The Church of the Brethren

Denomination·Founded 1708 CE·est. 81,345 members in the United States in 2022, the last full denominational Yearbook figure, down from 91,608 in 2020 — a fall of more than ten thousand in two years. Membership passed below 100,000 in 2020 for the first time since the nineteenth century. Counts exclude the related Old German Baptist Brethren, Dunkard Brethren, Brethren Church and Grace Brethren, who separated in 1881-83 and 1883 and 1939.

Judaism → Christianity → Catholicism → Protestantism → Anabaptism → The Church of the Brethren

Church of the BrethrenYoung Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies, Elizabethtown College

Branch
Overview Belief 3How to Live 1Practice 1Stories & Scripture 1Community 1 You × The Church of the Brethren Discussion

How to Live

the ethic — what it asks of a life
The oath is refused, the war is refused, and so is the lawsuit. The Brethren are one of the three historic peace churches with the Quakers and the Mennonites, and Brethren Volunteer Service came out of the alternative service arrangements of the 1940s. Refusal of the oath cost them civil office in colonial Pennsylvania and later in the Revolution. Go deeper — context →

Numbers count Panfaith activity only — never real-world adherence.

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