Introduction
[1] To quote but one example: When Josef Beck set himself to edit a volume of original source materials, Die Geschichts-Bucher der Wiedertaufer in Osterreich-Ungarn (an in-group account of the rise of the Anabaptists of Austria-Hungary) he deftly exscinded "a piece of Church History extending from the year 344 to 1519" for the reason that "it has nothing at all, or very little, to do with the matter in hand." Surely this is arbitrary procedure. The people who wrote this early account-their own biography-were of the conviction that one must pay considerable attention to the events that lie between 344 and 1519 if one is to understand the origin and history of the people described. Surely it is to beg the question to wave this testimony to one side, just because it does not fit into a preconceived historical construction!
[2] Even a cursory examination of "The Radical Reformation," as discussed by George H. Williams in his recent and monumental book by that title, will show what a motley crowd is covered by that name. Elements are included that have literally nothing in common except the fact that they were neither Catholics nor followers of the Reformers.
[3] Morikhofer, in his biography of Zwingli, asserts that "Zwingli presents in lurid colors as facts that which came to his ears as rumor," But one does not have to ascrihe to outright falsification the many misrepresentations that the Reforrners committed in their polemics against the Stepchildren. Much of it was due to failures in communication. The two groups proceeded from such radically different presuppositions that they were unable to do each other justice. In all events, as we shall have occasion to point out often enough, there was plenty of reporting that must be taken with the proverbial grain of salt.
[4] George H. Williams, in the first sentences of the Preface to The Radical Reformation, asserts that the bringing to light of the source materials concerning the Stepchildren has much the same significance for the interpretation of the whole of modern Church history that the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls has for the study of the New Testament and Church history.
[5] With the exodus of the Stepchildren the vision of the Reformers became less ambiguous than it bad been. Since the Stepchildren insisted that only a Church based on peronal faith was acceptable to them and since they began to try for that kind of Church, the Reformers were left with the other alternative, a Church embracing all in a given locality. Of all the earlier Reformers it must be said therefore that they had an early phase and a later phase. This has been realized by many investigators. It has caused Alfred Farner, for instance, to say of Zwingli, in his Die Lehre von Kirche ond Staat Bei Zwingli, that "Seit dem Jahre 1526 beginnen bei Zwinglt weltliches und geistliches Gebiet ineinanderzugehen." This was the logical out come of Zwingli's drift toward the inclusive Church. At the end of his career he had come full circle declaring "urbem Christianam nihil quam Ecclesiam Christianam esse." Another investigator, Hundeshagen, had discovered a century ago already that "Zwinglt kenne das Prinzip der Gewissenfreiheit nur in den ersten Jahren seines reformatorischen Wirkens." A similar drift toward the right may be observed in the rest of the Reformers of the first decade.
[6] Cf. Luther's Commentary on Genesis 41:45 (Werke, St. Louis Edition, Vol. II., col. 417).
Postscript
[1] We say "even in the Catholic Church" because of the fact that the Roman Catholic Church has not to this day rejected the sacral formula, nor officially espoused societal compositism.
[2] It is an alarming fact that in the literature advocating the amalgamation of all churches into a single church the concept of "the false Church" is virtually unknown; all that calls itself the Church is, so it seems, by that token entitled to the name.
[3] How a member of the Supreme Court can argue that the First Amendment restrains the government of the land from "promoting a religion, all religion . . . is indeed difficult to understand. The First Amendment actually sets no limit to the extent to which the government can support "all religion" - save the limit imposed by a policy of impartiality. As far as the first Amendment is concerned, laws could be passed whereby the salaries of clergymen and all other practitioners of religion would be paid in whole or in part with public funds - just so there be no partiality shown. This would merely be to extend to the civilian area certain policies that are already in vogue in the military; the First Amendment is not being violated when the salary of an army chaplain is paid; violation would occur if and when a partiality toward the Protestant (or Catholic) chaplain is evinced.
[4] It is of course an altogether different question whether a Roman Catholic can with good conscience take the oath of office. The Roman Catholic Church has not openly, much less officially, repudiated the sacral formula - which he who promises to support the Constitution must repudiate. In situations where she can get away with it, the Catholic Church leaves no stone unturned to impose serious civil handicap upon all who dissent from her position. And she does this with the full knowledge and approval of those who govern her affairs. In view of these incontestable facts it is not incorrect to hold that in order to take the oath of office as President of the United States one must be either an off? color American or an off? color Catholic. When John F. Kennedy made it unequivocally clear that he was the latter, declared in very clear terms that he shared heartily in the American rejection of sacralism, then there was no further reason to oppose his candidacy on this score. (How he could do this without thereby coming under the rebuke of the Catholic Church leaders is a question by itself.) His career in office, from the very beginning to the hour of infamy on the streets of Dallas, left little to be wished for in the matter of fidelity to the American principle of a-sacralism.