From Civic Friendship to Communities of Believers: Anabaptist Challenges to Lutheran and Calvinist Discourses

The sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation introduced to Renaissance Europe new patterns of relationships between religious faith and political life that were not merely side effects or unintended consequences; they were often at the core of the Reformers’ efforts to re-envision Christendom or, sometimes, to dismantle it. Friendship in the public realm was one aspect of human life dramatically affected by these efforts.