Anabaptist Network helps UK churches

Stuart Murray Williams

When we think about Anabaptism in Canada, we don’t often use words like radical, disturbing and provocative. Christians in Britain, however, use exactly these words to describe the Anabaptist movement. Churches throughout the United Kingdom are mining it to discover rich help for living as Christians in a distinctly non-Christian environment.

Stuart Murray Williams stands at the head of this movement. A Baptist, and former church planter and professor at Spurgeon’s College in London, Murray nows lives in Oxford. He is editor of Anabaptism Today and has written several books, including Bible Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition (Pandora, 2000).

Murray says that churches in the UK are “coming to terms with the end of Christendom,” where the church and state are one. “In fact many denominations are facing the prospect of death. We’re at a place now where many people in Britain are what I describe as pre-non-Christians. They don’t even know enough about Christianity to disagree with it!”

“Now you can either get depressed or you can get excited about this stuff,” he goes on. It is clear that he is not one to get depressed. He feels that Christianity in post-Christendom Britain has the power to reinvent itself in interesting and refreshing ways. “What’s attractive about Anabaptism,” he says, “is the peace position, the emphasis on community, the commitment to radical discipleship, a cross-centred approach, and experience living on the margins of society.”

Murray’s efforts at helping others understand the resources Anabaptism has to offer come through his work with the Anabaptist Network and Urban Expression, a church planting agency. The Anabaptist Network connects people interested in exploring Anabaptism throughout the UK, with a mandate to “stimulate and encourage faithful and creative forms of mission, church life and discipleship.”

Most of the people involved in the Network have no interest in joining a Mennonite denomination. Rather, they are trying to combine the best of their tradition with the best that Anabaptism has to offer. People may describe themselves as Anabaptist–Catholics or Anabaptist–Anglicans or like Murray, Anabaptist–Baptists.

Murray’s other interest is church planting. Through Urban Expression he encourages church planters to use Anabaptist principles and approaches to plant churches in the under-churched inner city. Since Urban Expression began work in 1997, several creative and mission-oriented churches have been planted.

David Eagle, pastor of Saanich Community Church, Victoria, visited the UK recently.