From: Merle Rummel <[email protected]> Some of you have been asking about the Brethren -here's a brief history that I've had on the net before: - --------------------------- The Dunkers About 1680, a Revival started from the University of Halle, in Germany. Its intent was to bring the "Old" Churches back to living what the Bible teaches. Two phrases were common: "Primitive Christianity" - the example of the 1st Century Church (Acts); and "Imitation of Christ" -for personal living. Two churches came out of it in Germany: the Moravian Brethren -eastern Germany; and the German Baptist Brethren (1708)(Dunkers) -western Germany. Alexander Mack, a miller, is considered our founder. We try to practice literally what Jesus taught us to do. John Wesley went down to the Moravian Brethren, and similarly went back to England with a "Method" of living -the Methodist. Persecution was fierce -and the Dunkers fled. First they hid among the Anabaptist/Mennonites in Germany, then they followed the Mennonites to Germantown PA. The first shipload was 1719. Our Anabaptist heritage resulted in us being one of the "Plain People" and "Pennsylvania Dutch". In 1803, a Universalist Preacher said that we are God's People on Earth, that we SHOW in our life, what we SAY we Believe. The Brethren quickly spread out into Berks and Lancaster Counties. For more than a century, the Brethren were on the far frontier in America. They went to middle Pennsylvania: Morrisons Cove, and farther west -Brothers Valley (Somerset Co PA). Our people founded a migration route across E. Maryland, along the Monocacy River, crossed the Potomac at Harpers Ferry and down the Valley of Virginia, to the Carolinas and Tennessee, with many churches still in these areas. The Brethren settler was one of the very first into many areas, like the Boones in Kentucky, later whole communities following the first families. My Church, east of Cincinnati (1795), was the start of movement up into the Northwest Territory. A large Brethren Community of many churches is around Dayton OH (1805), another in Northern and Western Indiana (1835) and Northern Illinois. Colonies were started in Iowa (1855), Kansas, Nebraska, the Dakotas. Brethren went on the Oregon Trail to the Northwest in the 1840s, and a large settlement is in Southern California. We were German speaking peoples, among the German settlers, the Methodists and soon the Baptists were right with us, among the English peoples. Following the Civil War and the expansion west to the Pacific, the Industrial Revolution hit the church hard. There was considerable disagreement over what the meaning of relation to (or separation from) the World should mean. About 1880 the result was a 3-way split. The Old German Baptist Brethren retain the old ways of life, including church worship and dress. I love what Bro Flory, Elder at the Prices Creek GBB Church (OH) said, in response to my question about the Plain Garb: "It forces me to Always Remember that I am different from this world!" The Church of the Brethren began community and world service as witness of our Savior's teachings of Love, and our opposition to Force and War. This has become an important demonstration of our Christian Life. The First Brethren led into "modern" concepts of Sunday Schools and Revivals, but are very fundamental in the practice and belief of the New Testament Faith. The three denominations have themselves suffered division and splits, but one theme seems the same -Jesus said it - We are all BRETHREN! In the modern world, we give our witness in many ways. The Brethren have been the origin of many assistance and relief groups. The Peace Corps copied, and use for its leaders, our Brethren Volunteer Service youth. We formed Brethren Service to help needy people around the world, and Church World Service uses our facility at New Windsor MD -for shipping medicine, clothing, emergency aid. Heifers for Relief was started by the Brethren. CROP, Christian Rural Overseas Project, is another of our beginnings. It was said, following World War II, that the Brethren were better known in devastated Europe, than we were in our own United States. I myself heard Martin Luther King speak at the March on Washington, 1963 (his "I Have a Dream"). Our Brethren Volunteers work in the Inner City -in settlement houses, with slum cleanup, and kindergartens. We are in retirement homes, to the Indian Reservations, in the Kentucky Mountains - there are Volunteers and Missions overseas. We believe in "helping our neighbor" where-ever he is - here and away. We believe we are responsible to SHOW Jesus -in US. Merle Rummel Church Historian ==== BRETHREN Mailing List ==== !^NavFont02F0F470007NGHHV4900C9