300 Years of Brethren

On Sept. 15-16 Germantown Church of the Brethren in Philadelphia hosted the opening event of a year-long celebration of the 300th anniversary of the Brethren movement, which began in Germany in 1708. Events took place at the "mother church," the first congregation of Brethren in the Americas, and featured worship, workshops, tours, exhibits, and music.

This is where it all began in America for the Brethren, who emigrated to America in 1723. They came to Penn's Woods and joined other Anabaptist and separatist groups in a commonwealth where dissenters from the state churches of Europe and American colonies with established religions were welcome.

Open Circle's Rhonda Gingrich, front left, is on the anniversary committee. The festivities conclude at Annual Conference in Richmond, Virginia in July 2008. For progressive Brethren the celebration is marred somewhat by the fact that the pastor of the North Manchester Church of the Brethren, in Indiana, was uninvited to to deliver the keynote address this summer in Schwarzenau, Germany, where the first Brethren gathered for adult baptism in 1708, because his church is at the center of a controversy in the Church of the Brethren because it is progressive and has allowed same-sex commitment services to be held there.

This is Brethren pastor Earl Ziegler delivering a sermon at the Germantown event. Earl was once the District Executive of the Atlantic Northeast District, one of the largest COB districts in the country. It was Earl (around 1984), who was at seminary teaching a class, who once knocked on my door at seminary and asked me to accompany him to the seminary recycling bin. Looking at the beer bottles there in the recycling bin Earl said to me that he had been told that seminary students gathered at my apartment occasionally to consume alcohol. I admitted that this was true. He told me that I would never be invited to serve a church in his district. I replied that it was unlikely I would ever be interested in serving a church in his district. I never did serve a church in his district, one of the most conservative in the denomination.

However, much to my surprise after I moved to Minnesota, one summer day Earl called me up and said he was at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport with an extended layover, and asked if I had time to pick him up and take him to the Mall of America. I picked him up and took him to the mall where we shared a lunch and had a delightful visit. Earl and I disagree on many things but we share the historic Brethren understanding that maintaining relationships and continuing to dialogue are more important than being "right." This is what the modern American evangelical Brethren don't get or don't believe. They have the "truth" and they want compliance or punishment. No more talking. It is why our denomination is headed towards another split.