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

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

The eight at the Eder, and the name they left out.

None of them held a baptism they thought valid, so they drew lots for who would go first; that man baptised Mack, and Mack baptised the rest. His name was deliberately never written down, so that no one could ever claim the church descended from him.

Add to My Beliefs →
Where it is toldThe Brethren histories, and Mack's own account
Who appearsThe eight at the Eder; the man whose name was withheld
What it teachesThat no church should be able to name the hand that started it
Understanding it — context, not catechism: how this passage is held

The deliberate anonymity of the first baptiser is the Brethren's most characteristic gesture. The eight were Alexander Mack, Anna Margaretha Mack, Andreas Boni, Johanna Nöthiger Boni, Johannes Kipping, Joanna Kipping, Georg Grebe and Lucas Vetter — and one of the men, chosen by lot, baptised Mack, after which Mack baptised the rest. Which man it was was never recorded, and the Brethren histories insist this was on purpose, so that no succession could be traced through a name and no party could form around a founder. It is the same instinct that produced the refusal of a creed. Three of the eight were women, and they were baptised on the same terms as the men in 1708, which was not a small thing.

The same ground, other faiths

claims that share this one's ideas
T The Panj Piare — five heads, five castes. Sikhism · figure Meet them →
Holi — the festival of color. Hinduism · rite Go deeper →
M Mahapajapati — the first nun. Buddhism · figure Meet them →
The fourfold sangha. Jainism · community Go deeper →
A covenant binds a people to God across generations. Judaism · core tenet Go deeper →
The good Samaritan. Christianity Read it in full →

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