On This Day In Church History: The First Anabaptist Baptism

On January 21st, 1525 Conrad Grebel baptized George Blaurock. Blaurock then baptized the other men present including Felix Manz and Grebel. This followed the disputation in Zurich where Zwingli disputed with Grebel and Manz over the subject of baptism. Although Zwingli was unsurprisingly declared the victor in support of "infant baptism", the brethren still chose to be baptized a few days later. This would start them on a path that would lead many Anabaptists to being murdered by the hands of the state at the urging of the religious authorities.

You might wonder why you should care if you are not part of an Anabaptist heritage group like the Amish, Mennonites or Hutterites. If you are someone who cares about religious liberty, this is a critical moment in the church when a handful of men risked their lives to take the rite of baptism out of state hands. The religious liberty we cherish and that is enshrined in our Constitution can be traced in part back to this courageous act of defiance almost 500 years ago. May God raise up more men in this day with the courage to stand fast on the Word of God against those who would seek to pervert it or use it to gain worldly power.