Discussion Jumpstarter
Study leader reference - not a definitive answer
Question 9
John Ruth draws a sharp line: “Christians don’t use the sword… with killing ist gar abgetan,” contrasting Grebel with Zwingli’s Bible-and-sword statue and noting most Anabaptists who carried the sword died out; what does this claim expose about God’s kingdom and power, and where do Christians today still try to secure righteousness through coercion, state force, or “necessary” violence?
Another way to ask: Ruth says Christians shouldn’t use the sword, and he contrasts Grebel with Zwingli’s Bible-and-sword approach. What does this say about God’s kingdom and power, and where do Christians today still rely on force, the state, or “necessary” violence to get what they think is right?
Discussion Jumpstarter
Direct Answer
The transcript presents God’s kingdom as advancing through Scripture-shaped discipleship and reconciliation, not through the sword; using violence is treated as crossing back into “worldly” power. It exposes how easily reform can keep a Bible in one hand and coercion in the other, as with Zwingli.
- Grebel’s warning to Müntzer: “I hope… you are using the sword, because Christians don’t use the sword.”
- The speaker states the principle starkly: true believers “do not use worldly sword or the war, because with them killing ist gar abgetan… totally put away.”
- He marks it as the defining minority line: “Luther didn’t cross it. Zwingli didn’t cross it… That’s what made us a minority.”
- Zurich’s public symbol contrasts the visions: a statue of Zwingli “holding a Bible and a sword.”
- He notes two Anabaptist streams: the sword-carrying “Schwätzler… thousands more” who “died out quick,” versus the staff-bearing “stabler” and Hutterites as “totally pacifists.”
- He ties identity to this: when descendants get “fuzzy… ambivalent” here, they lose connection to “what birthed us.”