BRETHREN encyclopedia topics

River Brethren, name used to designate certain Christian bodies originating in 1770, during a revival movement among German settlers in E Pennsylvania. In the 1750s, Mennonite refugees from Switzerland had established their homes near the Susquehanna River. Their religious leaders, Jacob and John Engle, became associated with the revival, and their followers came to be known as the River Brethren, possibly because they were baptized in the Susquehanna upon joining the brotherhood. Several factions of the River Brethren withdrew in the mid-19th cent., including the Yorker Brethren and the United Zion Church, while the main body took the name Brethren in Christ, by which a group of Mennonites is also known. The Brethren practice trine (triple, in allusion to the Trinity) immersion and foot washing, adhere to plain dress, and oppose war, alcohol, tobacco, and worldly pleasures. There were about 11,000 members in the United States and Canada in 1992. They carry out missionary work in Asia and Africa.

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Renewed Church of the Brethren

Renewed Church of the Brethren: see Moravian Church.

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Plymouth Brethren

Plymouth Brethren, group of Christian believers originating in the early 19th cent. in Ireland and spreading from there to the Continent (especially Switzerland), the British dominions, and the United States. One of their notable leaders was John Nelson Darby; the members are sometimes known as Darbyites. They refer to themselves as Brethren, Christians, or Believers. In a reaction against the formality of prescribed ritual, the requirements of ministerial ordination, and other established conditions in the churches of the times, groups of believers began to meet independently in Dublin and elsewhere for spiritual communion. Associations were formed c.1828 in Dublin and c.1830 at Plymouth, England, whence the popular name Plymouth Brethren. Brethren hold differing opinions concerning baptism and expect the personal premillennial second coming of Christ. The Lord's Supper, as a commemorative act of worship, is observed once a week. Followers of different leaders withdrew from time to time from the main body to form new congregations. This tendency to divide was carried over into the United States and Canada by emigrants, who established new meetings of the Brethren there. In the United States there are eight separate divisions, some of the exclusive type, stressing congregational interdependency, and some of the open type, stressing the independence of congregations. Basically fundamentalist, the Brethren consider the Scriptures the only true guide. No officers are chosen to preside over the congregations; the privileges and duties of the ministry depend upon the personal gift of the individual member. Membership in the United States is c.98,000.

See study by F. R. Coad (1968).

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Hutterian Brethren

Hutterian Brethren, a body of Christians practicing strict communism based on religious principles. The Brethren are descendants of those Moravian Anabaptists who were followers of Jacob Hutter, a minister from the Tyrol who was burned at the stake in 1536. In the 17th cent. there were a number of Hutterian brotherhoods in Moravia. Persecution drove them eastward to eventual settlement in Russia. In 1874, in company with Russian Mennonites, a group emigrated to the United States, settling near Tabor, S.Dak. Other groups followed. Their doctrines and principles, aside from their practice of common ownership, are in accord with those of Mennonites in general. There are around 460 Hutterite colonies in the United States and Canada today, mainly on the W North American prairie. They are also known as Hutterische Brethren or Hutterites.

See studies by V. Peters (1965), J. W. Bennett (1967), and J. A. Hostelter (1975).

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German Baptist Brethren

German Baptist Brethren: see Brethren.

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Evangelical United Brethren Church

Evangelical United Brethren Church, Protestant denomination created (1946) by the union of the Evangelical Church and the United Brethren in Christ. Both denominations originated early in the 19th cent. and had similarities in organization and polity. The Evangelical Church was begun by the evangelical, pietistic efforts of Jacob Albright, a Lutheran convert to Methodism, who preached among his fellow Pennsylvania Germans. The United Brethren in Christ came into being as a result of the evangelistic preaching of Philip William Otterbein of the German Reformed Church and Martin Boehm, a Mennonite bishop. These two ministers conducted revivals among the German-speaking people of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. The methods of Albright, Otterbein, and Boehm were similar: after evangelistic meetings, converts were encouraged to form classes or societies for strengthening their spiritual life. The groups formed under Albright held a general conference in 1807 at which he was elected bishop; in 1816 the name Evangelical Association was adopted. In 1891 a group that became the United Evangelical Church seceded from the Evangelical Association, but in 1922 the two bodies reunited as the Evangelical Church. The societies formed under Otterbein and Boehm took shape as a distinct ecclesiastical body, to be known as the United Brethren in Christ, at a conference in 1800, at which the two ministers were elected bishops. The United Brethren in Christ (Old Constitution) parted from the main body in 1889; from that time they have maintained a separate church. Members of the Moravian Church are also sometimes called the United Brethren. In earlier years the membership of the Evangelical Church and of the United Brethren in Christ included few who were not German in speech, but later the German-speaking element formed only a small proportion. Extension W of the Alleghenies was rapid. The newly combined church supported publishing houses in the United States and abroad, four theological seminaries, a number of colleges, and foreign missions. It had an episcopal form of government. In doctrine it was Arminian. Particular emphasis was laid on prayer, a life of devotion to Christ, and the responsibility of the individual. Having long maintained a close relationship with the Methodist Church, it merged with it to found (1968) the United Methodist Church, U.S.A.

See R. W. Albright, History of the Evangelical Church (1942, repr. 1956); J. W. Owen, A Short History of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ (1944).

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Church of the Brethren

Church of the Brethren: see Brethren.

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Brethren in Christ

Brethren in Christ: see River Brethren.

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Brethren

Brethren, German Baptist religious group. They were popularly known as Dunkards, Dunkers, or Tunkers, from the German for "to dip," referring to their method of baptizing. The Brethren evolved from the Pietist movement in Germany. The first congregation was organized there in 1708 by Alexander Mack. Persecution drove them to America where, under Peter Becker, they settled (1719) in Germantown, Pa. From that and other settlements in Pennsylvania they spread westward and into Canada. The Brethren oppose war and advocate temperance, the simple life, plain dress, and "obedience to Christ rather than obedience to creeds and cults." The original group, at present the largest in the United States, is the Church of the Brethren (Conservative Dunkers); the local churches are united by an annual conference that elects a general board to supervise the national church program. From the Church of the Brethren there have been separations into the Seventh-Day Baptists, German Baptists (1728; see Beissel, Johann Conrad); Church of God (New Dunkards, 1848); Old German Baptist Brethren (1881); and the Brethren Church (Progressive Dunkers, 1882). The Brethren baptize by trine immersion, the candidate being immersed once for each member of the Trinity. They practice foot washing and the love feast.

See also River Brethren (for Brethren in Christ, River Brethren, and Yorker Brethren); Christadelphians (for Brethren of Christ); Hutterian Brethren; Moravian Church.

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Hutterite

Member of the Hutterite Brethren, an Anabaptist sect that takes its name from its Austrian founder, Jakob Hutter, who was burned as a heretic in 1536. His followers modeled themselves on the early church in Jerusalem by holding their goods in common. Persecuted in Moravia and the Tirol, they moved eastward to Hungary and the Ukraine. In the 1870s many emigrated to the U.S. and settled in South Dakota. The society still exists in the western U.S. and Canada, where it has colonies of 60–150 members, who operate collective farms. Hutterites are pacifists who take no part in politics and remain separate from outside society.

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Encyclopedia Britannica, 2008. Encyclopedia Britannica Online.