Why We Care About the Church of the Brethren – Discussion Packet

WHY WE CARE ABOUT THE CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN

(Why I Care to Care About Caring About the Church of the Brethren)

by Audrey deCoursey
September 2007

My copy of the Brethren Revival Fellowship’s (BRF) newsletter arrived in my campus mailbox the other day. A mild sense of dread came over me as I pulled out the familiar envelope, stuffed with the half-sheet-sized booklets, well-suited for leaving in stacks in church narthexes. I looked at the packet, wondering what this month’s issue might condemn me for. My views on abortion? My interfaith work? My support for my same-gender-loving brethren? My own steps toward pastoral ministry as a woman? My scandalously worldly clothing? How might this issue’s spotlight label me a sinner – or, worse!, un-Brethren?

I understand why many of my progressive brethren cannot stomach reading the BRF’s publications, either online or in print. Sticks and stones can break bones, but words can hurt, too. We can only hear our very selves denounced so many times before we have to stop listening, in self-defense. Being not yet at that point, I try to stay tuned into what our BRF brethren are saying, what conversations are relevant in their communities, what angles they are taking with their rhetoric. I see this as part of my ministry to the Church of the Brethren: bracing myself and reading their newsletter, so that my fellows don’t have to.

But I have certainly learned much about my faith from the BRF, for which I am grateful. I appreciate the relative effectiveness of their strategies. The editor in me loves the layout of their newsletter, and the theologian in me loves its title (‘Witness’). I admire their determination to claim their right and responsibility to define the Church of the Brethren as they see fit; I wish to do the same, though bringing a rather different theology with my claim.

And this month, especially, I appreciate them. Their newsletter is not nearly so gut-wrenching as I had initially feared. It witnesses well to their strategy of rousing their people and staking their claim to redefine our church.

The theme: WHY WE CARE ABOUT THE CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN. The (single) author of the text, BRF icon Craig Alan Myers, elaborates the reasons for his fellowship with the denomination across nine pages and in five major categories:
• the church’s fellowship;
• its doctrines;
• its practices;
• its people;
• its future.
And within his reflections, there is much I say ‘Amen!’ to. I will explore some of that in my following essay.

I wish to thank Myers and the BRF folks for printing this article. Taking this summer’s dialogue between Myers (representing BRF) and Jim Lehman (representing VOS) as precedent, I see this newsletter as an invitation to open the conversation further. I am glad to know what the BRF folks value about our church, and I’d like to hear what VOS and Womaen’s Caucus and On Earth Peace and Messenger and all the other Brethren folks value about our church. We are already having these conversations “Together” around the country, so why not start putting our values in print, just as the BRF does?

Since the BRF newsletter uses the term “WE” as those whose care is represented in the text, I would feel strange just printing my own reasons why “I” care about my church. Thus, I invite every one reading this, Brethren and non-Brethren alike, to contribute a sentence or paragraph or manifesto explaining WHY YOU CARE ABOUT THE CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN. Talk about it with your family and friends. And post a comment on our blog (at womaenscaucus.wordpress.com) or email your thoughts to womaen@gmail.com.

Who are we? Why does it matter if we exist as the Church of the Brethren? What about us is worth sustaining (and what is superfluous to our mission as a church)?

Thanks for putting your time and love into the church, especially by adding your voice to the harmony singing our future into being.

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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.

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.

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WHY I CARE ABOUT THE CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN

by Audrey deCoursey
September 2007
As Brother Craig writes, it is indeed “good to recall from time to time the importance of our church fellowship.” Witness Editor Harold S. Martin affirms how difficult it is to keep doing our crucial work of renewing the Church of the Brethren:

“There are times when those who are concerned about revival and renewal in the church grow weary in the attempt to see progress. We have heard some say, ‘I’m just tired of the battle.’ Others have said that trying to bring healthy change to a denomination that has veered from its historic roots is diverting from the real work of the church.”

It is not only BRF brethren who feel that way. Lots of us have grown weary trying to sustain the ever-new spirit of progress in our church, of helping the church remain open to its new callings as it grows in constantly shifting worlds around it.

Why do we do it? Why do we care so much for this Church of the Brethren?

I can’t speak for you, or for anyone other than myself. Thus, I hope to hear from you your own answers to the questions we raise. I offer my own reasons for caring for my Church of the Brethren as adding one more voice to the conversation.

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I care about the Church of the Brethren because of its unique history. Think about it. Our church was founded by eight people, men and women, who dunked each other in a river in Germany. They rejected hierarchy, so they cast lots to see who would baptize their leader, and kept the name of that person secret.

They rejected the indoctrination of the state churches and asserted their own right and responsibility to interpret their faith for themselves. They reclaimed the Love Feast, they reclaimed adult baptism, they reclaimed pacifism as Christian obligation. They put up with harassment and imprisonment in order to hold fast to their faith.

After the denomination’s founding, the church continued to develop its much-needed witness to the world. In the United States, Brethren never supported slavery, they heard a female preacher named Sarah Major in the 19th century, they objected to military participation out of conscience’ sake, and they responded to international conflict with heifers and fair trade goods instead of weapons of death and debt.

They faced splits among their communities, and survived. They considered the value of maintaining simple dress and cultures set-apart from the ever-changing world, and decided that their witness would be stronger by engaging actively with the many peoples around us, that their witness would be simpler by living subtly in ways that drew attention to their moral choices instead of their fashion choices. They changed their denominational name on several occasions, in order to be inclusive to new members and reflective of their current population.

There is much of our history that we progressives can and should claim.

I care about the Church of the Brethren because of its special mission today. Now studying at an inter-denominational school in an inter-religious theological consortium, I have met not one other faith tradition I would exchange for my own “Brethrenism.” I will proclaim loudly that we really do have a great theology to face today’s challenges. Folks might not always know who we are, but what they hear (at least through my admittedly partial lips) they like. Our church offers many responses to the religious right that the nation and world need to hear: our peace witness, our non-hierarchical church organization, our mission of service not conversion, our respect for each individual’s choice of when and how to become a Christian.

I care about the Church of the Brethren because it is solidly Christian. While I celebrate that there are many paths to Christ, and while I mourn that there are too many paths that lead away from God even while bearing Christ’s name, I believe that the Church of the Brethren offers a theology consistent with Christ’s ministry. Jesus leads us toward a Kin-dom that invites the marginalized and oppressed to the table, a Kin-dom that feeds from an abundance of that ever-renewable resource of love, a Kin-dom that heals people from their closed mind-sets that sow faith in the unsustainable ground of human-made theories and symbols and goods.

The Church of the Brethren is looking toward that Kin-dom, and offers “ordinances” instead of sacraments. It offers communal study of Scripture instead of handed-out creeds. It offers embodied rituals of anointing and foot-washing and laying on of hands that speak our prayers much more clearly than words ever can.

I care about the Church of the Brethren because of its amazing people. Much of my family is Brethren, and I respect their faith journeys, but the Brethren outside my family impress me, too. When I became a member of the church, joining by “adult” baptism (as a thoughtful 13-year-old), a big reason I did so was because I was inspired by the multitude of people I could look up to in the church. If they found faithful fellowship there, wouldn’t I? If their Church of the Brethren was part of what made them who they are, and I wanted to be more like them, then I wanted to be a part of their church.

Later, as I considered seminary study, I again looked around my church community and thought, if this church is the place for these wonderful people, then it should be the place for me, too. The Brethren I have met through my process of licensing and my work with Womaen’s Caucus have only confirmed my previous suspicions, that some of the world’s most impressive (and, of course, humble!) people have all ‘happened’ to gather in this one denomination.

Finally, 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.

The Church of the Brethren is not Annual Conference. The Church of the Brethren is not the Brethren Revival Fellowship. The Church of the Brethren is not Womaen’s Caucus. Or, it is, but it is all of those, as well as Peace Church and York Center and North Manchester and LaVerne and …, as well as your faith and my faith and … It is even what non-Brethren say about us, or don’t say about us. No one person or agency gets to speak for all of us in saying what the Church of the Brethren is, was, or will be. We all have to speak our own piece of that mystery, and speak it into being.

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?