In the 1530s, in the same year that Henry VIII declared himself supreme head of the Church of England,

in northwestern Germany there occurred a radical 15-month experiment in apocalyptic thinking.

Born out of the Reformation, it involved polygamy, proto-communism and a cult-like leader.

It ended badly.

This is the story of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster.

Joining me to introduce us to the Anabaptists and to their radical attempt to create heaven on earth is Dr. Kat Hill.

Kat is senior lecturer in early modern history at Birkbeck College at the University of London

and the author of the Prize-winning book, Baptism, Brotherhood and Belief in Reformation Germany,

Anabaptism and Lutheranism, 1525-1585.

So I thought I'd start by asking her about the connection between Lutheran Protestantism and the Anabaptists.

Kat is ever a joy to see you.

Today we're going to be talking about something that I feel like I need to know and all for a lot more about than I actually do.

So you're going to be instructing me as much as anyone else.

We're going to be thinking about what some have called the radical reformation.

What is its relationship to Luther, Martin Luther in his reformation?

So the radical reformation, they come out of the same conversation that Martin Luther is having with our position to the Catholic Church,

a dissatisfaction with ritual and practice and the social structures of the church.

And so there, what we would call the radical reformers, the groups that I've looked at, I locked the Anabaptists.

They're talking to Lutheran Theologians, but then they're coming to different conclusions about what that means for reform.

So I think they're coming at many of the same traditions.

They're also looking back to medieval reforming practices, but part of this big conversation of how to reform practice and faith.

Is there a founder of Anabaptism? Who is it? And what are the central terms?

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