Anabaptists: Separation, Simplicity, and Sectarianism. The Anabaptist movement, born in the turbulent years of the 16th-century Reformation, sought to return to a “pure” New Testament faith. Rejecting infant baptism, state churches, and coercion, they became the “radicals” of the Reformation, insisting on believer’s baptism, separation from the world, and a life of visible discipleship.