200 Years of the Christian Brethren (Give or Take)

Tim Grass, author and specialist in Brethren history writes:

Celebrating the 200^th anniversary of things is on point this year, as the nation marks 200 years of the railways. Some may argue for other dates, such as 1804 or 1830. But the opening of the Stockton & Darlington line in September 1825 proved to be of epochal significance in terms of railway practice. Maybe this will form the first of several railway bicentenaries!

Brethren, too, can see this year as the bicentenary of the movement’s founding. Other dates could be assigned for that, and I’ll mention some in a moment. But 1825 appears to have been when Brethren first met (in Dublin) in a way which has become characteristic of them: as lay believers celebrating communion (‘breaking bread’) together, in obedience to Christ’s command before his crucifixion that his disciples should remember him by sharing bread and wine. They saw no need of any human leader to preside, because Christ himself had promised to be with those who met in his name. Moreover, their different denominational allegiances paled into irrelevance beside their sense of shared faith. For Brethren, a church is primarily a body of people who break bread together.

But there is more to Brethren than this, which is why other bicentenary dates can also be suggested.

1827/8: during this winter, John Nelson Darby, an Irish clergyman, was recuperating from a riding accident when he experienced what he later called his ‘deliverance’: an overwhelming sense that he, as a Christian believer, was united with Christ who was in heaven. That being so, believers – and by extension the church – were to be heavenly in character. In consequence, believers – and the church – should seek to avoid getting entangled with the affairs of this world. This ‘heavenly-mindedness’ has characterised Brethren spirituality ever since.

1829: Anthony Norris Groves, an Exeter dentist, set out with a party of colleagues on what became regarded as the first Brethren overseas missionary enterprise – to Baghdad, via St Petersburg. That it proved unsuccessful in terms of establishing churches formed of converts is not the point. Groves’s significance is as an icon for Brethren of mission-minded devotion to Christ.

1830: a German, George Müller, became a Baptist pastor in Devon, where he felt his way gradually towards Brethren ways of ‘doing church’. In the process, he teamed up with a Scot named Henry Craik, whose mind was moving in a similar direction. Two years later, they moved to Bristol as joint pastors of Bethesda Chapel. A number of other congregations would pattern themselves on Bethesda, and it sent out many overseas mission workers.

1831: this year the first of a series of annual residential conferences was held at Powerscourt in Ireland, at which ideas which became characteristic of Brethren were hammered out in discussion and Bible study. Whilst participants were drawn from several denominations to begin with, some soon dropped out, leaving the field to Brethren. Ever since, the conference has been a favourite mode of meeting for Brethren: sometimes residential, but often on a Saturday or bank holiday, for such purposes as Bible teaching and hearing about Christian work overseas. Indeed, it has even been argued that the distinctive mode of meeting for early Brethren was not the breaking of bread but the Bible study, in which various participants could contribute and ask questions.

1834: Müller and Craik formed what became the Scriptural Knowledge Institution. It has become famous because of the orphan homes in Bristol, which at one point cared for up to 2,000 children. But there were other facets to its activities: the provision of evangelical education through day schools in Britain and overseas, the large-scale publication of evangelistic leaflets and literature, and the transmission of funds to Christian workers with no other source of support. Underlying all this was the conviction that Christians are called to ‘live by faith’. For some that entailed full-time service in independence (a Victorian ideal) of societies and other agencies. Disposing of their earthly resources, they were to rely on God to provide for their needs. Müller saw this as a demonstration of the reality of God in a nascently sceptical age.

1838: a climactic annual conference took place this year at Clifton, near Bristol. In some eyes, this was when Brethren assumed a clear identity as a movement distinct from other denominations. Identity has been a recurrent challenge for Brethren: as a movement which sees its distinctive feature as being the claim that it doesn’t have any features distinguishing it from other bodies of Christians, how does the Brethren movement view the fact that in practice it does exist as a separate body? And should the weight be placed on the negative aspect of this – rejection of beliefs and practices which mark out some Christians as existing apart from others, such as a particular mode of baptism or a particular understanding of biblical doctrine – or the positive – that all genuine Christians are welcome to participate in Brethren life so far as they are happy to do so?

So, the Christian Brethren Archive is marking the bicentenary of the movement this year – but that will not be the end of it! Further bicentenaries will provide opportunities to highlight various facets of Brethren life and faith.

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Dr Tim Grass is a Visiting Scholar at Queens University Belfast. He is the author of Gathering to his name: the story of the Open Brethren in Britain and Ireland.