Editorial
November/December, 2007
Volume 42, Number 6
The Church of the Brethren is celebrating its 300th year of existence in 2007-2008. Brethren Revival Fellowship has, through the years, tried to emphasize our Brethren heritage. In our writing and teaching, our hope has been to preserve and promote the distinctive understandings that have helped make the Church of the Brethren a unique part of the Christian world. To really be Brethren, as James Myer puts it, we believe “we should be well aware of the major strokes in our Brethren heritage that brought us to this place,” and “to be unashamed that we are a part of the Pietist and Anabaptist tradition and the values which they suggest.”
We aren’t embarrassed by the explicit Biblicism of our forbears in the Church of the Brethren. They believed, as we do, that the Bible is God’s Word written. We believe it is totally trustworthy. We echo their insistence that Brethren teaching and practice reflect a close and careful study and application of New Testament doctrines. We believe that by studying our history as a denomination, we will be stirred to return to the Bible that our ancestors loved and taught. To do so will help ensure that there will be a Church of the Brethren still when Jesus returns.
The BRF Committee has decided that, beginning with the September/October issue of the BRF Witness, the major articles during the 300th anniversary year would focus on the history, doctrines, and practices of the Brethren. The current issue of the Witness takes a brief look at early Brethren History. The January/ February, 2008 newsletter will focus on more recent Brethren History.
—Craig Alan Myers
Glimpses from Early Brethren History
By Harold S. Martin
The first paragraph of the 1923 version of the Brethren Card says, “This body of Christians (meaning the Church of the Brethren) originated early in the eighteenth century, the church being the natural outgrowth of the Pietist movement following the Reformation.”
One purpose for studying history is to become better acquainted with godly people in the past, and hopefully avoid mistakes made in earlier times. As we think of their sacrifices and their attempts to be faithful to God, we are encouraged to faithfully persevere in the journey of life.
Many religious groups have found the term “brethren” to be so biblical and so appropriate to use as a descriptive name, that there are a number of religious bodies that have assumed some form of the name “Brethren.” These include the Plymouth Brethren, the Moravian Brethren, the Brethren in Christ, and the Mennonite Brethren.
All of the above groups are different from the Church of the Brethren (and its off-shoot churches). The name Church of the Brethren was adopted in 1908. In Europe we were known as the “Schwarzenau Baptists.” By 1836, we were called the “Fraternity of German Baptists,” and by 1871 the common term was “German Baptist Brethren.” Outsiders called us “Dunkers” (in light of the German word “tunken” which means “dip”).
The expansion of the Christian church is one of the great miracles of human history. Christianity seemed like a movement doomed to failure when Jesus was executed by the soldiers of the Roman Empire. But Christ’s death on the cross, and the resurrection which followed, proved to be the key which challenged multitudes to follow “The Way.” When the early followers saw that the same Jesus who had been crucified and buried, was alive again, they knew for certain that He was not an ordinary man.
First century Christians were severely persecuted, but the church continued to grow. Believers were sometimes burned at the stake, thrown to the lions, tortured by every means that the human mind could devise. Stories of persecution in the church during the first and second centuries can be found in Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. But in spite of the widespread persecution, the message of Christ spread to various parts of Africa and Asia and Europe. The Brethren had their origin in Germany. Some early members came from Switzerland and France.
There were two major turning points in the very early history of the church–two dates that all Christians should try to remember–the year 313 and the year 1517.
1. The Early Church: Christ to Constantine (30-313)
For 300 years after the time of Christ, the Christian church was a relatively small group of faithful, called out believers, seeking to obey the teachings of the prophets and the apostles. There was no elaborate organization. There was no director of the choir, or president of the ladies aid, or board of trustees. The structure was simple. Philippians 1:1 speaks of “elders, deacons, and saints.” There were some struggles and conflicts, but for the most part, the believers were few in number, simple in organization, obedient in life, and ridiculed by non-believers.
2. The Roman Church: Constantine to Luther (313-1517)
Rome was the leading city in the Mediterranean world. The Roman Empire was the dominant world power. Early Roman emperors were enemies of the church, but about 313 AD, the Roman emperor Constantine (after a vision of a Cross in the sky convinced him that he should become a Christian), professed the Christian faith, and later Christianity was designated the state religion.
Sometime after 313, church membership became compulsory; whole pagan armies were baptized and became members of the church; the politics of the Empire soon found its way into the administration of the church. Bishops in charge of the church at Rome widened the scope of their influence until they assumed authority over the entire European church. By 600 AD Gregory I came to be regarded as the first Pope.
Many thought that Constantine’s embracing Christianity was a great victory for the church, but it was really the beginning of the church’s ruin. For more than one thousand years after Constantine, the church slowly decayed. Church leaders later practiced open sexual immorality; church offices were purchased with money (a practice known as simony); the Pope, through representatives, sold indulgences.1 The Roman church was in a declining state.
Throughout the long Roman period there were small groups of faithful Christians who rejected the false teachings of the state church and kept the faith alive. Some of these groups were the Waldensians, Albigenses, the Huss-ities, and the Franciscans. But their influence was small, and the vast multitudes of people were nominal Christians living under the influence of the state church.
3. The Protestant Church: Luther to the Present (1517-2007)
By the year 1517, Martin Luther called for reforms in the state church. We call it a state church because all citizens were baptized (sprinkled as infants), and so everyone born in a given province was a citizen of the state and also a member of the church. Becoming a Christian was not a voluntary decision of the individual.
Luther was studying for the Roman Catholic priesthood in Germany, and in his studies, learned the great truth that salvation comes through faith in a Person (the Lord Jesus Christ), and not by saying so many “Hail Mary’s,” or sprinkling holy water, or observing elaborate church rituals.2 Luther protested the inconsistencies of the Pope. He nailed “95 Theses” on the church door at Wittenberg. Shortly thereafter, Luther was excommunicated from the state church.
Within a relatively short time, people all over Europe were convinced that Luther was right. Similar movements of pretest were started in Switzerland and Scotland and England. This period in church history is known as the “Protestant Reformation.” By 1545 the Protestant movement had been well planted in Europe. The Catholic Church had lost much influence, but started a vigorous effort to regain lost ground, in a movement known as the Counter-Reformation. The Catholic Church called a council at Trent (in northern Italy) and demanded that Protestants reunite with the Catholic Church and conform to its teachings.
Hostility continued between Catholics and Protestants, including bloody religious wars. The most noted religious war in Europe was called The Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 ended that war, and provided that Lutheran, Reformed, and Catholic members should have equal religious and civil rights in Germany and Switzerland. Each state (or province) in Germany was to be entirely Lutheran, or Reformed, or Catholic, according to the decree of the civil ruler of the state. The people were forced to accept whatever the officially proclaimed religion of that state was declared to be. If the ruler of a province said that the religion of the province was Lutheran, then every citizen was forced to become Lutheran. The alternative to forced membership was to migrate to another region of the country.
Most readers of church history know that the Roman church had declined in spiritual vitality during the long period from Constantine to Luther. Many who professed faith in Christ were mere nominal Christians who lived very much like the pagan people in the worldly society. They were told, for example, to buy “indulgences” so that their punishment in purgatory would be less severe. But along came Martin Luther who stressed salvation by faith rather than by merely observing certain outward ceremonies. People all over Europe sensed that Luther was right, and movements which protested the errors that crept into the Roman church arose in other countries.
4. Two Corrective Movements in Europe
There were some in Europe, however, who were convinced that even the Protestant Reformers did not go far enough in their break from the practices of Rome. Luther, Calvin, and Knox opposed the sale of indulgences, and rejected the authority of the Pope, and taught the doctrine of justification by faith in Jesus Christ. The Reformers took some steps in the right direction, but they had not returned to the simple biblical practices of the New Testament church. Followers of Luther still baptized babies. They still thought that Christians should fight in wars. And for the most part, holiness of life was not carefully taught and practiced.
The Protestant Reformers failed to emphasize the practical side of Christianity, and in many ways, they still followed the practices of Rome. And that is where the Anabaptists and the Pietists come in. These were movements in the 1500s and the 1600s that called for reforms in the Protestant church. They rejected the immoralities of the Roman Catholic Church; they also rejected the partial reforms of the Protestant churches. The Anabaptists and the Pietists surfaced in the 16th and 17th centuries before the Brethren were first organized.
The Anabaptists (in the 1500s): insisted on rebaptizing individuals who accepted Christ of their own accord. They said that baptism is valid only for those who made their own mature personal decisions for Christ. They believed that persons should become members of the church by individual choice, not by a decision of the state (or by the parents of the child). Anabaptists viewed infant baptism as a meaningless ritual. Thus converts to the faith were rebaptized, and the group was nicknamed the “Anabaptists”–the again baptizers.
The Pietists (in the 1600s) were rebaptizers who stressed godly living, especially lifting up the Sermon on the Mount as a standard for conduct. Because they emphasized holiness of life, and living by the example of Jesus–they were nicknamed “Pietists”–meaning “those who are devoted and loyal to a standard of holiness.” The Pietists stressed a religion of the heart, of prayer and devotion, of genuine good living–and called for preaching through the entire New Testament.
The two groups, the Anabaptists and the Pietists, regarded both Romanism and Protestantism as perversions of the gospel. And they banded together in small groups hoping to recreate a more faithful church. There were a number of concepts neglected, overlooked, and even rejected by the state churches which the Anabaptists and the Pietists diligently taught. The following is a list of some of the major doctrine of the two corrective movements:
1) Only those who accept Christ of their own accord should be baptized.
2) Christians must refuse to participate in military service.
3) God expects us to obey the great and the small commands of the New Testament.
4) Being a Christian requires complete repentance and striving toward perfection.
5) The Bible is not only a book for the clergy, but a book to be studied by all believers.
6) There should be no distinction between clergy and laity except that the function of the minister is to proclaim the Word.
7) The New Testament is God’s final revelation and supersedes the Old Testament when there seems to be a contradiction.
In other words, the Anabaptists and Pietists put careful obedience back into Christian teachings–not to obtain salvation, but as a fruit of salvation. The distinctive teachings of the two groups were practiced by the early church, discarded during the Dark Ages, overlooked by the Protestant Reformers, and restored by the Anabaptists and Pietists.
5. The Formation of the Brethren Movement
The political conditions in Europe were not healthy. Germany in the early 1700s was a patchwork or more than 300 smaller splinter states. They often fought with each other. The ruler of each territory took power into his own hands; the citizens of each state were the personal property of the ruler; dissenters were not permitted. People who dissented were either punished or banished. Because of the many wars, thousands of ordinary people had to beg in order to stay alive. The few upper classes of people were given to adultery, drunkenness, and sensuality.
The religious conditions in Europe were also unhealthy. After the Thirty Years War (1618-1648), Germany had three official state churches—the Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed. The clergy were employees of the state. The ruler of the province determined the religious affiliation of all the people in his territory. When a new ruler came into power, the people were forced to change their religious affiliation to that of the king. In the region from which the early Brethren came (the Palatinate in southern Germany), there were six changes of religious affiliation in a 150-year period. There was harsh dogma and the cold reciting of creeds, but little real living that showed integrity and enthusiastic devotion to the Lord.
It was these political and religious conditions in Europe that led to the formation of small study groups composed of people who were genuinely looking for reforms in the three state churches. One of the Pietist leaders was named Ernst Christoph Hochmann, a man who was converted to faith in Christ at the University of Halle, and spent his lifetime as an itinerant preacher of the gospel. Hochmann was arrested more than 30 times for traveling from community to community preaching the doctrines of the Pietists. When arrested he was sometimes forced to dig drainage ditches in open fields, but he was cheerful and gentle in spite of the punishment. In fact, he kept on preaching to the people who had gathered around the places where he was digging. Many people were impressed by Hochmann’s zeal.
One day in 1706, Hochmann was invited,by a young man named Alexander Mack (1679-1735) to conduct preaching services in his father’s barn. It was a mill for grinding grain, located in the German village of Shriesheim. A number of people in the area accepted the Pietist beliefs, but within a year or two the ruler of the province in which Shriesheim was located, said that all Pietists must leave his territory or else be put to hard labor. And so Alexander Mack and his family moved to the small village of Schwarzenau in a mountainous territory northwest of his home place, and settled there. The area was semi-secluded by the hills, and the ruler of the province hoped to build up the land which had been devastated by some of the recent wars.
The Pietists who came to Schwarzenau were a mixed and varied group. About the only thing they had in common was their desire to separate from the state churches. Most carried on a trade such as weaving, lumbering, or farming. They engaged in intensive Bible studies, and they also studied the writings of Pietist scholars who had studied Greek, and researched the life of the early New Testament Christians.
Only a few years after Mack and his family moved to Schwarzenau, eight persons (influenced by the Pietists) agreed to form an organized body, accepting the ordinances of the New Testament, and receiving adult baptism by trine immersion. One morning in August of 1708 five men and three women chose by lot who was to baptize Alexander Mack, and then Mack baptized the other seven. The baptism took place in the Eder River which flows through Schwarzenau. It was twelve years later that most of the Brethren moved to Holland because of some objections from a new co-ruler who came to power in the region where Schwarzenau was located. The summer of 1708 was 300 years ago and so 2008 marks the 300th anniversary year for the Church of the Brethren.
The Brethren evangelized with great zeal. They met with successes, but there were opponents who persecuted severely.3 The increasing persecution in Europe, the marshy land in Holland, and the availability of good land in the New World (in Penn’s Woods), were the primary factors that caused the Brethren to migrate to America mostly in the year 1729.4
During the more than twenty years that most of the Brethren were in Europe, there were approximately 400 members who had formed four congregations. The Brethren had come out of what they considered overly creedalized state churches, and so they were slow about spelling out their beliefs in a systematic fashion. A study of early Brethren life, however, indicates that there were major themes in their belief system. The Brethren were Biblicists. They stressed discipleship and obedience, nonconformity to the world, nonresistance toward enemies, aid for the poor, and love, unity, and discipline within the body of believers.
1 Indulgences were certificates of paper, signed by the Pope, and purchased with money from representatives of the Roman Catholic Church. Those who purchased the indulgence were promised an early release from punishment in purgatory.
2 Luther taught that the Bible should be the sole authority in the church, and that people are justified (made righteous in the eyes of God) solely through faith in Jesus Christ.
3 Alexander Mack was expelled from the town of Dudelsheim; Christian Liebe was forced to work as a galley slave on a warship; John Naas was a strong and tall man who was pressed to serve in the Prussian army, and when he refused, was hung from a tree by his thumb and his big toe; six Brethren from the town of Solingen were forced into hard labor, digging dirt from a deep pit forty feet below ground level.
4 There were three primary migrations to America—the first with Peter Becker in 1719, followed by a larger group with Alexander Mack in 1729, and a small group with John Naas in 1733.