With the hope of admonishing his fellow Mennonites to remain true to the faith of their sixteenth century Anabaptist forbears, conservative Dutch elder Tieleman Jansz van Braght published the two-volume martyrology, The Bloody Theatre, in 1660. Van Braght's work would go on to shape the Anabaptist tradition more profoundly than any other book except the Bible. According to David L. Weaver-Zercher, professor of American religious history at Messiah College, the book became the measure of Christian faithfulness for the Anabaptists, essentially the Amish and the Mennonites, who brought it with them from Europe to North America. Despite the theological and cultural differences that splintered the Anabaptists, the Martyrs Mirror, as the book is now generally known, maintained the centrality of nonresistance as one of the hallmark Anabaptist convictions. For nearly four centuries, the Martyrs Mirror has molded a movement whose members range from separatist “Old Order” groups to assimilated, urban Mennonites. Weaver-Zercher's thoughtful history of the martyrology investigates the ways that changing social, political, and economic contexts shaped how Anabaptists read the book and plumbed its spiritual resources. Along the way, he proves to be an insightful and original guide through 400 years of Anabaptist history and thought.

Weaver-Zercher divides his analysis into three parts. The first section, which relies on existing scholarship, covers the sixteenth-century history and persecution of the Anabaptists, the memorialization of their martyrs in song and text, and van Braght's original publication of The Bloody Theater. Previous Dutch martyrologies had already broadened the canon of martyrs to include Swiss and South German accounts, thereby implying that the groups that historians now collectively classify as Anabaptist all died for the same commitment to adult baptism and nonresistance. Van Braght's major contribution was to preface the earlier martyrologies with accounts of martyrs stretching back to the early church, arguing that an unbroken succession of a persecuted, faithful minority made up the true church who shared and died for Anabaptist convictions. The idea that they were part of a movement that stretched back to the early apostles would buttress the Anabaptists’ commitment to nonviolence in many different contexts.

The middle third of the text traces the publication history of the martyrology through the twentieth century. A 1685 posthumously published edition added illustrations by the Mennonite artist Jan Luyken. Luyken's gruesome images in the illustrated edition likely shape contemporary readers’ impressions of the martyrs more than the text. When they reached America, Anabaptist immigrants published the Martyrs Mirror to encourage their members to sustain nonresistance and separateness from the surrounding world. One of the strengths of Weaver-Zercher's study of the nineteenth- and twentieth-centuries is the skill with which he demonstrates that the book became a mirror of faithfulness, even as Anabaptist groups splintered over differences about what faithfulness should mean. ‘Traditional’ Anabaptists, such as the Old Order Amish, resisted the changes brought by modernity, while ‘assimilated’ Mennonites believed that working more closely with the world was vital for the long-term success of Anabaptism. As they drifted further apart, Anabaptist groups differed in the theological lenses with which they read and their goals in commodifying and packaging the message of the martyrology. In the twentieth century, Anabaptists, particularly the separatist traditional groups, bought more copies of the martyrology than were sold in all of the previous centuries combined.

In the final section of the book, Weaver-Zercher focuses on the contemporary reception and interpretation of the Martyrs Mirror. Three of the chapters compare the approaches of tradition-minded, assimilated, and global Anabaptists. Traditional Anabaptists view their struggles to be faithful as proof that they are the true inheritors of the faith of the sixteenth-century martyrs. Uninterested in the complexity of the willingness to die (or kill) for one's faith, they believe that truth is knowable and worth dying, or at least suffering, for. Assimilated Mennonites, on the other hand, have critiqued the Martyrs Mirror for its valorization of suffering and victimhood, stark ethical dualism, and have tried to empathize with the persecutors. Weaver-Zercher perceptively points out that the ‘modern’ orientation of the assimilated Mennonites allows them to find meaning in martyrologies that differ from the original compilers’ intentions. All contemporary Anabaptist groups, despite their theological and social differences, use the Martyrs Mirror to nurture their commitment to nonviolence in North America and in the global church. Christians who suffer persecution, like those in the former Soviet Union, have resonated with the book's dualistic themes. A recent initiative has begun collecting stories of contemporary persecution in order to reopen the canon of the martyrs. The reactions to the project reflect some of the same sensitive and combustible questions that surrounded the production of the early seventeenth-century martyrologies. What are the criteria for inclusion? Who decides which individuals should be included? Are the martyrs helpful archetypes in the increasingly ecumenical and complex world of contemporary Anabaptists?

Weaver-Zercher convincingly demonstrates the fundamental ways that the Martyrs Mirror has shaped Anabaptist identity, including the ways that economic forces drive its publication. He develops his most original analysis in the second and third sections of the book, where he teases apart differences among a wide variety of North American Anabaptist groups. Traditional Anabaptists’ continued publication and consumption of the book may surprise readers who are more accustomed to the assimilated Mennonites’ discomfort with aspects of the martyrs’ stories. Readers looking for a full social history of the text might have expected more analysis of the ways that gender and class have shaped the reception of the martyrs’ stories. This text pushes readers to balance the beneficial formative uses of martyrologies with the danger that their moral perfectionism and dualism can lead to spiritual arrogance. Weaver-Zercher's scholarship demonstrates the power of this remarkable text and its unexpected ability to inspire believers for centuries after its first publication.