Editing Sola fide (section)

== Anabaptist view ==
[[File:Niagara Falls - panoramio (69).jpg|thumb|An Anabaptist Christian lady wearing a [[Christian headcovering|headcovering]] and [[cape dress]] in keeping with biblical and patristic teachings on headship and modesty]]
{{further|Sola fide#Anabaptist}}
[[Anabaptist]] cleric David Griffin writes:<ref name="Griffin2016">{{cite book |last1=Griffin |first1=David Graham |title=The Word Became Flesh: A Rapprochement of Christian Natural Law and Radical Christological Ethics |date=16 May 2016 |publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers |isbn=978-1-4982-3925-7 |page=108 |language=English}}</ref>
{{blockquote|For early Anabaptists, ''sola fide'' muted the call to imitate Christ by excusing anti-Christian behavior generally, and justifying violence towards fellow Christians in particular. True ''fide'', it was argued, takes Christ both as savior and example. That is, faith is directed not just to the soteriological work of Christ's death, but also towards his exemplary human life. Faith accepts that because Christ's earthly life pleased God, it is normative for proper human experience. Consequently, early Anabaptism expected an affirmative answer to two basic questions: 1) "Do you believe that Christ bore your sins?" and 2) "Do you believe that Jesus' human life, which pleased God, should be copied?"<ref name="Griffin2016"/>}}
"The beginning of the Anabaptist path to salvation was thus marked not by a forensic understanding of salvation by 'faith alone', but by the entire process of repentance, self-denial, faith, rebirth and obedience. It was this process that was marked by the biblical sign of baptism."<ref name="Sheldrake2005">{{cite book |last1=Sheldrake |first1=Philip |title=The New Westminster Dictionary of Christian Spirituality |date=1 January 2005 |publisher=Westminster John Knox Press |isbn=978-0-664-23003-6 |page=104 |language=English}}</ref> After becoming a believer, Anabaptist theology emphasizes "a faith that works."<ref name="Roth2004">{{cite web |last1=Roth |first1=Mark |title=Anabaptists: A Faith That Works |url=https://www.anabaptists.org/clp/youth/2-105.html |publisher=Christian Light Publications |access-date=12 May 2022 |language=English |date=12 December 2004}}</ref>

[[Anabaptist]] denominations teach:<ref name="Batten2018">{{cite web |last1=Batten |first1=Alicia J. |title=Early Anabaptist Interpretation of the Letter of James |url=https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/publications/conrad-grebel-review/issues/winter-2018/early-anabaptist-interpretation-letter-james#:~:text=To%20be%20sure%2C%20Anabaptists%20insisted,to%20some%20of%20the%20late |publisher=[[Conrad Grebel University College]] |access-date=5 May 2022 |language=English |date=2018 |archive-date=5 May 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220505085108/https://uwaterloo.ca/grebel/publications/conrad-grebel-review/issues/winter-2018/early-anabaptist-interpretation-letter-james#:~:text=To%20be%20sure%2C%20Anabaptists%20insisted,to%20some%20of%20the%20late |url-status=dead }}</ref>
{{quotation|... salvation by faith through grace, but such faith must bear “visible fruit in repentance, conversion, regeneration, obedience, and a new life dedicated to the love of God and the neighbor, by the power of the Holy Spirit.”<ref name="Batten2018"/>}}
[[Hans Denck]] wrote:
{{quotation|To believe is to obey God's Word—be it unto death or life—in the sure confidence that it leads to the best. {{Bibleverse|Hebrews| 11:1|KJV}}<ref>{{cite book 
| vauthors=Denck H
| date=1 January 1976 
| title=Selected Writings of Hans Denck 
| publisher=Pickwick Press 
| isbn=978-0-915138-15-9
| page=89}}</ref>}}
Obedience to [[Jesus]] and other New Testament teachings, loving one another and being at peace with others, and walking in holiness are seen as "earmarks of the saved."<ref>
{{cite web 
|last1=Fretz 
|first1=Clarence Y. 
|title=How To Make SURE You Are Saved 
|url=https://www.anabaptists.org/tracts/saved.html 
|publisher=Anabaptists 
|access-date=22 May 2021 
|language=English}}</ref> Good works thus have an important role in the life of an Anabaptist believer,<ref name="Hauerwas2015">
{{cite book 
|last1=Hauerwas 
|first1=Stanley 
|title=The Work of Theology 
|date=2015 
|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 
|isbn=978-0-8028-7190-9 
|page=63 
|language=English}}</ref> with the teaching "that faith without works is a dead faith" (cf. {{Bibleverse|James|2:26|KJV}}) occupying a cornerstone in Anabaptist Christianity.<ref name="Janzen2009">
{{cite book 
|last1=Janzen 
|first1=Rod 
|title=Paul Tschetter: The Story of a Hutterite Immigrant Leader, Pioneer, and Pastor 
|date=4 May 2009 
|publisher=Wipf and Stock Publishers 
|isbn=978-1-7252-4463-4 
|page=9 
|language=English}}</ref> 
Anabaptists do not teach faith ''and'' works—in the sense of two separate entities—are necessary for salvation, but rather that true faith will ''always'' produce good works. Balthasar Hubmaier wrote that "faith by itself alone is not worthy to be called faith, for there can be no true faith without the works of love."<ref>{{cite book | veditors=Klassen W | date= 1981 | title=Anabaptism in Outline | publisher=Herald Press | series=English | isbn=0-83611241-5 | page=44 | language=English}}</ref>

Anabaptists "dismissed the Lutheran doctrine of justification, a dead faith as they called it, which was unable to produce Christian love and good works."<ref name="Brewer2021">
{{cite book 
|last1=Brewer 
|first1=Brian C. 
|title=T&T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism 
|date=30 December 2021 
|publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing 
|isbn=978-0-567-68949-8 
|page=87 
|language=English}}</ref> [[Peter Riedemann]] wrote:
{{quotation|These so-called Christians can be compared with the heathen who were led into the land of Israel by the Assyrian king and were settled in cities. The Lord sent lions among them to kill them, until a priest from Israel came and taught them the manner and practice of the law. Those heathen learned to serve the God of heaven. But they continued in their abominable practices. God was not pleased with their service, and their children followed in their footsteps. ({{Bibleverse|2 Kings|17:18-34|KJV}})}}
{{quotation|That is just what can be seen in the so-called Christians of today, especially the Lutherans. They continually profess to love and serve God and will not give up evil, sinful practices and the whole service of the devil. They continue to walk from generation to generation; as their fathers did, so do they, and even worse. John clearly states in what way they walk in truth! {{Bibleverse|1 John| 2:4; 4:20|KJV}}<ref>
{{cite book 
| vauthors=Riedemann P, Friesen JJ
| date= 1999 
| title=Peter Riedemann's Hutterite Confession of Faith: Translation of the 1565 German Edition of "Confession of Our Religion, Teaching, and Faith By the Brothers Who Are Known as the Hutterites" 
| publisher=Herald Press 
| isbn=0-8361-3122-3 
| page=169
| language=English}}
</ref>}}
Rather than a forensic justification that only gave a legal change of one's status before God, early Anabaptists taught that "justification begun a dynamic process by which the believer partook of the nature of Christ and was so enabled to live increasingly like Jesus."<ref>
{{cite book 
| veditors=Dyck CJ, Keeney WE, Beachy AJ 
| date=1 February 1992 
| title=The Writings of Dirk Philips 
| publisher=Herald Press 
| isbn=0-8361-3111-8
| page=40
| language=English}}</ref> Christians of the Anabaptist tradition (who teach salvation by "faith that works") have argued that being a disciple of Jesus by careful obedience to New Testament commands (such as the [[holy kiss]], [[baptism]], [[eucharist|communion]], [[Christian head covering|headcovering]], and [[feet washing]]), is "crucial evidence that an individual has repented, believed, and yielded to Christ."<ref name="Klaassen1985">{{cite web |last1=Klaassen |first1=Walter |title=Anabaptism: Neither Catholic Nor Protestant |url=https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/neither-catholic-nor-protestant |publisher=Christian History Institute |access-date=29 May 2022 |language=English |date=1985 |quote=Because of their emphasis on Christ-like living, Anabaptists have repeatedly been subject to the charge of legalism. Luther was one of the first. When Anabaptists emphasized that faith is visible and genuine only if expressed in action, Luther saw nothing but a new system of righteousness by works. |archive-url= |archive-date=}}</ref><ref name="Martin2010">{{cite web |last1=Martin |first1=Nolan C. |title=Key Differences Between Evangelicals and Anabaptists |url=http://www.ephrataministries.org/pdf/2010-09-Rem-differences.pdf |publisher=Ephrata Christian Fellowship |access-date=29 May 2022 |language=English |date=2010 |archive-url= |archive-date=}}</ref> The Anabaptist theologian [[Menno Simons]] rebuffed the Lutheran charge of legalism by referencing {{bibleverse|John|14:15|KJV}}:<ref name="Klaassen1985"/>
{{quotation|Because we teach from the mouth of the Lord that if we would enter into [eternal] life, we must keep the commandments; that the love of God is that we keep his commandments, the [Lutheran] preachers call us heaven-stormers and meritmen, saying that we want to be saved by our own merits even though we have always confessed that we cannot be saved by means of anything other than by the merits, intercession, death, and blood of Christ.<ref name="Klaassen1985"/>}}