Why We Care About the Church of the Brethren

We care about the Church of the Brethren. This is why.

Esther: Audrey’s statement as to why she cares about the Church of the Brethren finds deep resonance within me. I too am happy that our forebears rejected hierarchy, asserted their right to interpret their faith for themselves, reclaimed the Love Feast and adult baptism, and especially that they returned to Jesus’ teachings of pacifism. I am also proud of our church’s historical leadership in the Christian community by initiating Heifer Project, CROP, Volunteer Service, international student exchange, SERRV, and various other outstanding ways of making peace, not war.

Sometimes I grow discouraged and feel that the Brethren today are not living up to the tremendous heritage that we have, but I’m glad that Audrey reminds me of the amazing people who are a part of our denomination and that we are doing many things, such as working to preserve God’s creation, addressing poverty and homelessness, working for gender and racial equality, and above all, trying to love our enemies.

I appreciate very much Audrey’s witness re: who the Brethren are to seminarians in the San Francisco Bay Area, many of whom have not heard of us. I have tried to do a bit of the same thing in the peace movement and in the interfaith community in this area. Usually, in peace groups I don’t have the opportunity to share much beyond our peace stance and our struggle to control consumerism in our lives, but I try to emphasize God’s command that we love even our enemies. I do not find as much explicit support among the Brethren as I would like for my interreligious dialoging, but it is clear to me that my felt mission to move in this sphere arises from my grounding in the Church of the Brethren. And although I do not usually get the chance to talk at much length in these gatherings, I believe that by simply standing with people of other faiths who are living under a cloud of suspicion and harassment from our government and from our dominant culture, I am able to convey the message that I represent Christians who consider them also to be children of a loving and merciful God.

In summary, I care about the Church of the Brethren because of our history, our present, and most of all for the promise that we can grow still closer to the heart of God, as revealed in the life and teachings of Jesus, and act as leaven in spreading that love to a world that is starving for it.

Kendra: I cannot count the number of times I have told someone that, for me, the Church of the Brethren was as much of an ethnic identity as it was a community of faith. Like my blood, my genes, my ancestry and my socio-economic status, the COB is who I am.

I can directly contribute many of my values, behaviors and traditions to my experience of being raised in the COB. Just yesterday, I was explaining to my partner what it means to me to remove my hat, and the hat of our son, when we sit down to eat together or with others. While I blur the gender lines of this tradition, I maintain the recognition of sitting down to share food as being an act of holy communion. Removal of one’s hat is a holy act of submission to and participation in that communion. This tradition is meaningful and important to me, even in a land where no one else does this, even in a heart where I don’t understand or practice the other scriptural guidelines for head coverings for men or women.

Growing up in the COB, there were numerous occasions when I witnessed people whom I deeply respected practicing this tradition. To this day, my continued practice of this tradition places me faithfully among those beloved as their sister. It places my heart where I want it to be, in service to God.

Does it dissolve the meaning and significance of a religious tradition if I practice it in this way, as a woman? No. This is the love and community of God being expressed through a unique filter; this is how the colors look; this is how the light of God’s love fractures into my own unique variety of hues, as it shines through me. My church family taught me how to shine my light. It shines for them as much as anyone. This is God’s love manifested through me. I don’t think any one of us can fully express all the colors of God; it takes all of us, and the colors combine and manifest the good news together in ways we don’t always understand.

I care about the Church of the Brethren for the same reason I care about my bones, my family, my friends, my education, my world…because I love myself, and I care for and am grateful for everything that has created me as I am.

Carla: I care about the Church of the Brethren because growing up at Beacon Heights Church of the Brethren taught me to be the person that I am. It was there I learned that if we follow Christ, we must love our friends and our enemies. That we must consider how our choices affect not only ourselves, but others. My work as a social worker at a homeless shelter, my commitments to feminism, environmentalism, racial equality, lgbt interests, and eradicating poverty, and my love for community and deep relationships with others all flow directly from my church experiences. My deeply held beliefs and values were shaped by the Christianity I learned at church, and could never lead me to the conclusion that I should judge other’s sins more harshly than my own. I’m so grateful to the church, and I care deeply for the future of the Church of the Brethren.

Alexander: I care about the Church of the Brethren because it has long surfed the edge of the moral margins of Christianity. Not content to wade around in the popular shallow end of faith-justified violence , it has walked above the changing ideological currents supported by the message of Christ to treat all equally in peace and war. Now I hope that the church remains buoyant in this flood of BRF.

Audrey: I care because we are the Church of the Brethren. I am the Church of the Brethren. I, along with the thousands of others who are the Church of the Brethren, am one of the current stewards of an inheritance, inherited from our ancestors of blood and belief. We are taking care of this church as its future is sung into being by the many voices of its past and present. Its spirit is our spirit.It is our right and our responsibility to claim this church as our own, to hold it accountable to the good news Christ heralds for us, to mold it into a reflection of ourselves that we will rejoice in sharing with others. It is not up to any one of us to revive, renew, or reclaim the church alone, but it is up to each one of us to join in that movement and do it together, along whatever paths the Spirit opens for us.

The Church of the Brethren is me (and you, and him, and them). How could I not care about it?