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What is our History? Eighteenth century Europe was a time of strong governmental control of the church and low tolerance for religious diversity. Nevertheless, there were religious dissenters who lived their faith in spite of the threat of persecution. Some of these dissenters found refuge in the town of Schwarzenau, Germany. Among them was Alexander Mack, a miller who had been influenced by both Pietism and Anabaptism. In August 1708 five men and three women gathered at the Eder River in Schwarzenau for baptism, an illegal act since all had been baptized as infants. They understood this baptism as an outward symbol of their new faith and as a commitment to living that faith in community. An anonymous member of the group first baptized Mack. He, in turn, baptized the other seven. This new group simply called themselves "brethren." Though the early Brethren shared many beliefs with other Protestants, issues which separated them from the state churches included discipleship and obedience, reinstitution of the New Testament church, church discipline, biblicism, and nonresistance. They also shared their faith enthusiastically with others, sending evangelists to other parts of Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. Due to growing persecution and economic hardship, Brethren began emigrating to North America in 1719 under the leadership of Peter Becker. Most Brethren left Europe by 1740, including Mack, who brought a group over in 1729. The first congregation in the New World was organized at Germantown, Pa., in 1723. Soon after its formation, the Germantown congregation sent missionaries to rural areas around Philadelphia. These missionaries preached, baptized, and started new congregations. Their zeal, honesty, and hard work drew many new members into the Brethren faith community through the 1700s. New congregations were formed in New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. With the promise of inexpensive land, they moved into Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri after the Revolutionary War. By the mid-1800s Brethren had settled in Kansas and Iowa and eventually the West Coast. Expansion across the continent and changes due to the Industrial Revolution caused strain and conflict among the Brethren. In the early 1880s a major schism took place resulting in a three-way split. The largest branch after the schism was the German Baptist Brethren, who changed their name to the Church of the Brethren in 1908. During the 20th century the focus areas of Church of the Brethren have included educating its young people by developing Sunday schools, camping, and youth programs; strengthening its emphasis on service, foreign and home missions, and peacemaking; increasing its ecumenical involvement; and developing a new denominational structure. Today the Church of the Brethren maintains the basic beliefs of the first Brethren and seeks to find new ways to continue the work of Jesus in the world. —by Ken Shaffer, archivist, and Kendra Flory, intern Source: www.brethren.org What do Brethern Believe? back to top While the Church of the Brethren holds "no creed but the New Testament" and seeks to live in harmony with the scriptures, respecting the individual's search for truth, there are some core beliefs that typify the denomination and its members' life together. Creators of the "Jubilee" curriculum, a joint project between the Church of the Brethren and Mennonites, identified the following "commonly held beliefs and theological underpinnings":
Jesus is incarnated in the church, the body of Christ. Therefore, faith in Jesus Christ is lived out in the community of believers. No one can be a Christian alone; conversion is validated by the church, and new disciples are not merely additional souls, but members of the body. . . . Having died to old ways and been born to new life in Christ, believers choose the way of Jesus, including peacemaking, simple living, service, witnessing through word and action, and discipleship. —from "Good Ground" adult curriculum writer's manual What does it mean to be a Christian? back to top To be a Christian in the Church of the Brethren perspective is to come to know, in the company of believers, the one, living God in a personal, relational way through Jesus Christ, who is the unique, fullest revelation of God. The scriptures tell the long story of God's desire to relate to humans in this loving and personal way. The Bible tells the truth of God's faithful, trusting love, in which God created all things and in which people were intended to live in the midst of creation. That love is a free gift from the goodness of God, not from any human achievement. The Bible also tells the truth of how humans repeatedly turn away from that love, try to set conditions on it, failing to love God and others. Human sin springs from this root, and distorts all of creation and all our relationships with fear, greed, hatred, and violence in many forms. But being a Christian means receiving the gift from the God who is powerful enough to continue loving faithfully — even to the point of suffering the worst that humans can do against God and against each other. Through the story of Israel, God reached out in love. Ultimately God comes to us uniquely in Jesus, the embodiment of faithful Israel. When people rejected this personal offer of God's relationship, Jesus continued to love, suffer, and forgive the very people who killed him. God confirmed that this is the divine power that overcomes sin by raising Jesus from death. Jesus Christ lives a life that never ends, and so shattered the power of death, hate, and violence forever. In Jesus, God has uniquely done what people need, and yet are powerless to do by themselves. Through Jesus Christ, God has redeemed and restored human relationships with God through the love that God wishes to extend to family, neighbors, even enemies. As he did in his earthly ministry, Jesus continues to gather a covenanted people who receive and confess God's love as an unmerited gift, and who do the practices of obedient discipleship because of that love. As God's love comes to us, we discover in its light how unlike God we are, and how much we need God's free gift of love, and the joy of sharing it. Jesus' community, the Church, lives in family-like love together, and extends it to others. The Church worships God and draws strength in daily prayer and contemplation to continue in discipleship. Jesus' promise to fulfill the Kingdom of God more fully than we yet experience it is the hope we live toward. Because of that hope, believers embrace Jesus' way that favors poverty; loves enemies defenselessly; and ministers to the hungry, the poor, the sick, to strangers, and more. The practices which Jesus ordained in the New Testament, such as baptism, the love feast, and anointing shape disciples for ministry that proclaims forgiveness and life in the living Christ. For me, becoming a Christian in the Church of the Brethren has been such an encounter with God in a personal way through the risen, living Jesus Christ and through this sisterly and brotherly family of Jesus who demonstrated this love to me and others. I experience in Christ and the Church a kind of love I never knew before. The scripture and the Holy Spirit pointed me toward Christ, and the Brethren helped me to see it in practice as best they could. Baptism marked for me a death and resurrection, a washing by faith from sin, and birth into a new life in Christ, and into a new family. Baptism changed the direction and quality of life for me, although I have not yet mastered all of Christ's discipleship. The love feast renews me in that cleansing and in the newness of life I entered at baptism: The feetwashing service, the love meal, the bread and cup tell me each time how God meets the depth of human suffering and cruelty, transcending it with reconciling mercy. To practice cross-bearing discipleship in a community of accountability and forgiveness is a joy that has both saved me pain and brought some adversity. For me, being a Christian in the Brethren fold has meant a journey of faith in God, launched by love, following after Jesus, following the scriptures. The journey moves in the community of those who believe and share the cross of Jesus with the Spirit's help. On that journey I experience the love of Christ and share in it with fellow believers, who are eager to extend it joyfully through ministries of telling and doing the good news of Jesus Christ. –By Jeff Bach, assistant professor of Brethren studies and |
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