Vienna. Rome was sacked, destroyed, taken over for a while in 1527. Luther is now gaining power all through Europe. Things are pretty chaotic everywhere.

And so you had a little more grounds to be a furrier and to say some of these things to the lords at that time. You know what I mean? The next morning after the debate, I found another interesting quote.

And when they were talking to him and saying, they asked him, Well, where are your followers? Who are the people that believe like you and follow you? And he says, I know of no adherents. I stand alone in the word of God.

Let each do likewise. And so he was immediately kicked out of that area and began to wander again. He ended up in Strasbourg. Anybody remember who was in Strasbourg? Strasbourg was the Swiss area, or was the Swiss reformers there.

Capito and Busser and some of those people. And they held that zwingly concept of the Reformation. So they thought he was a hero, even though he wasn't ordained. Hoffman comes into town and they liked him.

And he began to talk about things and started to grow there. And they liked his views of communion, that sort of thing. In Strasbourg, he starts to meet up with the Anabaptists and some of the radical reformers.

In particular, a very spiritualist kind of guy by the name of Schweckveld. Remember we talked about Schweckveld? And the thing here to underline is that he apparently took Schweckveld's view of Jesus' divine flesh at this time in Strasbourg.

This is important. Because this view took over all of the North Germany, Holland areas. Menno, Simons, Phillips, and they all embraced this view for a while of this divine flesh. Do you remember what that is?

That means that when Jesus came, he was made human. They believed in the incarnation. He was completely human. He was completely divine. But they believed that he was like a new Adam, just placed in Mary and not took upon the flesh of Mary.

It would have been close to the Nestorians. That's why Nestorius didn't want to call her the mother of God, Theotokos, because he had that same kind of struggle. Some of it was scientific. Some of it was intellectual.

Some of it was spiritual reasons, talking about a pure sacrifice. And they're concerned of our atonement being placed on a completely pure sacrifice. Some of it came from some strange views of inherited sin and this kind of thing.

But scientifically, they didn't have an understanding of genetics and that type of thing. And so they had the concept that from the man's side, it's just placed there in the woman's side, and she's just a field.

And so if you're looking at it scientifically from their point of view, well, if God gave the Holy Spirit, what part does the woman play in this anyway? They didn't understand the idea of the genetics of everything coming together, which is incredible, I think, that the scriptures testify of these lines even though they didn't have that scientific knowledge.

We'll leave that here for now, but it's important because apparently they became very convinced with this view. Menno Simons begins even placing his views, when he talks about different topics, he'll base it back to this idea of this divine flesh.

But as he keeps going there, he starts looking through different things, look at the different Anabaptists, and they start to get more concerned. He also starts to get more and more into his prophecies and begins to talk about things that are in times, and he begins to get pretty serious about it.

I mean, to the point where it's almost ridiculous. I guess it is ridiculous. And so some of the different theologians there of Strasbourg, they said they advised him to stick to his furrier trade and stop getting into theology.

And he doesn't like that, so he keeps going. And somewhere in that time, we don't know from whom, he was baptized an Anabaptist in the early Strasbourg people. And he left town. But right before he left town, he wrote a book on his end times prophecy.

And this was the first of the Left Behind series. It became very popular. It became very exciting. And in a world that everything seemed chaotic, to them, this idea of this end times being right now, here it is, can't you see it, was very appealing.

But a step further, it's one step to have some wrong views of end times. A step further, he gave a lot of attention to different prophecies that were being said about him and about other people. And I think this was his weakest point.

He opened that gate and allowed, instead of the word of God being final, he allowed it to further revelations. So that booklet started to travel around everywhere, but still now he was an Anabaptist, and so he was going to go preach.

I guess maybe he thought Swiss was already covered. He heads north. He dedicates his book to the King of Denmark. You see I have it down there on the bottom of page 4. And so he heads up to this area, Denmark and all these different areas, and he begins to preach.

He even received a prophecy about what will happen from some of the different brothers there at Strasbourg and the different Anabaptist prophets that were walking around. Some gave them, I'm afraid, some false prophecy.

So as he's up there and going up to this northern area, he ends up in a town on Emden. Get up your cup and cross book and turn to page 138, Emden. 138 in the cup and the cross. And there's a nice picture there, and we can see.

So here's Holland, and if you see now, take it all the way up, and they're kind of in the middle on that little island there, formerly out of Holland, but for all practical purposes right there, Emden.

And that's where he went to preach. And when he preached, this man apparently could preach, and people loved it. And a revival broke out there in Emden where all kinds of people were getting born again.

The mayors were getting born again. All these people were getting excited, and there was a revival that broke out, and 300 people were baptized there. It was impressive. Obe Phillips even speaks of this time.

I found a quote it says here. Among these, talking about the people at this time, among these reformers and Anabaptist leaders whom he had named, Milkor Hoffman stood out. He came from Upper Germany to Emden to baptize around 300 persons publicly in the church in Emden, both burghers, burgermeisters and such, and peasants, lord and servants.

That was from Obe Phillips. Another quote from him says, This Milkor was a fiery and zealous man, a very smooth-tongued speaker who was celebrated for his great calling and commission. And so, you know, here they had this thought now.

Emden was here, it was receiving the gospel, and they had, though, one of the questions that has had to be a question that radical churches have asked through the years and a lot of times was, What do you do with these magistrates when they get born again?

What do you do with the kings? Are we part of that kingdom? Do we now try to develop this through the politics of this world and this thing, or are we to be completely separate and a whole new kingdom of God?

Jesus said, if you recall, that the people of this world exercise authority over people and when they, oh, I'm butchering the scripture, that we will not rule like the Gentiles rule. Jesus gave us the warning.

And so we see that warning that comes up through history time and time again. I'm not sure how they responded. It's interesting, even in the early church, Hippolytus, writing about in the year 250, a contemporary of Tertullian, speaks of what happens if these magistrates get born again or want to get baptized, rather.

And he speaks of them saying, well, if they continue to wear the purple, the robes, if they continue to have to keep these oaths, if they continue to have to be involved in any kind of execution, you will not allow them to be baptized.

And so even by 250, even as far as 250, you see the church still struggling over these types of things. Well, somehow or another, he did get himself in trouble there in Emden and he got kicked out. But he left a person there, Jan Tripmaker, Wolterstrun, I'm a butcher of that name, Tripmaker, in charge as pastor of the newly formed congregation and he headed back to Strasbourg.

A success! Woo! So now Holland, or the North, almost Holland, has received this message, this radical message. And they're responding to it. And during this time, I mean, there was no response. Here in Germany, in Germany you had the lords who were protecting were protecting Luther and all these people with Luther's reformation and it was beginning to gain steam down here.

But in Holland and all these areas they were still oppressed, they were still beaten down during the times of the peasant wars, they were poor, they were miserable, they were frustrated. And now this was really the only other option that was given to them as a separate church.

And so it took, and it took very quickly. As he heads back to Strasbourg, he does publish a book. Hoffman publishes a book on the ordinance of God. And it's interesting that that book is free of crazy stuff.

It doesn't get into you know, weird prophecies and all this type of thing. It's pretty normal. So this time he, as he's in Strasbourg, he he kind of hangs low and is quiet and then he heads back up in 1531 to Holland and this time to Amsterdam and baptizes 50 people in Amsterdam and now Amsterdam, the capital here of Holland has received this message and it begins to grow more.

Hoffman’s Revelations and the Road to Imprisonment

But something happens. While they're there in Amsterdam the church is growing and finally his man that he left there in charge and about several others were arrested, taken to The Hague and got their heads chopped off.

You see verse 6. Hoffman responded very shocked to this. And so in his plan he thought okay, why were they, what was such the big deal? Well it was because of baptism and they were saying they didn't want their children baptized and so he said okay here's my suggestion.

This is the way I look at it, Hoffman's saying. Jesus is coming back in a couple years, right? And he was so sure of this that he said I've got an idea. Let's stop doing baptism, let's stop doing communion.

When Jesus gets here we'll talk to him about it and we'll settle this thing, this whole dispute once and for all. It was pretty amazing. And so he was obviously a very sincere guy but he literally called off all baptisms from his followers up there and saying Jesus is going to get here in a little bit, we'll talk to him, we'll deal with this.

And that was his attitude. Some did stop, some did not, of course you get into that kind of spiritualism where can you be a secret Mennonite and that type of thing and that did follow the Mennonites here in the north for a while.

More and more he begins to preach the end is at hand. The end is at hand. And now an old prophet, a freezing Anabaptist prophet, a false prophet, said prophesied over him and said that he would be in prison for half a year but then would be released and to perform the function of Elijah and the return of Christ.

And so he started to think, wow I guess it's me. You know, it's me. I'm going to be this Elijah in Revelation and I'm going to bring in this huge reform. And you know he had some things were happening.

I mean it was exciting times so it wasn't completely over the top. But it had some basis to it. He even then published a book of some of the prophetess in his church. A girl wrote a prophetess and she said Barbara Rebstock wrote a book or gave this prophecy and he wrote it down and published it.

And she had this dream and she said that she saw a white swan swimming in a beautiful river or a water course which the swan sung beautifully and wonderful. And that she interpreted that to apply to Milkor as the true Elijah.

That swan that's the true Elijah. She had also seen a vision of many death heads on the wall surrounding Strasburg. You know unfortunately they'd stick the heads on there. And when she wondered whether Milkor's head was among them and she tried to see she became aware of Milkor's head and as she gazed upon the head, the head laughed at her in a friendly way.

That's kind of strange isn't it? I mean that he printed this was even stranger I think. But as she gazed upon it the head laughed at her in a friendly way. Thereafter she saw all the other heads come alive one after another and they all began to laugh.

I mean weird. And there was other prophecies and things that but I do believe the man was very serious. And for some reason he even seemed to win the heart of the reformers there in Strasburg. They kind of tolerated him.

I get the impression somehow as weird as this guy was there was something very sincere about him. Something very amiable about him that you kind of liked Hoffman. You know I don't know. I get that impression just because how lenient everybody was with him.

Eventually Hoffman completely accepted all of this from the Lord. And then another prophet was given him the idea that things were, this is it, things were happening. So he heads back to Strasburg with this idea that this would be the end of the world.

This time he's kind of excited. One prophet says you're going to go and you're going to go into this prison and there when you get in prison that's going to start off the events of the end times. So he's pretty excited.

I got to get to Strasburg to get arrested. He goes to Strasburg they kind of leave him alone for a few months. He doesn't go to the main churches or anything but he goes to this goldsmith's house and after he's in the goldsmith's house all his people, his followers from Holland and all these people start following him to Strasburg.

He starts to get a little bit of a collection. Finally the people say okay enough and they arrest him. Well he was thrilled to death. That's exactly what he wanted to do. And so there's a scene that they recorded about how he responded when he was arrested.

And he thought okay this is it. This is so great. It says, okay here's the quote. Obe Phillips again writes of these events and again this is a contemporary Obe Phillips writes of these events. He says thus through the mediation of this prophecy, that prophecy that he got that he's going to be it.

Melchor removed to Strasburg and there began to preach and to teach here and there in the houses of the burghers the mayors and such. Then to be brief the authorities sent their servants to take him prisoners.

When Melchor saw that he was going to prison he thanked God that the hour had come and threw his hat from his head and took out a knife and cut off his hose. I guess the trousers it says were connected like to a sock so he cut off his hose and cut the socks off his pants.

At the ankle threw his shoes away and extended his hand with the fingers to heaven and swore by the living God who lives there from eternity to eternity that he would take no food and enjoy no drink other than bread and water until the time that he could point out what with his hand and outstretched fingers the one who had sent him and with that he went willfully and cheerfully and happily to prison.

Wow. So ends Melchor Hoffman. He's there he ends up staying in there for ten years until he finally dies in prison. Poor guy. Poor wife and child still there in Strasburg crying every night. And that was it.

Now he gave us a strange legacy. He now still is writing letters. He's kind of involved. I'm disappointed with his involvement with the Munster guys and even though he's there he still is able to write letters.

Now one thing about him he was non-resistant. And the idea of the meeting with the Anabaptists there in Strasburg he did embrace the biblical well he embraced a non-resistant view. Although the whole two kingdom thing is a little messed up with him you know because Romans 13 he's thinking well you know well with the new kingdom when Jesus comes it's going to be this and you know and so he kind of mixed up things in his writings but nevertheless he was strongly non-resistant and these people that he told up here that they should love their enemies and not return evil for evil in that way.

And so but he kind of winked at it although you can't blame him I guess well he was in prison and even John the Baptist we remember struggled when he was in prison like this. So he was in prison and wrote letters to the Munsterites a couple times which he seemed to tacitly at least blessed what they were doing.

So he also he was powerfully shillistic. This word shillistic I have it written there it comes from the ancient Greek word you Greek scholars can give this to me shillio which is thousand and it's a strong belief and almost a radical weird belief people take it to the extreme of the end times people say if somebody has a shillistic belief or something shillism and something and he certainly gave that to the spirit of what was going on here in northern Holland and all that.

He also won a lot of converts but he opened the door I think one of the worst things he opened the door to new revelations and that's a fundamental point I mean let me ask you let me ask you do you believe I want to hear from you, do you believe that the Holy Spirit still speaks to us today?

Well amen so do I well if the Holy Spirit speaks to you today do you ever think it's wrong I mean you ever think that you can misinterpret what you think the Holy Spirit is saying to you? You do, alright well good what is the main basis by which you judge these inner feelings of the spirit with how do you gauge those how do you judge those, what do you use to judge.

Those with? Line up with the scripture the word of God.

Amen they will never contradict. Jude 3 says contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints. The early church talked about a complete deposit. It's nothing Paul says either I or an angel from heaven should come and teach you another thing, let him be.

What? A curse, that's where we get that word anathema, I wish they'd applied that when they started the all anathemas during that council period that we talked about but this idea that we see in Thomas Moonser we see unfortunately in Milkor Hoffman the idea that you could receive these revelations began to be something in par with the scripture, that you would print these bizarre dreams and things and compare it to the events of the times.

And so I think that that was a dangerous door open at the influence of what's about to happen with the Moonster tragedy. Take a three minute break, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about probably the worst and most chaotic scene in the Reformation time the tragedy of Moonster.

I believe. Okay, welcome back. Alright, this next section is a bit shocking some of it graphic but it's brought up a lot in Anabaptist history and I want you to understand Moonster the kingdom of Moonster.

Defining Anabaptism Beyond the Münster Tragedy

Moonster very well because it comes up so often in Anabaptist history and I think you still to this day against Anabaptist people. So Jacob brought up a good point during the break and I'm going to bring this to you now today, what does it mean to be an Anabaptist?

What does the word literally mean? Somebody say? Re-baptize, okay, a re-baptizer now now what's the opposite of a re-baptizer? I don't know an infant baptizer, okay that's where it came from. Now, is everybody who was an infant baptizer a Catholic?

Obviously Luther would definitely say no, right? All the reformers were infant baptizers. John Wesley was an infant baptizer. All these guys were infant baptizers. And so, would it be right then to heap all of the Catholic doctrine on the reformers and call the reformers Catholics just because they baptize infants.

Would that be okay? No, it's totally different the whole way of thinking, their whole hermeneutic their whole interpreting principles are different between a reformer and a Catholic, I mean, a reformer would certainly say right?

Right so, is it fair then just because somebody baptizes an adult to call him an Anabaptist. You see the point I'm trying to make okay, and for instead of arguing over the semantic of the word the point that I'm trying to make is after Munster after all that happened in Munster certainly both the Catholics and the Protestants used this tragedy to heap reproach upon the Anabaptist movement, and it worked and so they were blamed for this the Hutterites got this, the Swiss Brethren got this the different Dutch groups, the Russian Mennonites were all always compared, and even if you read literature today on the internet and things like that they all say, well, you know they still had this and this attitude from Munster and different things happened because of it or they'll say the non-resistance of the Anabaptists was just a reaction out of a guilty conscience about what we're going to read in Munster but you remember, it's 1535 I mean, in 1525 ten years before this Grebel was already writing, and the Swiss Brethren were already writing about non-resistance.

The Hutterites had already established their views on non-resistance, there was already fights in Nickelsburg with Hubmeier over non-resistance and the Schleitheim Confession was already very clearly laying a line between the state and the church so to say that what happens that today the heritage of Anabaptist doctrine is a merely reaction of Munster is ridiculous but nevertheless it's said, and it's still said to this day but I would like to say they did end up becoming re-baptizers in Munster but the ethos and the center of what it was to be a Swiss Brethren and what Menno Simons eventually became is totally different and it comes to this my target that I'm going to do all the five weeks Jesus not just thinking about him not just talking about him, but everything that's important to Jesus is important to us and if it doesn't mix with the Sermon on the Mount if it doesn't mix with what Jesus said Judgment Day would look like if it doesn't circle around Jesus it's not Christianity period and so all different times and we can get into the same danger when we get to extremes we have to come back to the center and Jesus at Munster they didn't do that.

Münster’s Social and Political Background

Alright now so building up to this time in Munster, this little area in north western-ish Germany this little town was it was a very fortified town as you see the little picture that I drew on there it had a particularly strong sense of double moats, walls and it was a very strong town also do you remember during this time that building up into the 1520s and such the kingdoms, the Holy Roman Empire and all these things it wasn't one big country but there were all kinds of little districts and things that they would go back and forth between the lords and all the different things of saying who owned it or who did this and so when the peasant revolt started coming into this some of this got really stressed and another thing started to happen economically instead of your money being just made on your serfs your peasants that are living on your property and you could trade them and that kind of a thing during that peasant revolt started to complain about this but another thing that started to happen is some of those peasants realized that if they spend their time at night sewing, making shoes doing some woodwork, building some stuff, that suddenly they started to have a lot of money and some of these began to be merchants so the increasing of these merchants beginning to have some money, some power was starting to add tension to all that was happening in here and so some of the districts had to really respond to the growing wealth of the merchants that were there.

Munster was one of those and it was very prosperous and eventually got to the point during the peasant revolt that they ended up having some demands against the king and the lord of the area and they were given some sort of a council, a democratic sort of democratic council that they were able to determine the laws of their city.

Strasburg was another one of these and that made some of these cities a little more independent they could make a little more laws on their own they had a little more independence from their lord that's why Strasburg had more freedom that's why Munster had some more freedom and so this was some of the background that led to this.

Bernard Rothman and Münster’s Radical Reformation

One of those big merchants was a man by the name look on page 10 of Nipperdoling, Bernard Nipperdoling and 1527 he began to be sort of a leader amongst these growing merchants and peasants of Munster and he becomes a figure we're going to follow all through Munster we'll eventually see him hanging on the cages of St. Lambert's church.

Nipperdoling becomes one of the main players and so this building I want to just give you the tension so now we have the peasants and the growing of the merchants, Rome feeling already the trouble with all these different things going on and that's the tension that's there in Munster and basically all over Europe and so if you could scratch out that section from there all the way to Bernard Rothman on your handout, I meant to scratch that out, I'll repeat that here in just a second but the timing is a little off so scratch that section off.

Okay another person that enters this area, another very important figure is a preacher, a Reformation Lutheran preacher by the name of Bernard Rothman good name to know, very interesting fellow, Bernard Rothman.

Bernard Rothman was a talented speaker, again another good preacher and he gained fame in 1531 when he began to be a Lutheran and began to preach and he was in one of the surrounding towns around there Moritz in the town of Moritz he started some of this stuff that we heard in Zurich, remember with St. Peter's church there and the pastor there went in they're called iconoclasts, means image breakers went in there and just trashed the church.

He did this in a neighboring town of Munster in the town of Moritz and it drew quite a crowd, it was some of the people that talk about it. The first hand account said there was a mob and a rampage and they came into the church they tore paintings off the wall, statues crashed all the different things, threw it all out and burned the stuff and went around dancing and getting all excited about what was going on again feeling that great change was happening to our people and God was bringing in the Reformation into our town.

After that he got into a little trouble you can imagine he left down and started to meet with Luther and Melanchthon and started to become a better and better Lutheran. There's even records from Luther talking about him where they said well you know he's okay or was it Melanchthon one of those that said we don't know if he could be very good or very bad, maybe they saw something within him that was a little too dangerous but nevertheless he starts some of these Lutheran reforms in his area.

He then came back and he came back to Munster this time with a punch and as he's there he's excited he's bringing in the Reformation and he starts to bring in these preaching these Lutheran doctrines and he's renouncing the monastery.

Munster had lots of big monasteries as a matter of fact the name Munster it's kind of a funny name you know like the gross Munster. What the big Munster. What does Munster mean. It means monastery in German it's the German word for monastery and so this was a famous town of a big monastery.