The Radical Reformation began in Switzerland and southern German in the 1520s, when participants in the mainline Reformation objected to state control over churches. The Schleitheim Confession of 1527 was an attempt by Radical Reformers to distinguish their movement from other Protestants. The Radical Reform movement supported baptism for believers, separation from the world, selection of pastors from within the congregation, and the refusal to swear oaths. These elements were designed to nullify the effects of Constantinianism, the identification of the church first with empire and then with nation state.

The Radicals objected to the use of coercion and violence in the name of God. In this sense, they believed God's action in the human world to be noncoercive. Accordingly, they rejected violence and adopted the ban (exclusion from the shared life of the community in accordance with Matthew 18) as the most severe form of...