'''Reforma radicală''' din Bisericii Catolice şi la mişcarea protestantă în expansiune condusă de Germaniei şi a Ţărilor de Jos, Reforma radicală a dat naştere a numeroase grupări anabaptiste în toată creştinătatea.

==Caracteristici==
Spre deosebire atât de catolici, cât şi de mişcările protestante evanghelică şi reformată (zwingliană şi calvinistă), Reforma radicală a abandonat în general ideea „Bisericii vizibile” ca deosebită de „Biserica invizibilă”. Astfel, Biserica ar consta numai din comunitatea de credincioşi care l-au acceptat pe botezul la maturitate.

===Primele forme de anabaptism===
Primele forme de anabaptism erau adeseori mileniste, susţinând în centrul credinţei lor sfârşitul iminent al lumii. Acest fapt este cel mai uşor observabil în cazul guvernării de către Ioan de Leida a oraşului Münster în 1535, în cele din urmă înlăturată de episcopul catolic de Münster şi de landgraful luteran de Hessa. După căderea Münsterului, câteva grupări mici au continuat să adere la credinţele anabaptiste revoluţionare. Cea mai mare şi importantă dintre aceste grupări, batenburgerii, a persistat în diverse forme până în anii 1570.

===Forme mai târzii de anabaptism===
Formele mai târzii de anabaptism au avut o amploare mult mai mică, concentrându-se pe formarea de comunităţi mici, separatiste. Ca variante s-au dezvoltat menoniţii, comunităţile amish şi hutteriţii.

The '''Radical Reformation''' was a 16th century response to both the corruption in the Magisterial Protestant movement led by Martin Luther and many others.  Beginning in Switzerland, the Radical Reformation birthed many Anabaptist groups throughout Europe.

==Characteristics==
Unlike the Roman Catholics and the more Magisterial Evangelical (Zwinglian and "believer's baptism". 

While the reformers wanted to substitute their own learned elite for the learned elite of the Roman Catholic Church, the Anabaptists rejected church authority almost entirely. It was unavoidable that as the search for original and purely scriptural Christianity was carried further some would claim that the tension between the church and the Roman Empire in the first centuries of Christianity was somehow normative, that the church is not to be allied with government, that a true church is always inviting persecution, and that the conversion of Constantine I was therefore the great apostasy that marked the end of pure Christianity.<ref>Justol L. Gonzalez, ''A History of Christian Thought'' (Abingdon: Nashville, 1975)</ref>

==Early forms of Anabaptism==
Some early forms of the Radical Reformation were  millenarian, focusing on the imminent end of the world.  This was particularly notable in the rule of John of Leiden over the city of Münster in 1535, which was ultimately crushed by the forces of the Catholic Bishop of Münster and the Lutheran Landgrave of Hesse. After the fall of Münster, several small groups continued to adhere to revolutionary Anabaptist beliefs. 

The largest and most important of these groups, the Batenburgers, persisted in various forms into the 1570s. The early Anabaptists believed that the Reformation must purify not only theology but also the actual lives of Christians, especially in what had to do with political and social relationships.<ref>Gonzalez, ''A History of Christian Thought'', 88.</ref> Therefore, the church should not be supported by the state, neither by tithes and taxes, nor by the use of the sword; Christianity was a matter of individual conviction, which could not be forced on anyone, but rather required a personal decision for it.<ref>Gonzalez, ''A History of Christian Thought'', 88.</ref>

==Later forms of Anabaptism==
Later forms of Anabaptism were much smaller, and focused on the formation of small, separatist communities.  Among the many varieties to develop were Mennonites, Amish, and Hutterites. Typical among the new leaders of the later Anabaptist movement, and certainly the most influential of them, was Menno Simons (1496-1561), a Dutch Catholic priest who early in 1536 decided to join the Anabaptists.<ref>Gonzalez, ''A History of Christian Thought'', 96.</ref> 

Menno Simons had no use for the violence advocated and practiced by the Münster movement, which seemed to him to pervert the very heart of Christianity.<ref>Gonzalez, ''A History of Christian Thought'', 96.</ref> Thus, Mennonite pacifism is not merely a peripheral characteristic of the movement, but rather belongs to the very essence of Menno's understanding of the gospel; this is one of the reasons that it has been a constant characteristic of all Mennonite bodies through the centuries.<ref>Gonzalez, ''A History of Christian Thought'', 96.</ref>