Response to Jeremy
The claim that the 1644 confession was influenced by Simon's was originally made by Glen Stassen in a few articles. Dr. Renihan responded quite thoroughly in an award winning article in the American Baptist Quarterly in an article titled "An Examination of the Possible Influence of Menno Simons' Foundation Book upon the Particular Baptist Confession of 1644." You can find it in vol. 15 No.3 Sept 1996 edition. His refutation of Stassen's claims stand.
Jeremy, I can understand your perspective, but it does not undermine the thrust of my argument. One of my points was the clear idiosyncratic nature of many Anabaptist groups, as well as the clear mixture of both orthodoxy & heresy. Your good experience may very well have been just that. Parts of mine were good as well. But even the Mennonites have displayed this same mixture in their own sects. Some of them likewise display even more "cult-like" behavior than what I personally experienced. The Amish & Hutterites display this as well. It is common, regardless of what you have experienced. It may or may not have been an identifiable characteristic among the early Anabaptists that you have read, but it has certain become a characteristic over time.
(continued...)
