This week we have analyzed the roles of Zwingli and other reformers. We have also mentioned the roles of the Anabaptists in religious society, and the opposition of some reformers to the ideals of the Anabaptists. According to the excerpt from the coursepacket, Anabaptists are those who believed in baptism during adulthood. They believe that baptism was more of a conformation of faith rather than a ritual that should solely be performed at birth. In this artistic rendering of the Anabaptists from the Anglican Clergyman Daniel Featley's book which was published in 1645, we can see the depiction of the Anabaptists religious ideas. Featley published his work against the Baptists and used a collection of illustrations to help further his argument. According to the Wikipedia site, the center of the picture contains naked persons also known as the adamites who took the literal meaning from the scripture that states all should be naked, and not to be ashamed of their nakedness (Wikipedia). Surrounding the adamites are pictures of specific people with such labels as "separatist", "Georgian", "hemerobaptist", and others. The raw message of this picture contains a strong view towards Anabaptism, and is undoubtedly the reason why Featley chose to include it in his writings against Baptists. What sort of message could this send to Baptists or other religions that didn't agree with Anabaptist ideaology? Why would Featley want to provide such raw images of naked adamites in his writings? These are excellent questions to consider when viewing this image and how to interpret it properly.
Sources:
Coursepacket, compiled by Dr. Wolbrink. p. 183.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:TheDippersDipt.jpg
The culture of the Adamites is interesting, since we didn't go over it in class. I think it's interesting how so many different religious groups emerged during the time of the Reformation!
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