Introduction to Anabaptist Origins ~Reagan Schrock

Guide me for the great Jehovah, pilgrim through this barren land. Well, good afternoon, everyone. It's good to have everyone joining us this afternoon on Hope for Wandering Amish. Uh, Hope for Wandering Amish attempts to put out information, usually relating to Anabaptist history or, kind of, the Anabaptist life—lifestyle. And we're glad to have Reagan Shrock on this afternoon, sharing about a trip that he and Dean Taylor and Stephen Russell took to Europe, kind of tracing the Anabaptist journey. And, uh, I'm not totally sure what all he'll be sharing, but I'm excited to hear what he has to share, and I'm assuming you all will be too.

So, after he is done sharing, we will open it on mute, everyone, and you will be able to ask questions, share comments, and, yeah, just speak in. And Reagan said that he would be open to having someone speaking in at any time. I'm not sure how that will work, because most of you are muted and the controls are on our side, but, yeah, looking forward to that. I will have a prayer here, and I'll turn it over to Reagan.

Heavenly Father, we pause here before You this afternoon. We thank You for Your Son, Jesus, and for the blood that was shed. And we thank You for this opportunity to listen to the history of some of Your followers, some of the martyrs, and— and just the trials and tribulations they went through that were similar to what You faced.

And Father, we just pray that You would bless Reagan as he shares. We pray for the listeners, the audience, that You would bless their lives as well. And Father, we just pray a blessing on the listeners in the future, and that You would just— that Your Spirit would lead and guide as we continue seeking and understanding the history of Christian life. We commit this afternoon into Your hands. We pray it all in Jesus' name. Amen.

Go ahead, Reagan. All right. Well, thanks for having me on for this here. And, uh, I guess we'll— we'll see how it goes. This is a— this is a big story, and it's kind of hard to know, like, like, what pieces do you include and what pieces don't you, because there's just so much here.

But we'll— we'll do the best we can. I have some pictures from this, just to kind of help give visual anchor for what we're talking about. And so, if we can get our screen share working properly here, I'm going to pull that up.

Here, let's do that. Are you all able to see that? It looks like it's sharing okay.

So, this is a— this is a project we did last year, and so I want to tell you a little bit about that, and— and kind of the overview of the story that we're trying to tell, and why we believe it's important. So, I work with Anabaptist Perspectives. We have a weekly podcast that goes out, and we've seen people are very interested in history, church history, and things. And I have to be honest, I— for most of my life, I have not been interested in that, really, at all. It's only been in the last few years that it's changed. And it— one of the things that changed it for me was, history is— is stories, really.

Stories of real people who had to make difficult decisions to do what they believed was right. And I'm a historical being. I'm rooted to things that have happened in the past, and that's— that's important for me to realize that. And so, one of the ideas that kind of, I don't know, started forming a couple of years ago for me was, what about our own story, the Anabaptist story? I don't personally know that story very well. And what could we do about that? What— it's hard to get a lot of resources on it. I mean, there's books and things, but they're often out of print, or pretty expensive.

It's hard to visualize. It's like, where were these places? Who were these people? And the idea— I— I— me and different ones on the team are like, what if we would go over to Europe and actually go to the places where it happened, and— and actually walk the very ground. If you— if you— I mean, use that term loosely, I guess, but, like, go to the actual spots where this story happened. Would that help us visually anchor to it more and— and better understand who were these people and the decisions they made? And obviously, that affects all of us today, those choices that were made. And so, out of that, we got Stephen Russell and Dean Taylor.

They both do a fair amount of teaching in church history and so forth. They agreed to come, and we were there for a number of weeks filming what will ultimately be a 10-part documentary series, essentially. The first episode is coming out next week, actually.

And these— these are, like, full, you know, full-on documentaries on the— on the locations where the thing happened. And, yeah, it's— it's— it took a little work to line all this up. Getting a filming crew over there, and all the support people, and just, yeah, it's— it's a lot of work. But, you know, as far as I know, something like this hasn't really been done before, and we wanted to change that, and put those stories out in a— in an easily accessible way. So, once these release, they'll be free. They'll be available to anybody who wants it. And so it'll be on, like, Telegram, and CloudVale, and YouTube, and website, and all of these different places.

Because this story really matters, is what we believe. So, I'm going to kind of walk through some of the high points of the story, and pictures of some of the places that will be in the documentary, to give a sense of, what is this, and why does it matter. So, to begin, Anabaptist origins. If you think about it— oops, there we go— we're telling about the first 100 years of the Anabaptist movement, so 1525 up through Dordtrecht Confession. This— this picture is really interesting to me. So, on the left is the Grosmunster Church, which is where Zwingli, the— really the person who started this West Reformation after, you know, reading Luther and so on. It begins there, and he had a couple of students studying under him, whose names were Conrad Grebel and Felix Mons and George Blaurock.

And ultimately, those men start the Anabaptist movement and split with Zwingli, and this church is, you know, stays Protestant. But if on the right, there's me and Dean Taylor and Mr. Russell, and that's us with the current pastor of the Grosmunster Church. And in his office, he had, like, the— the photographs of all the people that have been pastors there, going all the way back to Zwingli. And so he's in that, I guess you could say, line of succession or whatever, all the way back. And— and he was so gracious. He opened up for us and gave us a tour, really, half— basically gave us half of his day to show us around. Because he— he agreed with the fact that this story is really important.

And he even said different things, like, you know, we have not treated the Anabaptists fairly, and, you know, the people who came before me did some things that were not good at all, and we're sorry about that. And it was genuine. And I really appreciated that. And he was just so kind and so generous to let us in there, and to see some of these places that are so important to the beginning of— of our movement. So, this is in Zurich, Switzerland. And really, that— you could say that's the epicenter where all this starts for us as Anabaptists.

This is really where it is. In the early 1520s is where this story starts. So, another place there is— there's an archive not too far away, and our producer and director got us access in there to film a bunch of the— bunch of the materials in there. And this one's really neat. This is Felix Mons writing a letter to the Zurich City Council.

This is 1524, so only a few months before the first baptisms, first adult baptisms. And he's laying out their position of, we believe in believers' baptism, you know, we believe— you know, he lays out all the points where they're differing with Zwingli, and saying this— something's not right here. And that was pretty special, to see a letter like that, because, you know, Felix Mons, being one of the— one of the very early and first founders there, he writes this, and then less than 3 years later, they also had this in the archive. This is that fairly famous, I guess, period painting showing Felix Mons about to be drowned, right down the street from where we were, like, within sight of the Grosmunster Church.

And it's just the— the irony, I guess, and the tragedy is so stark. You have a man who was studying under Zwingli, who Zwingli wanted him to become a teacher at a seminary that he— that he was hoping to start. And instead, Felix Mons and Conrad Grebel and some of these others decide to, no, we— we believe in believers' baptism, and, you know, we won't take up the sword, and so on. And they had that change. And within 3 years, you have Zwingli and the city council drowning him within sight of the very church where they had gone— where they had worshiped together. And that really sets the— the tone for the differences that the first Anabaptists had from the Protestants and the Catholics, and how much they suffered for that, for being different, for not fitting in with what the state church wanted them to do, essentially.

Right here is the plaque, then. To their credit, the church there— I'm failing to remember exactly who all, but the Reformed Church put on this plaque there at the very spot that you see in that painting, saying, hey, this is where the drowning happened, and making sure that that isn't forgotten. So we got to film there. But right up the road from all of this, I was amazed how close everything was. But very short distance from— from the church and from this spot is this place. This is likely— it's hard to say for sure, but it was either this house or a house next to it, essentially, where the first baptisms happened, where they— the first group that believes we should have believers' baptism, not infant baptism, and the city council says, you have to do this, you have to baptize your children.

And they say no, and they meet in this house, probably this house, or very, very close to this house. Again, the records are not entirely clear, the city records. And they're like, what do we do? They gave us 8 days to baptize our children, so what do we do? And this is where they choose that we are not going to do that. We're going to do believers' baptism. And that's where George Blaurock is, you know, famously asks, you know, Conrad Grebel, you know, baptize me, basically. And so that's what happens. And at that point, that is where, okay, things are different now. You know, like, there has been an official break from Zwingli and the— you know, the Protestant church there in Zurich.

And now things are going to look really different.

And that was January 21, 1525. So we're right at 500 years. And again, it was just pretty kind of surreal to be in some of these places. It's like, you hear about them, you hear stories, like, okay, you know, yeah, that's— that's neat, or whatever. And then you're actually there, and you're standing by the river, you know, and you're imagining, like, what would it have been like, like, when Felix Mons was drowned here? I mean, you can imagine the crowd, and the noise, and the chaos, and the whatever was happening. It just— it comes to life in a way that had never happened for me before. And that was— yeah, it was really good for me.

And so we're trying to capture that dynamic by going there and filming it, basically. And it's not the same as going yourself, but if we can visually anchor the story to, these are real places and real people making very challenging and difficult decisions because they believed this was what was right, I think that's going to serve our people well, so we don't forget those stories.

So that's— that's the beginnings, like, how the movement starts. And then I'm going to just kind of go through it sequentially here, and then we go on to some other things. This is an abbey in Germany, St. Peter's Abbey. And Michael Sattler would have been the prior here at this abbey, which is basically second in command, pretty important position. And he starts getting pretty disillusioned. He actually travels to Zurich, and he's meeting with some of the early Anabaptists, saying, you know, what— you know, something's not adding up here. And eventually he leaves. He leaves this monastery, again, prestigious position, leaves, and, you know, pretty soon they start hunting him, et cetera, et cetera. But he's so significant for our movement because of this, helping to write and organize the Schleiheim Confession.

So this is one of the old— I wish I could remember the year, but, you know, from the 16th century copies of Schleiheim. There are very few of these left. And this is in the town of Schleiheim there in Switzerland. So that was— again, that was so neat. They— they opened up the museum for us. We got to go in there and film, and capture this, and tell that story.

And how important this document still is for us today. Again, it's almost 500 years ago, and now, you know, you sit down and you read it and like, whoa, this is— this is really good. This is really profound. How— how did they have the insight to write this? They've only— you know, Anabaptism was 2 years old, barely 2 years old. And they had put some— some pretty powerful things down on paper that, to this day, help inform us and how we should live.

So Sattler's a very important early figure. So we have an entire documentary just on Michael Sattler and the Schleiheim Confession. And then not far away is this spot. This is where he was burned at the stake, and his wife was drowned a short distance away. So again, got to— got to film here, tell that story. We went to the square where the trial would have been held. The original building is not there anymore. There's a new building on top of it now. But to see was, like, it was at this spot, you know, where that famous trial is happening, where they're basically— it's like, we're going to execute you because you don't agree with the state and the church being together, and you believe in believers' baptism, and all of these things.

And he's— he's burned alive for that. Again, it just— it takes on new— it's like you can see the layers in a different way when you can see it. I don't know if that's making sense, but at least it did for me. It's— it goes from being something in a textbook to being something that was lived. And you get a sense of the space and the people, what it would have been like for them. And there's another really strong visual anchor that comes out in the next episode. So you have Michael Sattler. He's, like, very famous. I guess you could say, like, we know that name, right? But there's another early leader, and he's been largely forgotten.

His name is Pilgrim Marpeck, mostly because his writings were actually lost until less than 100 years ago, or largely lost. And that's his house there, the green house, is where he would have lived. And he was a very wealthy engineer. He was a mayor. He's on the city council. He's doing really good in life, I guess you could say. And they're having to prosecute and try Anabaptists. This is in Austria then. And again, this is right at the beginning of the movement.

And there's still the castle up top, and his house is directly below it, essentially, or almost directly below that castle. So the executions for the Anabaptists would happen at that castle. I think at that castle there's something like 37— I'm going off of memory. I could be a little bit wrong, but something like 37 Anabaptists were executed there over the years. And that really bothered him. And he was trying to figure out, like, who are these people? What— why do they believe this? Why are they willing to die for these beliefs? And there's one execution in particular that's— that had a big impact on him. The person had been executed, and then they burned them— burned the man.

And it was directly above his house. I mean, you can see the courtyard, right, where— where in the castle where it would have happened. You can just kind of imagine, like, you would have heard the commotion, you would have smelled it, you would have seen the smoke. It would have been very obvious your house is directly below where this happened. And we— we have on record that he just— he just couldn't— couldn't handle that. And within, I think it's less than a week, he had left the city and went and joined the Anabaptists. He's like, I can't be part of this anymore.

So we did a whole episode on him. He's a— he's a fascinating figure, again, largely forgotten, but a really important, you know, really important early leader who, you know, had everything. Like, life was going well for him, and he could have chosen to just continue, you know, living life, I guess you could say, and being important, in charge of the city council, you know, or on the city council. Very, very wealthy man. And he left all of that, and kind of spends the rest of his life moving around and trying to, you know, not get in trouble because he's an Anabaptist and all these things. And it's— it's, yeah, it's a pretty fascinating story that I— I didn't know at all, actually, until we started researching for this— for the series.

Another example, too, not far away. This has been Peter Ritteman, another pretty significant early figure. And right at the beginning of the movement, he's captured, and they throw him in this prison. I think this is the first time this has been documented. I— I don't know for sure, but we couldn't really find much, like, pictures and images of this— of this castle.

And it's out in the— in the middle of a lake. Like, it's— it's in— it's not attached to land. And so somehow— so he's in here. He's tortured almost to death, it says. And somehow he escapes. I— we don't know. History doesn't record how that happened, but that is phenomenal, for one thing. So we got to film here. That was— that was really neat. It gave us permission and all of that. But the book he writes while he's in prison, you can still get it and read it. And I highly encourage you to. It's this book right here called Love Is Like Fire. It's a short— short little read, very packed, very poignant. And you're reading this, and you're like, wow, this is 500 years old, but it feels incredibly relevant and fresh for the things we— we face today.

And it— it brings on new significance when you realize, like, he's sitting in this dungeon, tortured almost to death, it says. And yet he sits and writes this just glorious book on love and how we should love our enemies, and we should not fight back, and we don't believe in taking up the sword, and we're willing to die for what we believe. And he— it's one of the very earliest confessions or books written by the Anabaptists that are really laying that out. Like, here's what we believe, here's why. In fact, a good portion of the book is him just going through the Apostles' Creed and saying, yes, we affirm this, and this is how we live, and we choose to live this way, and this is what makes us different from the Protestants and the Catholics, who are, at that point, actively killing the Anabaptists.

And that was— that was pretty neat, to be able to see that, and also to be able to try to put myself in his shoes, like, what would that have been like? Like, if I'm tortured almost to death on a dungeon prison in the middle of a lake, like, would have I been able to sit down and write something that beautiful and, like, actually believe it? You know what I mean? Like, it's— it's easy for me to say I believe those things. But if I went through his experience, like, is that how I would respond? I like to think I would, but like, you know, it's— it's— I think it's important to be humble and realize, wow, that would be hard.

You know, that would be really, really hard. And he ends up escaping, writes a bunch of other really important books, and ends up getting caught multiple times. And, you know, it's— it's— it's not an easy life that these people had to live.

Actually, right at the same time, you have this. This is also in Austria, not far away. And this would have been an important piece of the empire. So it's like the emperor would stand up there on that balcony, and they'd have their royal processions and official whatever, this, that, and whatever that happens, you know, and is this symbol of, look how wealthy we are. It's called the Golden Roof, right? It's a major tourist attraction today. And so, like, these powers were very, very— they would have felt like, we can't ever go up against something like that. They're so powerful, right? And the early Anabaptists were saying that we need to be separate from the state.

Like, we're not going to be part of this Christianity mixed in with empire and with the military and with war. And it's like, no, we have to break from that. And so this is a great example of what that was. But if you look, you can't even see it, but it's down on the bottom left near that umbrella under the— at the café, there's a little plaque there. And on that plaque, it says, "Here, Jacob Hutter was burned at the stake." They burned him right there in that square. Jacob Hutter being one of the first leaders of the Hutterites, and a really important figure to bringing organization to that movement. And, you know, I just had to think about that.

Like, I— I sit there and I look at that, you know, beautiful front for the palace there, and this emperor who, at the time, I mean, it looks like you rule a world, you know? And yet, until I had researched this series, I didn't know that that emperor had ever existed. I didn't know anything about that empire. I didn't care about it at all. Nobody really does anymore. I mean, like, it's, you know, whatever. It's 500 years ago. Who cares? And yet you look at that plaque, that Jacob Hutter plaque, oh, well, we know who that is. That name is remembered. In fact, the city park right down the street is named after him. There are many, many people that trace their beliefs back to important decisions and choices that were made by him and those other early leaders.

And I just had to think about that. It's like, you know, in the end, who— like, like, they execute him trying to make a statement of, like, don't you dare go against the state. But in the end, who was— who was the faithful one? Who was the one that actually has the enduring— I don't know if legacies is the right word, but I think you get what I'm trying to say, that there was something there that I think we can all look at and say, hmm, that's— that he was willing to die for something. There was something special happening there.

And yet this emperor, nobody— nobody knows who he is anymore. Nobody really cares about all his wealth and grandeur. Instead, this humble man who basically owned nothing is burned at the stake. And, you know, we still know who that is. We still have his writings available to read. We still think about him and talk about him. Hmm, that makes you think, you know, what are the things worth living for? What are the things worth dying for? And what was it that these early Anabaptists had that they were willing to do those things?

Important questions for us all, I think. And with that story, not— again, not far away is this dungeon under a castle. It's Falkenstein Castle. And this is where some of those early Hutterites would have been imprisoned. And then a number of them were sent into the galley slaves, which is— which is just a horrible way to die. You can look it up if you want to see what that was like. But it was just a really brutal form of persecution and ultimately execution.

And to stand, again, stand in that dungeon and be like, you know, these people, they lived for something. They were willing to die for something. What am I willing to live for? What am I willing to die for? Yeah, it makes you think.

Yeah, it makes you think.

We also spent some time telling some of the stories that aren't as good. I think that's an important part of— of the story. So another figure would have been this guy named Humpmeyer, and he was a little different. He— he believed the Anabaptists should not— they should take up the sword. They should fight back.

And he kind of— he had different views, you know, kind of waffled around a little bit. But he wrote this book to really solidify, okay, this is what we should do. And it's called On the Sword. Again, you can still read it today. He was a really smart person, you know?

And so he writes this book, On the Sword. Two weeks later, the state imprisons him and tries him and then executes him. And the irony of that is really interesting to me. You know, here's this guy who— he actually breaks with the early Hutterites because they won't pick up the sword. And he's like, you should. You need to take up the sword. And they're like, no, we won't. So they get expelled from the city and flee. He stays on, trying to basically work with the government and, you know, make all this work. And it's kind of a complicated thing. And within two weeks of him publishing that book, he himself is imprisoned by that very sword that he says we should take— that we should take up.

They hold him down in chains to Vienna, which is where this is. And they burn him roughly in this area, right here. And they actually added a plaque here a few years ago about him. You can see it there on the right.

And again, it just— it makes you— it makes you think. It's like, hmm, you know, do you— do you think he regretted that? Like, did he really think that was the right thing to do? And there— there would have been other points like that. Different— differing views, differing opinions on taking up the sword and things. And we wanted to show those because that is a part of the story. And it didn't end well.

I mean, a more extreme example is Münster, Germany. Same thing. They— they decide, we're going to take up the sword, we're going to take over the government, and we're going to make this city into an Anabaptist city. And so they did. And it was a catastrophe.

It just spiraled out of control. The army circled the city, attacked them, eventually conquered the city. And this is basically in the center of the old city there, St. Lambert's Church. And they took the three leaders that they captured, executed them, and hung them in those steel cages up there on top. You can see on the— on the steeple there, 500 years ago. And those cages are still there. And interestingly, there's been different requests to have those cages removed over the centuries. Every time the city has said no, these have to stay up. We can't forget that this story happened. And just, like, this was really a bad deal. This was not how it should have went.

And again, I think it's important for us to know that story, even though that is a darker side to our history. You know, this did happen, and it's a tragedy. And it shows the lesson. You know, you take up the sword, you die by the sword.

So we— we got to film quite a bit here in Münster and really tell that story. And there'll be a whole episode on that as well, coming out later, or a whole documentary just on that. But while that was happening, there was this Catholic priest not far away, actually, who was following that story that was happening there in Münster and seeing, like, this is really going a bad way. This is not good. His brother, actually, as far as we know, was joining— going to join and actually died on the way there, got captured and killed. And that person's name was Menno Simons. And yes, as far as we know, his brother was trying to go join the Anabaptists down in Münster to take up the sword.

And he's a Catholic priest at this church right here. And he's seen all this and really questioning everything he believes about the Mass and infant baptism and seeing how catastrophically wrong the taking up the sword and trying to take over the government has gone. And he ultimately leaves the Catholic Church and joins the Anabaptists as well. And he writes at different points, you know, he's— it's almost like he's trying to be a bit of a corrective for the crazy ideas that some of them had about, you know, taking over the city, taking up the sword. And he's like, no, that is not who we want to be. And this was really neat. They let us get into the church there and film.

And this is— a lot of it's still original. So you can imagine, you know, Menno Simons standing on those very stones, you know, giving out the Mass or, you know, reading the lectionary or something as a Catholic priest. And he even writes, like, at the— towards the end, he basically wasn't even believing any of it himself. He's just kind of going through the motions because he didn't know what else to do. And it's like, wow, what— that was— that was kind of unreal to stand in this place. They were so gracious. They opened up the church, let us film in there and see it and so forth. It was pretty— it was pretty special. We actually went to an archive then in Amsterdam.

And in the archive, they have the only remaining piece of writ— or the only manuscript left in Menno Simons' own hand. Everything else has been lost. We have writings, but they're secondary. But this is a— this is an original letter that he wrote. And they pulled it out and let us— let us look at that and put it in the documentary, which was— which was really special to see that. Just this huge figure that helped bring the movement back from the brink, I guess you could say, after Münster, because there was— there was a lot of— a lot of chaos in those years. And again, we spent basically two episodes kind of talking through that— that— that challenge that they had.

Again, that push to, like, we got to pick up the sword. We have to institute our own government, like Humpmeyer and like Münster and some of these people. And again, just how disastrous that was. And he saw that.

So there— yeah, there's a bunch in this on Menno that we'll go through when it gets released here in the coming weeks. But— and then towards the end, we start doing a bit of a tour of, like, what was church life like for those first Anabaptists in the first 100 years. This is a pretty well-known place. I guess you could say there's lots of pictures of it and things. But this was one of the caves they would have hid in to have their church services. It was too dangerous to meet in the towns and the cities, so they would go out into the countryside. And this is, like, pretty far back up in the hills.

A bit of a hike to get up there. And this is what church had to look like for a time while that persecution was happening. Another one was this barn. There's a secret hole, basically, in the floor where they could hide and have meetings and hide from people searching for them and things in this barn. And what's interesting is this family discovered it. I'm trying to remember when.

Yeah, I can't remember exactly, but they had discovered this and started researching into the history of it. And they weren't Christian or they weren't really anything, but they heard about this. They read the story because it'd been in the family, you know, for 500 years. And so they looked back at their ancestors and they were like, wow, like, our ancestors really believed in something. They were willing to die for this. Are we willing to live or die for anything? And it actually was a significant part of that family's faith journey of becoming Christians to begin with. And I thought that was— that was really neat. The witness and the testimony from their ancestors 500 years ago, like, had that kind of influence on them today.

And so they were very gracious. They let us come in here and film inside that location. And just kind of some illustrations from the time. This is from one of the manuscripts, paintings of the persecution. They're rounding them up and bringing them into the city for trial and, you know, possible execution later on. But I want to kind of bring it to this letter. This letter really stuck with me on the right there. They pulled it out of the archive for us. This is the only martyr letter we have from prison that's still intact. All the others have been lost. So this is a one-of-a-kind, obviously very extraordinarily rare. You can find the full letter in the Martyrs' Mirror as well.

But I want to read you this excerpt. This is a lady who had just been condemned to death for her beliefs. And she writes this the night before her execution to her family. And this is just a quote. There's more to the letter, but I want to give you this piece here. She says, "O my dear son, though I am taken from you here, strive from your youth to fear God, and you shall have your mother again up yonder in the New Jerusalem, where parting will be no more. My dear son, I hope now to go before you. Follow me thus as much as you value your soul, for besides this there shall be found no other salvation."

And then she continues on with this. This is her conclusion towards the end of the letter. "My dear son, be not afraid of this suffering. It is nothing compared to that which shall endure forever. The Lord takes away all fear. I did not know what to do for joy when I was sentenced. Love one another all the days of your life. Take handskin on your arm now and then for me. And if your father shall be taken from you, care for one another. The Lord keep you one and all."

So she was sentenced October 5, 1573. And this letter was written that very night. And then she was burned at the stake next thing in the morning. First thing in the morning. She ends with this, "By me, Megan Wends, your mother, who bore you in much pain, as a remembrance, preserve this well."

And if you can see there on the cropped-in image, there's her signature. And she signs off. And you look at something like that and you just, you know, it just makes you think, you know, what were they willing to live for and die for? You know, as a remembrance, preserve this well. I just— I just think about that. And, you know, here we are 500 years later, and it has been preserved, and that story is remembered, you know, in the Martyrs' Mirror and now in a small way, I guess, because we were able to capture some of that. And we'll share it with the world.

I think it's very important, you know, that you don't lose something like this. And her willingness to suffer and die for what she believed. If you go to the Martyrs' Mirror, it's in the, I think, about two-thirds through the book, you'll find this image. That's her two children sifting through the ashes after she's been burned at the stake. And they're trying to find the tongue screw.

So if you don't know what a tongue screw is, there are— I don't know of any others in existence. This is probably the only one. If there's another one, somebody please tell me. We couldn't locate any. But this is— this is a tongue screw. So they would— they would put it over your tongue and then screw it down, clamp it down so you couldn't preach while you were going to be burned at the stake. Pretty cruel. And this is what they would have put on Megan Wends before she was burned. And so what would happen after the execution, the family, you know, would sift through the ashes to see if there's anything left to bury.

And also to see if they could find the tongue screw at least, because that would be one thing they could remember that martyr by. I don't recall, or it might be lost to history, which martyr this tongue screw belonged to, but it's been preserved by the family for about 500 years. And it's a— so it's in a private family's possession. And that's a— that's an authenticity letter from, I think, the late 1500s or 1600s, written saying, you know, this is— this is what it is. This is, you know, proof that, you know, it's genuine, blah, blah, blah, you know, all this stuff. And it was really gracious of them to let us see this. She came out to the archive and pulled it out and let it— let it be there.

And she recorded a bit for the documentary. And I asked her then, it's like, has this ever been documented? Like, you know, have you— are there pictures of this? Has it been put in a documentary before? She said no. As far as she knows, this has never been put into a documentary like this. And I was just very thankful she was willing to do that for us. And she said, you know, they didn't want that story to be lost. And they wanted this piece of history to be preserved for the next generation.

Yeah, her father had been a historian at one of the colleges. And again, this may be the only one left in existence. But it just makes you think, like, what was Megan Wends going through those last moments of her life as she, you know, writes that letter and is taken to the stake. And this gives you an example of, you know, what that could have been like for her. And then as we— as we wrap up the story, we bring it back to Dirk Willems. So this is the very famous image of him pulling his pursuer out of the ice. And there's been some really good research done on this story in the last 10 years or so.

And we were able to connect with some of the historians there and confirm some things. So this is the very spot. Those pieces of water you're seeing are original moat, like parts of the castle moat where he would have been imprisoned. And right in the middle of the screen is where they found the castle. I think it was eight years ago or something, they found the remains of the castle where he was imprisoned. So it's an active excavation. They're still studying it and digging it up and things. But we know from the records that he was running, almost certainly running away from the castle towards the left of the screen. So that left-hand body of water is as certain as we can be where he was crossed, where he could cross the ice.

And so he crosses the ice. It says he makes it to the other side. He looks back. His pursuer falls through. And he turns around and pulls that man out of the ice and saves his life. Which the irony of all of that is, you see that town. That is the entire town of Aspen, Netherlands. It was a very small town. So Dirk was from there. The thief catcher was from there. They would have known each other, almost certainly. I mean, you're from a village of a few hundred people. Like, yeah, I mean, chances are you at least saw each other at the market and went to church together, you know, before you became an Anabaptist.

All of these things. So when he saves that man, he almost certainly knew him. And that man puts him in chains, essentially, puts him back in prison because he was ordered to do so. And the authorities basically said, if you don't capture, you know, if you don't recapture him, you know, your life is forfeit.

So yeah, Dirk Willems could have gotten away. And he chose not to do that. And to be on the very spot where that happened was, again, just a surreal experience. You know, what was going through Dirk's mind as he did that?

Wow. You know, he's fleeing from the castle. It's cold. It's across the ice. He gets captured. And because they thought maybe someone helped him escape from the castle, they imprisoned him in the church, which is, again, kind of ironic. But here's the church. And again, the castle would be off to the left, just off screen is where the ruin of the castle is. So they put him in the church tower, probably. Again, it's best we know from the few records that remain. If you look— boy, I wish there'd be a way I could indicate this on screen. But basically, in the middle of the screen, but towards the right, towards the edge of town is where his house was, almost certainly.

Like, that area. We don't know the exact building. But Dirk Willems' house would have been right there, basically. Again, small town. You know, small town. He would have known— he had known the people who were holding him in prison, almost certainly. And so he sits in prison. And they let us go up there. Again, very gracious in letting us film in the church and things. This is, again, as far as we know, this is where he was held. It's impossible to know for sure. It's not like there's a, you know, exact records. But almost certainly it was here.

The stocks and the door are not from the 1500s. Those are added later. But so they put him in prison for that night. And they burned him alive the next day. So it was very quick. You save this person and you're burned at the stake, you know, the very next day. And again, it makes you think, you know, I mean, he could have— he could have gotten away. And, you know, what do we do with a story like that? I'm not even quite sure. Because I like, again, I like to think that I would do the right thing. But I've never been tested like that.

So yeah, that's— that was— that was special, to be able to go there and capture that and put it— put it on camera and preserve it for future generations. So I just want to back up now. I've shown you some things. I've told you some of the stories. There's much more. I mean, the series is 10 documentaries long. So it's going to be almost 10 hours of documentaries when it's all done. But I want to zoom back out and just ask the question, like, why did we do this? And the first thing is, we want to tell their story, but it's also our story.

And we want to wrestle with their legacy, but also it's our legacy as well. Like, the good things. But there's also some of those darker sides. The rebellion in Munster. Hubmeyer saying, "We need to take up the sword," and then getting executed by that very sword two weeks later. And then the third one, neo-Christianism is not the answer. At the time, they were breaking from this whole belief that church and state and the church, you know, executing people on matters of policy and just, you know, it was all mixed together. And it was— it was a huge mess. And the early Anabaptists were like, "We can't do that. We can't— we can't be like those people in Munster who set up their own government and took up the sword.