Who Said That?

Who said that?

"From this we should learn that everything which is not united with our God and Christ cannot be other than an abomination which we should shun and flee from. By this is meant all popish and antipopish works and church services, meetings and church attendance, drinking houses, civic affairs, the commitments [made in] unbelief and other things of that kind, which are highly regarded by the world and yet are carried on in flat contradiction to the command of God, in accordance with all the unrighteouness which is in the world. From all these things we shall be separated and have no part with them for they are nothing but an abomination, and they are the cause of our being hated before our Christ Jesus, Who has set us free from the slavery of the flesh and fitted us for the service of God through the Spirit Whom He has given us."

You know the drill . . .  Leave your guesses in the comments section below.  Please don't cheat and spoil it for everyone else. 

Update on Sunday, August 12, 2007 at 06:03PM by Kim Riddlebarger

This comes from the Schleitheim Confession of 1527.  Michael Sattler, head of the Swiss brethren, was the principle author.  While not a confession per se, it is a statement of general Anabaptist conviction, especially the need to withdraw from all things "worldly." 

While you might make a good case that a Christian shouldn't spend all his time and his paycheck in a "drinking house," the confession exhorts Christians to avoid all civic affairs, and worship services of non-Anabaptist churches (that would include Reformed and Lutheran churches, who practice  what Sattler considered the chief lie of the papacy--infant baptism). 

Much of what is said here was said in the fundamentalist churches of my youth-churches now dominated by pop-psych, Christian activism and politics, and works-righteousness.  You can easily see how the Anabaptist concern about worldliness has been rejected in these same circles for a form of cultural accommodation.

Comments

[Todd Pedlar]

Hm... well, it sounds Anabaptist at least, but those guys I don't know well enough to guess. Menno Simonsz?

Todd

[Tyler]

Luther.

[keith]

Yes sounds very Anabaptist...John Howard Yoder?

[Benjamin P. Glaser]

John Knox

[mit]

Spurgen

[D Booton]

I have to admit to cheating, so I won't say who wrote it, but the people who put this on the internet are supposed to be separated from the world, as the quotation suggests. So what are they doing cavorting on the "porno highway" (aka the internet). In addition to aligning themselves with pornography they are leagued with with internet poker sites, the NRA, government watchdog sites, as well as Roman Catholic and Reformed websites!!!

And then there is the issue of using electricity which they must have to power that instrument of the devil, the desktop computer.

I wonder if they are sinning with Apples or IBMS?

[lee n. field]

Radical separatist. Doesn't like church, either of popish variety or not. Some Anabaptist. The only name that comes to mind is Menno Simmons, but I've read that he was a saner man than the enthusiasts, so I dunno.

Hey, you got a problem with the NRA?

[Johnny Helms]

I would guess Charles Finney or Joseph Smith.

[Howard]

Sounds like Texe Marrs to me.

[Pastor TA]

If i remember from my Creeds and Confessions class and my Systematic Theology classes, that is a direct quotation from the Schleitheim Confession.

Not sure what Boonton means by it, as he implies that the Amish (or some other anti-technology group) is associated with this statement, but it is the more permissive Mennonites (who do use technology all the time) who still use the Schleitheim, and to my knowledge, the Amish never did, or if they did, it was before they broke with the Mennonites.

[Ivan]

I don't know; I have tried but have no way of narrowing it down far enough.
It is clear he was a separatist
Was probably really battling self-righteousness
The English is too old to be Finney and other Prohibitionists.
Some of the Puritans certainly fell off into a separatism, a condescending stance...

[Nicholas Hill]

It sounds like Luther.