Note: This is third in a series about my trip to Europe last summer, part of which I spent exploring religious and family roots.
Last summer's exploration of my Anabaptist roots culminated in Bern, the Capital of the Swiss Canton of Bern and the center of the severest persecutions of the Anabaptists. On the outskirts of town, we passed a castle where Anabaptists were imprisoned.
In Bern we saw the Rathaus, or City Hall, where Anabaptist trials were conducted. We walked down the Gerechtigkeitsgasse, or Street of Justice, where Anabaptists were flogged and beheaded. How tragic it is that people engaged in the greatest injustices often attempt to cover their tracks by creating symbolism—like the name of this street—in direct contradiction to what they are doing. Today the Street of Justice in Bern is laced with flowers cascading from window boxes.
We ended our tour of Bern in the Swiss Reformed Cathedral, the site of a service of reconciliation between the descendants of the Anabaptists and the Swiss Reformed Church. When, you might ask? In 2004—almost 500 years after the persecutions began! For a people charged with reconciliation, Christians can sure cling to a grudge.
Although Anabaptism is part of my heritage, I no longer am an Anabaptist. I joyfully participate in the baptism of infants into Christ’s Holy Catholic Church. But traveling in the footsteps of the Anabaptists has helped me to understand why, for example, I am fiercely opposed to state or official religion of any kind, and why I stand fiercely on the side of respecting and protecting the freedom of everyone to believe and worship as they choose.
I do believe in Christian unity, but I believe that unity can be found in the spaciousness of the Holy Spirit, without forcing conformity in belief and practice on the community of the faithful.
And, finally, I believe the practice of examining my religious heritage for what to keep and what to respectfully set aside has both strengthened my faith and made me more open to what the Spirit would teach me through the faiths of others.
