Thomas Müntzer

Thomas Müntzer (c. 1489–1525) was a German radical reformer, theologian, and revolutionary preacher whose theology emphasized direct mystical experience of God, inner spiritual suffering (the "cross"), and the rejection of what he called a "honey-sweet" Christ offered without transformation. He broke decisively with Luther over the role of Scripture, the nature of baptism, and the permissibility of violent revolution, ultimately leading the Thuringian peasants in the disastrous Battle of Frankenhausen during the German Peasants' War of 1525. His writings articulate a mystical, apocalyptic theology indebted to German late-medieval mysticism (Tauler, Eckhart) and shaped later Anabaptist and radical Protestant streams. Luther and Melanchthon publicly denounced him, and after the peasants’ defeat Müntzer was captured at Frankenhausen, tortured, and beheaded outside Mühlhausen on 27 May 1525; mainstream Lutheranism and Catholic authorities alike rejected his theological and revolutionary program.