One of the most significant documents in the literature of the Continental Reformation is that bearing the title The Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants. Its significance rests upon a basis of historical importance far exceeding that of its inclusion in the body of Huguenot writings which illumines the religious life of sixteenth and seventeenth century France. It is important because, as Mr. Harold Laski indicates, it is “a brilliant summary of ideas already adumbrated by the Huguenot party,” and it “surpassed all other essays of the time in the vigor and lucidity with which it restates these ideas.” It is a work which is regarded as embodying the best Huguenot thinking, and it records a memorable protest against tyranny that has renewed poignancy at every crisis in the age-long struggle for human freedom. It asked, and in its own fashion answered, questions having wide political significance because of the inextricable union of political with religious problems of the time.

One of the potent factors determining religious and theological education in the Middle West was Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872). Justly famous as hymn writer, archaeologist, educationist, and theologian, Grundtvig strove to build a new Germanic culture in Denmark to replace the “Latin culture” which he believed had been destroyed by the French Revolution. This new culture he hoped to found on Christian principles backed by the “living word” so thoroughly accepted by the earlier Germanic mysticism, which in turn came via Neo-Platonism from Plato himself. Hans Denck taught that the Scriptures apart from the inner living word were nothing, and Calvin, Herder, and Fichte seemed to support this teaching. It is likely that Fichte's influence in this direction was most keenly felt by Grundtvig, although he found the same idea in the old Germanic-Scandinavian theology and mythology which he sought successfully to revive. The Scandinavian Thuler, which may be translated seer or prophet, represented by the “living word” the human incarnation of Odin. Saxo calls the Thuler the Uggerus vates; and Caesar records the fact that the Druids who were certainly akin to the old Scandinavians forbade that their teachings about God and the immortality of the soul be put into written form, since such subjects could be understood only in the “living word.” All this Grundtvig adopted and taught. Likewise he held that the ten commandments should be considered “living words” handed down from mouth to mouth in order that they might carry the needed inspiration to make them effective in life. This idea he carried over immediately into his theory of education.

There are some historical fields which generations of scholars have plowed with special care and thoroughness. The Reformation is one of them. A survey of such labor is quite difficult, particularly if it is to be given within a limited space. I have therefore decided to confine myself in the following investigation of Reformation scholarship to the products of the last twenty years. It will be my purpose to record the chief contributions to historical knowledge and to evaluate the main interests which they reflect.

Who is an Anabaptist? There seems to be a certain amount of confusion with regard to this term and its conception, and a lack of objectivity is still here and there to be met. Emotional prejudices, misleading tradition, insufficient research material, and a mixture of different groups and attitudes prevented church history scholars almost to the present time from reaching a just judgment of these Christian radicals in Europe of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. To find out the right place of Anabaptism in history it might be useful to begin with some negative statements.

William Penn and Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf were both stubborn idealists. Penn, believing that the seal of divinity had been stamped upon him, planned his refuge for the persecuted across the sea. Zinzendorf, fretting at the sterility of the churches and secretly admiring the vitality of the sects, felt called to create a church in Pennsylvania in which the Redeemer's presence would be so perceptively felt as ultimately to halt all words, prayer, and singing. Both dreams were failures— but significant failures: Penn's vision was an important factor in fashioning the American political pattern, while Zinzendorf's ideal is the working principle of modern church co-operation.