As the forty year legacy and the presence of a third edition clearly demonstrate, William R. Estep’s The Anabaptist Story is both a formidable and enduring introduction to the sixteenth century reformers known collectively as the Anabaptists. For one thing, Estep, who before his death was both a Southern Baptist and professor of church history at Southwestern Seminary, opens up the world of the Anabaptists to Southern Baptists in particular; a world hitherto explored almost exclusively by unsympathetic polemicists until the last century, and more “direct” descendants, such as the Mennonites, and secular social historians thereafter. That was, after all, a part of his purpose as he makes clear in the introduction to the work: that he desired to provide modern believers with an introduction to this group that was not simply informative, but offered insight into the struggles and issues that confront them today.

Estep unhesitatingly challenges presuppositions concerning the Anabaptists, particularly such as those held by social historians who interpret the movement primarily as a socio-economic backlash among uneducated lower classes against the magistracy, by pointing out the need to take seriously the theological nuances associated with the group even if it means arriving at a completely different understanding of the movement. This leads him further to insist on distinguishing between various theological streams within the movement known as the Radical Reformation on the basis that, in many ways, the differences between them are so vast that their only commonality is that the were against both the Roman Catholics and the magisterial reformers. At the same time, however, he questions the polygenesis theory of Anabaptist origins as failing to take into account the interaction between the various facets and individuals associated with the movement.

Thus, in broad strokes of biographical vignettes that comprise the first half of the book, he lays out both the unique contributions of various personalities as well as the relational interconnectedness (that is, a sort of loose “family tree” that emerges in the evidence of contact between individuals such as between Hubmaier and Denck, Denck and Hut, Hubmaier and Hut, Hut and Müntzer, and so on) of the Anabaptist movement, even of the Radical Reformation in general, as a whole. He even adds a concluding chapter in the work solely dedicated to explaining the degree of direct and indirect influence the Anabaptists had on the English Separatist movement. This effort to both synthesize and particularize the material is perhaps Estep’s greatest contribution with this introduction to the field.

Adding to this contribution is the implied assumption of normative Anabaptism that underlies the entire narrative and is brought together in the latter chapters of the book. This assumption, based on the doctrinal distinctives of the Anabaptists, such as believer’s baptism, separation of church and state, commitment to the authority of Scripture and so on, is completely convincing on the basis of the evidence. While there may have been variations on this or that doctrine by this or that Anabaptist, Estep identifies the heart of Anabaptism, without making it too explicit and artificial, and then allows the reader to discover it as well. Thus, this book gives contemporary Christians both the opportunity to connect with a part of their heritage until recently either forgotten or obscured, as well understand the consistency of the theological treasures they have been handed from faithful men and women before them.

This is not to say that he always does this perfectly, however. At times, for example, Estep seems overly concerned with the vindication of the motives of the Anabaptist to be true to their core convictions to the detriment of a serious critique of their theological positions. For instance, in seeking to give sympathy to Menno Simons’ concern to resolve “unresolved problems” associated with orthodox Christology, he fails to recognize the level of deficiency of Simons’ Nestorian, that is, heretical, Christology. Additionally, one might expect Estep to identify ecclesiology in general, rather than the believers’ baptism in particular that he does identify, as the core distinctive of the Anabaptist movement. Finally, the layout of the book does not lend itself as well to the telling of a single Anabaptist story. By dividing the book into chapters that focus on individual personalities in the first half of the book, and then on the theological distinctives of the Anabaptists in the second half of the book, Estep not only repeats himself often, but also makes it difficult for the reader to engage with the overarching themes of the story in a way that a continuing narrative might. In fairness, however, the structure does draw out the uniqueness of individual Anabaptists in a way that a single historical narrative might not.

If for none of the above-mentioned reasons one finds the book worth reading, the book is invaluable as a resource for further Anabaptist study. Estep’s bibliography is especially helpful in this respect. In addition to that, the footnotes in the introduction to the book discussing the recent developments in Anabaptist historiography are fascinating and reveal just how new and unexplored modern Anabaptist research is.

All readers, but especially Christians, will profit greatly from reading this work. Many who have never before considered the legacy of their faith will see their faith enriched through the study of those who believed as they do and had a hand in passing down the faith to them, as well as challenged by the distinctives those forebears articulated and the way in which they paid for their faith with their lives. This latter point regarding the martyrdom of literally hundreds of Anabaptists is something that Estep continuously emphasizes. On a wider scale, Estep’s book fills a void both in substance and interpretation in the field of Anabaptist studies, by presenting both an organized narrative thoroughly centered on the issue the Anabaptists themselves saw as most important, their theology, and an explanation of how a number of individuals with differing backgrounds and theological emphases came to be known collectively as Anabaptists. ( )