Brethren Beliefs and Practices

Brian Gumm
Brethren Beliefs & Practices, a directed study with Jeff Bach1

Eastern Mennonite Seminary
Summer 2010
Theological Notebook2
Introduction
Carl Bowman has recently observed that “Brethren are clear that they want to remain Brethren; they
simply can't decide what that means.”3 This paper will seek to unpack the joy and the heartache of that
statement. The approach taken in this paper will be an exploration of four theological topics –
Christology, Ecclesiology, (Non-)Sacramental Theology, and Nonconformity – all from a Brethren
perspective, including my own. The disciplines used are primarily historical, sociological, and
theological. For each topic I will draw upon the substantial reading assigned for this directed study as
well as incorporating additional material that has influenced my understanding and expression of the
Christian faith and my perceptions of current Brethren beliefs and practices. First let us turn to a
discussion of how Brethren have understood the person of Jesus as the Christ/Messiah of God.
Christology: “Jesus, be the center”4
The heart of Brethren Christology might best be described as Christocentric. As Stuart Murray points
out, the 16th century Anabaptists developed a plain-sense hermeneutic that centered “on Jesus himself
instead of on a doctrine describing the effects of his redeeming work.”5 These plain people not only
read Scripture through this lens but also lived their lives through it, in simple obedience to, and in
imitation of their Lord. The spiritual descendants of these early Anabaptists – Mennonites and Swiss
Brethren – had a formative influence on the early Brethren in Germany,6 alongside the other currents of
1 Professor Bach is currently the director of the Young Center for Anabaptist & Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.
2 All Scripture references are from the NIV, unless otherwise noted.
3 Carl Desportes Bowman. Portrait of a People : The Church of the Brethren at 300. Elgin, Ill.: Brethren Press, 2008, 98.
4 Michael Frye. “Jesus, be the center.” Sing the Story : Hymnal: A Worship Book – Supplement 2. Scottdale, Pa., Waterloo,
Ont.: Faith & Life Resources, 2007, 31.
5 Stuart Murray. Biblical Interpretation in the Anabaptist Tradition, Studies in the Believers Church Tradition. Kitchener,
Ont., Scottdale, Pa.: Pandora Press, co-published with Herald Press, 2000, 84.
6 The influence of the latter has been more recently argued by Dale Stoffer. "A Swiss Brethren (Anabaptist) Source for the
Beliefs of Alexander Mack and the Early Brethren." Brethren Life and Thought 48, no. 1-2 (2003): 29-38.
Brian Gumm : Brethren Beliefs & Practices : Theological Notebook 2
Radical Pietism and the Reformed church in which Alexander Mack was raised.7
None of Mack's writing can be described as systematic so there is no treatment of a
Christological doctrine per se, but is rather shot through with references to, and analogies for, Jesus
himself as justification for faith practices which others at best found peculiar. For Mack, the person of
Jesus and his place as the Christ is prior to most other matters of belief and (especially) practice. In the
first piece of Brethren literature – an apologetic tract likely written by Mack8 and published in 1708 –
the desire to carry out the Great Commission of Matthew 28 is prefaced by the observation that “Jesus
did not only teach, but also acted and commanded.”9 Here we see the desire to hold both thought and
deed tightly around Jesus himself, who in Mack's view Stoffer notes is “the fullest revelation of God's
will, who is to be obeyed.”10
After completely migrating to the American colonies in the early to mid-18th century, the
Dunkers remained a largely German-speaking group for nearly a century. In the 19th century, Peter
Nead emerged as one of the first English-speaking Brethren leaders. Nead had taken a circuitous route
to the Dunkers: raised Lutheran then becoming Methodist before being (re-)baptized with the Brethren
in his late 20s. Nead was somewhat more productive than Mack in his writing, perhaps due to the more
competitive and democratic religious environment of 19th century America. Nead's writing takes a more
formal, doctrinal approach than Mack's, but also could hardly be called systematic. Nead's writing
seems to flow loosely with the biblical narrative, coming quickly to Jesus then spending much time
exploring matters of personal faith and corporate practice in light of Christ. Perhaps contra the
prevailing revivalistic mood, many emotional/spiritual impulses from Pietism were muted by Nead, and
Brethrenism became exceedingly concerned with outward plainness and order, enforcing boundaries to
7 The influence of the Reformed church on Mack was helpfully raised to my awareness by, again, Stoffer. Background
and Development of Brethren Doctrines, 1650-1987. Philadelphia, Pa.: Brethren Encyclopedia, 1989, 83.
8 Who, like a true Brethren, says: "We drew lots, and the lot has fallen on the most unworthy." Alexander Mack and
William R. Eberly. The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack. Winona Lake, IN: BMH Books, 1991, 10.
9 Ibid., 10.
10 Stoffer, Brethren Doctrines, 70.
keep out the corrupting influences of the world. “(W)e shall be careful...and not make a public song of
our conversion,” Nead says.11
While muting the inward experience of the faith, Nead seems to have taken to collectivist
impulses and infused them with some theological innovations from the broader Christian climate.
Discipleship to Jesus continues to be important as before, but eternal salvation (or damnation) seems to
get a stronger emphasis than it did in earlier Brethren thought. Stoffer notes Christological shifts in
Nead, such as a preference for the the human flesh view of Christ, whereas Mack, following Menno,
seemed to hold a celestial flesh view.12 This human flesh view coupled with an emphasis on the “self-
denial and humiliation that Jesus accepted”13 seems to support Nead's de-emotionalized, almost ascetic
discipleship.
There is much water that flows under the bridge as we move out of the 19th century, through
much of the 20th, and come to rest on the thought of Jim McClendon. The late 20th century world in
which McClendon wrote his three-volume systematic theology is drastically different than Peter Nead's
antebellum America. The world changed drastically and the Brethren along with it. To call McClendon
“Brethren” seems a bit of a stretch, although he did spend a significant amount of time in a Brethren
congregation during the last few decades of his life. But his theological project, his baptist vision,
certainly owes much to at least Anabaptism. While it's not as clearly present as Anabaptism in
McClendon's systematic theology, a case could be made for trace influences of early German Pietism
on his baptist vision. As Dale Brown has pointed out, “Contrary to popular critique, Pietism nurtured a
deep missional longing and work toward social justice.”14 If we grant the latter, then standing in this
dual tradition of ethically-concerned embodiment of faith practices in discipleship to Jesus, McClendon
11 Peter Nead. Theological Writings on Various Subjects, or, a Vindication of Primitive Christianity as Recorded in the
Word of God : In Three Parts. Youngstown, Ohio: Dunker Springhaus Ministries, 1997, 31.
12 Stoffer, Brethren Doctrines, 93 & 121.
13 Ibid., 121.
14 Dale W. Brown. Understanding Pietism. Rev. ed. Nappanee, IN: Evangel Pub. House, 1996, 86-7.
places Ethics at the beginning of his systematic theology, in advance of Doctrine. In another move that
honors an embodied faith, McClendon's approach is narrative as opposed to propositional in nature.
This is based on his love of the Bible (also an Anabaptist and Pietist impulse) as the story of God's
redemptive work with a chosen people. Following the New Testament itself in its use of the Old,
particularly with prophetic texts, McClendon's is an implicitly story-rich “this is that”/”then is now”
approach to teaching the Christian faith. Standing with Yoder and Hauerwas in the post-Christendom
view, his work speaks clearly and forcefully to me.
True to form, McClendon places his doctrinal work on Jesus squarely at the center of his work:
In the middle chapter of the middle section of the middle volume. He begins by asserting the presence
of Christ in four related practices, abbreviated: worship, work, witness, and “in the biblical word.”15
There is a social epistemology at work in these practices. McClendon points out that Paul's body
analogies are often expressed in a plural sense, despite the English rendering of the word “you.”
Indeed, “knowing is a social, not a solitary, accomplishment.”16 It is by faithfully being church that we
know Christ to be present as Head and Bridegroom. McClendon then goes on to locate the historical
resurrection of the man, Jesus, as the key to his identity as the Christ/Messiah of God, linking it to his
presence with us today as his body, for “(i)f (Christ) is present, death for him is ended.”17 McClendon
closes his chapter by moving toward a narrative model for Christology, specifically a two-narrative
approach that he names kenosis – “the self-giving of God” – and plerosis – “God's self-fulfillment by
way of human investment”.18 These are the intertwined stories of what God has done (and is doing) in
creation with a chosen people and how those chosen people have responded. These are the stories of
God reaching out to us and how we variously turn away and turn back. Ultimately, Jesus Christ
becomes the unifying principle of these two stories, for as McClendon states, they “are at last
15 James William McClendon. Systematic Theology. 3 vols. Vol. 2, Doctrine. Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1994, 243.
16 Ibid., 244.
17 Ibid., 245.
18 Ibid., 274-5.
indivisibly one. We can separate them for analysis, but we cannot divide them; there is but one story
there to be told.”19 And finally it is our participation in that story, with Jesus, that constitutes a life-
encompassing approach to the Christian faith that stands with the best of what Brethren have believed
and practiced.
In this section we have examined the Christological approaches of three Brethren (or Brethren-
related) figures, each offering perspectives from the three full centuries this group has inhabited. We've
primarily seen the 500 year-old Anabaptist influence on this tradition, while only hinting at the Pietist
influences. There have been tweaks along the way, but the theological approach still largely centers on
the life and teachings of Jesus. His example we follow, his commands we obey in joyful anticipation of
life fully realized through his triumph over death. In the face of Christian traditions that are highly
abstract, complicated, and/or other-worldly, Brethren have exhibited an alternative that is fairly simple
to grasp. Next, we'll turn to a discussion on ecclesiology, what it means to be church, from a Brethren
perspective.
Ecclesiology as Conformity-in-becoming: The Brethren Story
A few years ago, a close friend and I were having a conversation that somehow began to include topics
related to church. In response to my lamenting about many people not being interested, much less
attending church, my friend said: “Brian, I do go to church. I go to church on Saturday mornings in an
open-air sanctuary that seats 75,000 worshippers, watching the service play out on a 100-yard altar of
green grass.” I believe the priest was the coach (of his team), and the players were the altar boys,
perhaps. I'm not sure if the referees had a place in the analogy or not, but my friend was describing – in
ecclesial terms – his devout allegiance to the University of Iowa football team, the Hawkeyes!20 This
admission was given only half-jokingly but the allegory was strikingly accurate and honest, describing
19 Ibid., 276-7.
20 Full disclosure: I am also a Hawkeye football fan(atic? See sub.), although not nearly as devout.
how a sports team lodged in a state university (not to mention the pervasive and lucrative capitalist
endeavor that is major college sports) had successfully convinced my friend to spend significant sums
of money on season tickets, travel, and food, and then invest the significant amount of time that is
required to follow the progress of the team before, during, and after each season, as star players
graduate and/or are drafted into the NFL, and new high school recruits with varying degrees of promise
come for campus visits and sign letters of intent (which seem to have no actual binding value).
Consider also the prospect of transmitting such devotion from generation to generation. Just as my
friend fondly recalls childhood memories of his big brothers watching Hawkeye games as formative
experiences, so my friend is teaching his son to be a true, black-and-gold-bleeding Iowa Hawkeye fan.
All this to say that my friend seems to be more aware and honest about how most people in the
U.S. tacitly view church, viz. as just another option – among myriad others – for social engagement,
moral therapy, or, worse, entertainment. Why is this? What made it possible for me to remain
connected to and eventually seek further identification with the Christian faith and life in the church
while under the same influences in largely the same circumstances as my friends? Many of whom grew
up with me in the church but now have little or nothing to do with a community of faith. As I have been
convinced that life in the church and all it entails – its Scripture, its beliefs, its history, its practices –
are the normative narrative for my life and where I should focus significant personal, spiritual, and
familial resources, so it seems that my closest friend has been similarly convinced of another option.
Now, I love my friend dearly and he's been Christ-like in more ways than I can count, so I don't intend
this illustration as a self-righteous move on my part but rather an honest inquiry into how such
allegiances can be formed in American life.
As Carl Bowman's sociological research has found, The Church of the Brethren has not escaped
the corrosive21 influences of its interface with broader American society. In some ways, the choice of
21 The value judgment is mine, but one does pick up hints of it by Bowman himself in Portrait of a People.
Brethren to move from separatism to activism22 in the 20th century came at an unfortunate time, with
the continued, but perhaps accelerated crumbling of the Constantinian arrangement. Had Brethren
remained distinct from and highly critical of “the world,” our current circumstances would no doubt
look different.23 The work of this section will be to survey historical Brethren attitudes on and practice
of ecclesiology, using the post-Constantinian lens that Yoder, Hauerwas, and those following have done
so well to imprint on me. Allow me to begin...
(T)he Lord will not have any prostitute I am the Church; You are the Church;
members on His body, that is, in his We are the Church together. All who
congregation. If a member has an idol follow Jesus, all around the world, yes
in his heart, he will be called a whoring we're the church together!25
member...24
These two quotes come from radically different times and were intended for radically different
purposes. The first, written by a Swiss-born 18th century Brethren, Michael Franz, functions as a
preface to discussion on church discipline. The second comes from the late 20th century, lyrics from a
song written by two Presbyterian men. I sang this wonderful song as a child in Sunday school. Despite
their dissimilarities (especially in tone), I believe the two statements reflect a dynamic tension that has
been resident in Brethren life: the world-encompassing nature of the church on the one hand, and the
concern to keep that church holy in the midst of that same world on the other.
As previously noted, Alexander Mack was raised in a magisterial Christian tradition, the
Reformed church in his German palatinate. Living in a world that knew nothing other than the
pervasive role of the church, Mack later came to a spiritual awakening with Radical Pietists such as
22 An slight alteration of the subtitle from Leo Driedger and Donald B. Kraybill. Mennonite Peacemaking : From Quietism
to Activism. Scottdale, Pa.: Herald Press, 1994.
23 I should make clear that I'm no proponent of a “return to Go” approach, for the simple fact that there is no recognizable
“Go” left to return to.
24 “The Doctrinal Treatise of Michael Franz,” in Donald F. Durnbaugh. The Brethren in Colonial America; a Source Book
on the Transplantation and Development of the Church of the Brethren in the Eighteenth Century. Elgin, Ill.,: Brethren
Press, 1967, 450.
25 Richard K. Avery and Donald S. Marsh. “We Are the Church.” Carol Stream, Ill.: Hope Publishing, 1972.
Hochmann von Hochenau who tended to favor hard breaks with the church in favor of the person's
inner, spiritual experience with God.26 It's interesting to note, then, that the group Mack eventually did
help form, while breaking from the magisterial arrangement, consisted of practices that, as Stoffer
notes, presuppose a congregation.27
Like much of his writing, Mack's attitudes on the nature of the church emerge in the articulation
of church practices, viz. discipline, which seems to have a mostly Mennonite flavor. Out of his
conviction that the church is not of this world, its purity is certainly important to Mack, who states that
“(t)his body or church is separated from the world, from sin, from all error, yes, from the entire old
house of Adam.”28 That this statement comes in the midst of discussion on church discipline is telling.
The church to Mack is that group of people who have been convinced of their sinfulness and
confess a desire to bury such sinfulness in the waters of baptism, emerging from those waters into the
newness of life in their resurrected Lord, Jesus Christ, following him in all things, in all ways. This
newness of life in the faith walk immediately places the believer in the broader community of faith, the
church, and subject to the Rule of Christ. On maintaining the purity of the body as it relates to practice
of the ban, Mack turns to a few texts, one of which was quite well-known to me – Matthew 18, the
aforementioned Rule of Christ, as Anabaptists frequently referred to it – and the other was new: 1 John
5:16. This passage refers to sins that “(do) not lead to death,” and an admonition to pray for those who
commit such sins, that “God will give them life.” The author then says “(t)here is a sin that leads to
death. I am not saying that he should pray about that.” Mack applies this passage by linking sins that do
not lead to death to those in the fellowship who willingly submit to the discipline of the church. The
latter sin which does lead to death is apparently an unrepentant spirit, unwilling to submit to discipline,
26 Accepting that even Hochmann had good relations with Mennonite groups and their strong sense of ecclesiology, noted
by Stoffer, Brethren Doctrines, 66.
27 Ibid., 78.
28 Mack, Complete Writings, 66.
or those “poor souls who know neither themselves nor God.”29 Such people, Mack makes clear, have
already violated the newness of life in Christ and must be separated from the fellowship. This two-fold
view of sin allows the doctrine of the pure, visible, separate church to account for instances of impurity
and disunity. Some sin will be dealt with in love and humility within the body, while others must be
dealt with more severely lest the other members of the body become infected.
With three centuries separating us from the first Brethren, five centuries separating us from the
Anabaptists from which Mack seems to have derived his ecclesiology, and a chasm-wide gap in
worldview(s), this degree of uniformity of thought and action – coupled with active church discipline –
is remarkable. It may also seem unrealistic in this present age. Such uniformity seems to demand a
small body of believers at the local level. (Don't take this to be an implicit endorsement of large
congregations on my part; I was raised in a small church, I attend a small church now, and I have no
desire whatsoever to be part of a large congregation.30 So the reality of these small groups of early
Brethren actually resonates with me.) This expression of ecclesiology held through the 18th century but
started showing signs of trouble in the 19th,, and the Brethren form of church discipline began to phase
out over the course of the 20th century, along with many other aspects of what it had previously meant
to be, at least outwardly, Brethren. This shift began as Brethren geographically spread and numerically
multiplied. Out of necessity, they formed new structures to support growth, first with the Annual
Meeting, then later formation of districts. In the process, enforcement of traditional church discipline
began to dominate and consume considerable energy. With broader modernizing currents making their
way into the fellowship of Brethren, including individualism, the traditional practice of discipline
began to look increasingly archaic, unusual, and cruel.
These days, the Church of the Brethren as a denomination (itself a sign of mainstreaming) looks
29 Ibid., 72.; or perhaps Franz's “whoring members”

30 Which, in my mind, means any group of people numbering over 100. This is a dust mote by popular U.S.
standards/desires.
and acts much like the rest of American Mainline Protestantism and, in some ways, the culture of
Corporate America. Elders have disappeared, their responsibilities dispersed both down and up the
chain, including to newly-formed “Executives.” Lay ministers have been replaced by seminary-
educated, professional clergy, a class Peter Nead once derisively labeled as “hireling preachers.”31 With
respect to changing attitudes toward paid clergy, Carl Bowman notes the transforming influence of
Brethren mission work in the late 19th century as key, and a reflection of a growing desire to be seen as
respectable by other Christian bodies, denominations and service organizations.32 This traditionally
Brethren desire for unity was once located within the fellowship of Brethren, but began to turn outward
in ecumenical ventures, rending the fabric of traditional Brethren doctrine and polity to the point that,
as Bowman concludes, “(b)eing Brethren thus lost its reference to the quality of faith and practice...and
was reduced to a mark of organizational affiliation.”33
The force of this statement coupled with Bowman's more recent findings reported in Portrait of
a People should give coherence to the opening story about my friend relating college football in
ecclesiological terms. For the relative minority of Brethren who find refuge in liberal social justice
circles, being Brethren can mean just that; there's been an historiographic move made to provide that
option. On the other hand, for the majority of Brethren who are unapologetically patriotic, favor the so-
called “War on Terror,” and would likely send themselves or their children into national military
service,34 they have a home too. But are any of these things the church: football, social activism, or
nationalistic militarism? Is having consumer-like choices in these matters necessarily a good thing?
Personally, I'm grateful to my friend for having made such a brilliant observation on cultural liturgies,35
31 Nead is being quoted without citation by William Kostlevy in the introduction to Nead's Theological Writings, vi.
32 Carl Desportes Bowman. Brethren Society : The Cultural Transformation of A "Peculiar People". Baltimore, Md.: Johns
Hopkins University Press, 1995, 153.
33 Ibid., 289; the emphasis is the author's and is quite telling.
34 Based on the hypothetical draft question in Bowman's survey, reported in fig. 7.3 in Portrait of a People, 69.
35 A phrase appropriated from a contemporary, prolific, and brilliant “Reformed Pentecostal” Christian professor of
philosophy, James K.A. Smith. Desiring the Kingdom : Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Vol. 1, Cultural
Liturgies. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009; Smith does “serious” publishing but also posts frequently to a
few blogs, which makes him heroic in my eyes; he's also someone intentionally working toward tearing down the barrier
to which many in the church are completely blind.
My own sense of ecclesiology has developed over the course of my life – finding its clearest
articulation now in the midst of seminary – into something that doesn't quite look like any Brethren
formulation from any of its three centuries of being. It started with a fairly local, congregational flavor
in a backwater Brethren district in the Midwest and never strayed far from that. For the past nine
months I've given this topic serious study in a Mennonite seminary that's deeply in the waters of Yoder
and Hauerwas. From what little I've picked up in interactions with the Brethren seminary, this puts me
at some distance from what is taught there. So as I theologically and sociologically survey both
Brethren history and contemporary circumstances, looking at the conversations that have dominated
and dominate still, the stark gap between denominational leaders and congregation members (neither
whom I strongly identify with), I am left wondering on this topic and many others: What is my place
with the Brethren? The unity of thought and practice of Alexander Mack is impossible now (if it ever
was?), and the cacophony of voices at present is deafening and I shrink from it. So where do I go? Here
I am, Lord. Send me! This cry from the mouth of the prophet in the presence of the Holy Lord, God
Almighty rises from my guts and into my consciousness, forcefully being put down into this paper.
This is my visceral Brethren crisis in academic form.
Ecclesiology as Nonconformity: Altera Civitas36 (or) “I'm just a pilgrim...in search of that city.”37
So how to respond to such construals of church in the American experience, including but not limited
between the “Church” and the “Academy,” also a heroic (and necessary) move in my view.
36 A term borrowed from Barry Harvey, who uses it extensively throughout Another City : An Ecclesiological Primer for a
Post-Christian World, Christian Mission and Modern Culture. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999.
37 Ira F. Stanphill. “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” 1949; a gospel tune found in Melodies of Praise, a songbook whose
copyright information I can't retrieve at present, but it sits in the pews at the Prairie City (Ia.) Church of the Brethren,
and has for quite some time. This song also has deep personal significance to my father, who lost a friend in childhood,
whose (his friend's) favorite song was...you guessed it: “Mansion Over the Hilltop.” For years my dad would cry when
singing this song. As I got older and began playing guitar, we played it a few times – bluegrass-style – in Sunday
worship.
to the Church of the Brethren? Following in the wake of Hauerwas – whose After Christendom?38 I
quickly read for this course – Barry Harvey and Philip Kenneson offer helpful insights.39 I use them
here vs. Hauerwas for a few reasons: 1) I already mentioned they follow Hauerwas, ergo Yoder, 2) their
two books which I'll cite are a bit more recent, and 3) I had more time to reflect on their work when I
studied it earlier this year in the spring semester.
Harvey is essentially bringing a diagnosis of the current postmodern climate in the West with a
re-narration of (Western) church history from a church as contrast society perspective, before finally
positively stating his case for the church as an altera civitas, or “another city,” as his title states.
Kenneson's final chapter makes this same positive case for church as contrast society or altera civitas,
but the two chapters that precede it are largely focused on dispelling the charges of “sectarian” that
often get leveled at groups (like Brethren or Mennonites) who – as we've seen, to varying degrees
depending on when you look – have taken the church as contrast society approach. Along with this
sectarian charge often comes the implicit or explicit charge of being irresponsible members of society.
(One wonders if this charge of sectarianism/irresponsibility nudged Brethren in the 19th century toward
mainstreaming/respectability.) Making extensive use of postliberal theologians such as Lindbeck, but
also John Howard Yoder, Kenneson makes the case that the sectarian charge is based on a number of
flawed assumptions that are largely tacit beliefs in the Western, especially American, psyche.
Western life is a highly compartmentalized experience. The formation of the modern liberal-
democratic nation-state of the United States of America inaugurated something truly novel in Western
societies. The then-recent formulation by Enlightenment thinkers of “Religion” as “an
intellectual/moral system that is private and apolitical”40 (and something to be regarded with deep
38 Stanley Hauerwas. After Christendom? : How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a Christian Nation Are
Bad Ideas. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991.
39 Harvey, Another City; Philip D. Kenneson. Beyond Sectarianism : Re-Imagining Church and World, Christian Mission
and Modern Culture. Harrisburg, Pa.: Trinity Press International, 1999.
40 Kenneson, 52, also on 53 where he begins to quote Talal Asad on the creation of religion ex nihilo.
suspicion after the cataclysmic Thirty Years War in the 17th century41) was relegated to a subservient
role in the new American grand narrative spoken into being by the Declaration of Independence and
later founding documents. In the American project after the industrial revolution, through the market
revolution, and now still bathing in the media, marketing, and digital revolutions, “Religion” thus
defined (Christianity, Buddhism, Wicca; it doesn't really matter) is just another option among a
paralyzing array of others, choices that one can pick up, examine, try on for size, and then place back
on the shelf when we've lost interest or found it not in our taste. “Religion” in so far as it plays by the
rules of the dominant narrative – here the liberal-democratic nation-state – is left alone and is seen as a
team player. This “civil religion,” as John Howard Yoder states, “can have no imperious Lord.”42
Religions-thus-defined that refuse this subjugation and attempt to critique the dominant
narrative or subvert it from within,43 thereby placing itself in rivalry with another totalizing narrative,
suddenly draw the sectarian charge and are labeled as irresponsible. Following Yoder, claiming that
Jesus is Lord is a profoundly confrontational statement to dominant national narratives that want to say,
“That's cute, but keep it to yourself and inside your meeting house. (By the way, You're welcome, for
the tax exemption.)” Kenneson makes an observation here that muddies the waters a bit on my earlier
personal anecdote: “It is telling that most persons in the United States are much less suspicious of 'fans'
(probably a shortened form of 'fanatic') of college football than they are of so-called religious
fanatics.”44 So it won't do to simply offer up church and college football as equivalent options, but in
the minds of most Americans any discrepancy between the two likely has more to do with prevailing
nationalistic doctrine – and the complex of underlying philosophical presuppositions – than it does the
41 Itself a narrative and the Enlightenment's “creation myth,” which William T. Cavanaugh deftly deconstructs in The Myth
of Religious Violence : Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009;
p.s. - it's no accident that the work of Cavanaugh, Harvey, and Kenneson all resonate so well with me: they were all
students of Hauerwas.
42 John Howard Yoder. The Priestly Kingdom : Social Ethics as Gospel. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame
Press, 1984, 175.
43 A phrase and a concept I may never tire of, with thanks to James Alison. Raising Abel : The Recovery of Eschatological
Imagination. New York: Crossroad Pub., 1996.
44 Kenneson, 55.
“quality of faith and practice,” to again borrow from Bowman,45 and again assert that this seems to be
true of Brethren based on his research.
So far my treatment of ecclesiology in the past two sections has largely been a negative critique.
What I appreciate most about both Kenneson and Harvey in making their cases for the church as
contrast society is that they both warn against cynicism and withdraw by Christians from “the world,”
the approach of pre-late-19th century Brethren. The two authors' descriptive work on the current spirit
of the age,46 certainly when combined with Bowman's findings, could easily lead one to such cynicism
as it becomes clear just how deeply engrained the powers working against the church are, even within
the church itself. In a move resonant with McClendon's baptist vision – as well as those made by Yoder,
the early Brethren, and earlier Anabaptists – Harvey links the circumstances of the church today not
only back to the early pre-Constintinian Christian movement, but also to the people of Israel exiled in
Babylon. He cites the prophet, Jeremiah, writing to the Jews in the dispersion, imploring them to “seek
the welfare of the city,”47 which implies curbing the preoccupation with figuring out how to return to
their own land and people. To reuse an earlier phrase, and one which Yoder uses, we are not looking for
a “Return to Go” approach.
We are looking for an embedded church in diaspora, on pilgrimage, being in the world, for the
sake of the world, without being wholesale patterned by the world. The church as exiled people,
always-already strangers in the land, is profoundly biblical as we've glimpsed with the reference to
Jeremiah. It's in keeping with God's calling of Abraham out from his home country into an adventurous
journey and relationship through which “all peoples on earth will be blessed.”48
So what does this vision of altera civitas mean for Brethren? The next section will shift the
45 Brethren Society, 289.

46 Biblical “principalities and powers” language that Kenneson uses in a McClendon-esque “this is that” fashion in his final
chapter.
47 Jeremiah 29:7 in Harvey, 151.
48 Gen. 12:3.
focus to ritual practices, described by Brethren as ordinances, intentionally steering clear of the more
common term, sacraments. It is here – by reaching into their own heritage, my own heritage – that I see
a vision of hope for Brethren, a way out (or around, or through) current clothes-rending and teeth-
gnashing. It is a hopeful vision that is receiving the attention of serious contemporary, cross-
disciplinary scholarship within the broader church, but has also received good treatment by at least one
Brethren scholar of the recent past. To those things we do (or ought) as Brethren, we now turn...
(Non-)Sacramental Theology: The significance of doing things in remembrance of Him
In a public lecture given at Calvin College earlier this year, Christian philosophy professor, James K.A.
Smith,49 illustrated, by way of a brilliant exercise, something which I'll refer to as bodily knowing. I
performed this exercise with my daughter and it worked: Smith asked the audience to think of which
finger strikes the 'F' key on a computer keyboard. Watching the audience respond to his request, Smith
observed aloud seeing many people crinkle their brow, point their eyes upward in concentration, then
raise both their hands and wiggle their fingers, a look of joyful realization coming across their face,
happily reporting: The index finger of the left hand!
This simple exercise illustrates that there are dimensions of human knowledge that reside
outside our brains. The answer to his question involves the correct wiggling finger telling our brains the
answer (likely aided by our eyes watching our fingers wiggle), which the brain then has to form into a
cognitive thought, then be expressed by the bodily process of speech, through the social medium of
language. The implications for this on Christian worship – here discussed around the ordinances – are
profound. Practice of a craft shapes us into particular people, often in ways that are precognitive, as
Smith shows us.50 The work of Christian worship patterns us, at best constructively, and hopefully de-
49 James K.A. Smith. "Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation on Vimeo." Public lecture at
Calvin College, online video clip posted to Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/9229782 (accessed August 21, 2010); his lecture
was covering points from his then-most recent book, Desiring the Kingdom, see sub. works cited.
50 “Craft” being a notion following Hauerwas' “The Politics of Church: How We Lay Bricks and Make Disciples,” After
patterns strong influences in societies in which we find ourselves embedded as a sojourning people.
It is this last observation – de-patterning or “counter-formation”51 – into which Smith provides
further insight germane to our discussion of both the ordinances and ecclesiology. Drawing on various
physical and social sciences, Smith makes the assertion that human beings are, at their very core,
“embodied, material, fundamentally desiring animals.”52 It is in response to that inherent desire, this
longing, that various practices and forms are developed by social groups. Smith describes these
practices broadly as “liturgies,” or work, or things to do that (supposedly) fulfill our desire and also
form us. In order to serve his point, Smith describes a number of “cultural liturgies” that prevail in
American life: movies, shopping malls, and, yes, even football stadiums. Linking liturgies to innate
human desire gets at the heart of Smith's project and why his book is called Desiring the Kingdom. The
theological point is this: Nothing but the Kingdom of God will truly satisfy our innate desire. God
created us with this innate desire, but in our fallenness we are too easily – to channel Mack – “deceived
by the slyness of the serpent.”53 Jesus beckons us to “seek first [God's] kingdom.”54 A slight tweak on
the title of Smith's book would essentially say the same: “Desire first the kingdom.” Desiring first (and
engaging in the liturgy of) the Iowa Hawkeye football game on Saturday, then heading to church on
Sunday to get some good ideas for how to get through the week (until next Saturday, game day) will
simply not do.
It is from Smith's work, which has added significant descriptive dimensions to my awareness,
that I enter into a discussion on the ordinances. But first, allow me to make a related side-commentary
that will paint with broad strokes. There is a cultural liturgy that Smith deconstructs that should give
Brethren pause: the University. Brethren colleges have, seemingly from their inception, consciously
Christendom?.
51 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 85.
52 Ibid., 33.
53 Mack, Complete Writings, 72.
54 Mt. 6:33.
downplayed their Brethrenness, allegedly under the guise of the traditional belief in non-coercion.55
This approach has been taken – with varying justifications – by many other denominationally-affiliated
liberal arts colleges. Simpson College, where I received my BA in English, is a Methodist school but
there is very little about it which would illustrate that in practice. With perhaps the presence of some
peace clubs on campus, Brethren schools are no different. Smith's critique of congregations and
denominations as peddlers of a cognitive thought system (confessional orthodoxy, anemic in practice)
similarly applies to universities: “Christian education becomes a missed opportunity because it fails to
actually counter the cultural liturgies that are forming us every day... Christian education as formation
needs to be a pedagogy of desire.”56 Ideas alone, taught with flawed underlying philosophical
assumptions, will not pattern young Christian people into critically-thinking, faithful disciples,
seekers/desirers of the Kingdom. My final thought on this side-commentary is to apply this same
critique of Smith's to the decision of Goshen College to fly the flag and play the U.S. national anthem
at sporting events, allegedly to be “hospitable.”57
Now, finally, we come to treatment of the ordinances. My approach in the penultimate section
preceding was to discuss ecclesiology through the lens of the earliest leader of the Brethren, whose
writings gave no explicit treatment on said topic. Alexander Mack dove into the ordinances with
frequent and varied reference to Scripture – through a deeply Christocentric hermeneutic – and let
those more abstract topics become apparent through practice. The early Brethren approach to both
discipleship and worship (are they are so different?) was highly participatory. That dimension of the
Christian faith – participation – is what this section will focus on. Into the Brethren complex of
ordinances, I am implicitly mixing in Smith's insights, discussed above. As I focused on early Brethren
thought in the preceding sections, I will now turn to the more recent work of late 20th century Brethren
55 Higher education being an issue that has caused much consternation in the fellowship throughout the 19th and 20th
centuries, as Bowman observes throughout Brethren Society.
56 Smith, Desiring the Kingdom, 33.
57 C.f. Smith's “Excursus: On Patriotism,” Desiring the Kingdom, 111-2.
professor and churchman, Vernard Eller, i.e. his book, In Place of Sacraments.58
What I appreciate about Eller's work here is that it faithfully subsumes and recapitulates in
contemporary language (even despite its being nearly 40 years old) traditional Brethren attitudes
toward the nature of the church and its ordinances, not only in a descriptive fashion but also offering
practical guidance. Eller also has a great sense of humor in his writing, which endears him to me. This
was no dour-faced old Dunker.
The lines between ecclesiology and the ordinances are naturally blurry, and Eller's treatment of
baptism and the Lord's Supper breaks with Mack's approach by an explicit discussion on ecclesiology.
Since I spent so much time on this topic above, I'll just quickly say that Eller's thoughts on the matter
are largely resonant with my own and those others referenced above, especially in his analogy of the
church as a “caravaning”59 people which resonates with the diaspora/pilgrim motif explored above.
This understanding of church has strong bearing on the ordinances in that they “mark a gathering of the
tribe,” with reference to Jesus as the “leader-lord” of this roving group, the services of baptism and the
Lord's Supper serve “to make the caravaners aware of the presence of the one who has always been
with them and always will be.”60 As one final note on this, in his concluding remarks on ecclesiology as
it relates to practice of the ordinances, Eller implies his preference for small gatherings as church,
something I signalled preference for above. Eller apologizes: “I'm sorry. Great big enormous
congregations are going to have trouble not only with the Lord's Supper but with barbershop
caravaning in any shape or form.”61
Now, what Eller is advancing here is nothing more than what Brethren have traditionally done,
58 Vernard Eller. In Place of Sacraments; a Study of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Grand Rapids, Mich.,: Eerdmans,
1972.
59 Ibid., 28; this is contrasted with a view of church as “commissary,” dispensing services (sacraments) to its customers.
I'm unsure about the materialist/consumerist dimension of his analogies, but that's only a small concern in otherwise
excellent descriptive work.
60 Ibid., 32 & 34.
61 Ibid., 40; “barbershop (quartet)” being another analogy he joins with the caravan on p. 35, contra the Royal Vienna
String Quartet/commissary. Here he shows a traditional Brethren preference to non-professionalism in practicing the
ordinances.
as he makes clear early in the book, although he wants this to be a gift to the broader church. He does
seem to sense, though, some loss within his own tradition. He desires to see the age at which people get
baptized raised perhaps by as much as a decade – to late teens/early 20s – and even makes a Brethren
move in pointing out Jesus' likely age at baptism, early 30s.62 This resonates with me, as I've often
reflected back on my baptism at age 13 and thought, “Did I realize what I was getting myself into?”
But does that reflect a desire for an overly cognitive understanding of what it means to be baptized, or
are there more visceral, liturgical ways to teach candidates even from a young age? His desire to more
thoroughly educate not only candidates but the entire congregation is also well-placed, it being a time
for those already baptized to metaphorically “recall their wedding vows.”63
After discussing baptism in one chapter, Eller spends the next five carefully exploring the
ordinance of the Lord's Supper where he emphasizes Christ's presence, the theme of covenant, and the
eschatological qualities of the ordinance. Like earlier chapters, he goes about this in very traditionally
Brethren fashion, but offers critiques about how contemporary practice has perhaps lost some of its
original quality. Most significantly, he's proposing a practice of the Lord's Supper that is actually a
supper, as in a full meal. Building in his earlier preference for small groups, it's exciting for me to
imagine how this might be done in home-based fellowships, which I understand Eller was a part of.
The small congregation we've been worshipping with for the past two years, The Table, is an
experimental Mennonite congregation that shares communion each week and is most often followed by
a shared meal. We make our own grape juice and often bake our own bread, extending the liturgy of
communion beyond the worship service itself. Indeed, there were numerous points throughout this
book where I found myself happily observing good suggestions of Eller's that The Table already
practices, including a “Remembering Who We Are” section that incorporates the symbol of water and
our baptism.
62 Ibid., 72.
63 Ibid, 120.
The rich hands-on, highly participatory liturgical tradition of the Church of the Brethren –
especially found in the Love Feast, which we didn't even discuss here and Eller only briefly mentions –
is indeed a gift not only for Brethren. Ours has been an historically New Testament-oriented, Jesus-
focused set of practices and beliefs. I see the work of Eller as a liturgical and ecclesial “portrait as it
should be” and Bowman's a sociological “portrait as it is.” Then to fold in the above insights from
Smith seems to only bolster the “portrait as it should be” and give additional tools to critique the
“portrait as it is.” Building on the recent work of Smith, we'll now turn to an older Brethren voice for
additional resources for living faithfully amidst this noisy and violent world, and how to see more
clearly the spirits animating this present age.
Nonconformity in the digital age: “The world has hated them, for they are not of the world...”64
If it has not yet become clear, my understanding of what “nonconformity” means has been worked
throughout the paper, like leaven or cast seed, and not dealt with categorically. The preceding
reflections on radical ecclesiology, coupled with the insights on liturgy/worship/desire from James
Smith, constitute a much stronger doctrine of nonconformity to the world than much of what is offered
in contemporary Brethren contexts, entrenched as it is within the mainstream American Protestant
landscape, subject to its prevailing spirits (whether liberal or conservative) and identified crises
(homosexuality).
Yet the contributions of the recently and tragically late Brethren, Art Gish, on this topic deserve
some focused exploration. If Eller's work described above offers a liturgical reclamation of traditional
Brethren ritual practices, Gish's life and writings offer us practical and striking insights into living out
our faith in Christ amidst a powerfully coercive and fallen world. His is a contextual recapitulation of
traditional Brethren nonconformity. The piece of Gish's writing examined here is Beyond the Rat
64 John 17:14.
Race.65 For being published nearly 40 years ago, in the late days of the war in Vietnam and closely in
the wake of hippie culture and broader social upheaval, this book remains startlingly relevant. Indeed,
the corrupting cultural currents that Gish identifies and critiques have in some ways become more
deeply entrenched in society and are therefore harder to discern and resist in a deeply Christian way. In
particular, we'll be interested in Gish's critique of the technological society and its contemporary
implications. First, though, some notes on his approach in the book.
Beyond the Rat Race exhibits some of what has been variously described here as Brethren,
Anabaptist+Pietist, or resembling McClendon's baptist vision. As we have seen, these approaches
display a clear practical and ethical concern, an embodied and deeply biblical faith in, and discipleship
to, Jesus Christ. McClendon's volumes of systematic theology follow as Ethics, Doctrine, then Witness.
Using those same categories, the flow of Gish's Beyond the Rat Race could be described as Ethics,
Witness, then Doctrine. His approach starts at a very fine-grain practical level, moving into somewhat
more general practical material (Ethics), then shifting to a defense against anticipated criticisms from
the broader culture and a strong social critique of his own against that same society (Witness). Finally,
he closes the book with a theological treatise that makes clear the foundation for all that came before
(Doctrine). While theological reflections and biblical allusions are scattered throughout the book, his
final chapter is the most explicitly doctrinal in its defense of simple living, a traditionally Brethren
concern.
Technological forms in the early 21st century – especially after the emergence of the Internet
and other telecommunications “advances”66 – have developed to a point that would be nearly
inconceivable to the 1970s imagination, save by science fiction writers or futurists. And yet the
scaffolding of Gish's critique stands firm and we'll seek to contextualize it here. Tightly coupled with
65 Arthur G. Gish. Beyond the Rat Race. Scottdale, Penn.: Herald Press, 1973.
66 The use of scare quotes here is obviously a value judgment on my part, but one that is shared by Gish and made clear in
the fifth chapter of Beyond the Rat Race, “Technology, Capitalism, and the Consumer Society,” 112-33 and sub. FN.
his reflections on technology is a strong rebuke of consumerism throughout the book. This latter
component keeps Gish from advocating an ascetic technological withdrawal, partially illustrated by his
comment that, “We will never better ourselves through technology, although neither will we save
ourselves by getting rid of it.”67 The effects of these technological and consumerist impulses in the
society are innumerable but Gish points out a range. The ethical locus of the individual set adrift from
communal relationships brings about a teleological shift in, for instance, marriage. No longer a
“covenantal relationship” (both words implying interconnection), but rather a state-sanctioned
“contract based on mutual convenience.”68 Even sports, once practiced as play “for the sheer fun and
joy of it!,” are now oriented toward “breaking records, winning, and efficiency.”69
Especially eerie in light of the Internet is Gish's passing remark about then-contemporary media
theorist, Marshall McLuhan, who Gish saw as “(advocating) deeper devotion to electronic
fragmentation for those disorganized by society,” then adding, “But we will not find reality by turning
ourselves into an electronic package.”70 What is Facebook and related social media on the Internet but a
contemporary venture into just that electronic packaging of ourselves? Such an environment builds on
the “it's all about you” lie perpetrated by advertisers on the consuming populace. Advertising in the
technological society of McLuhan's and Gish's day is a far cry from today's world. Indeed, the lie of
advertising becomes more insidiously subtle in the highly interactive alternative universe of social
media. The tools presented on Facebook tout nurturing connection with family, friends, co-workers, et
al. Honestly, Facebook can be used for such things within reasonable limits (that are often unwittingly
ignored). But right alongside your “friends” are things, often products or brands, that you can tell the
world you “like” with the click of a button. More than just liking something, you're subtly encouraged
to make public statements about why you like these things. Your friends see this and comment on it.
67 Ibid., 118.
68 Ibid., 117.
69 Ibid., 117.
70 Ibid., 117.
Maybe they like it too.
What is at once impressive and sobering about the Facebook system is its systematic and highly
organized storage of such social connections and consumer preference data. It is a digital network that
contains “(m)ore than 500 million active users,” 50% of whom log on “in any given day,” spending a
combined “700 billion minutes per month” on the site.71 What sets this massive network and its virtual
warehouses full of data apart from previous iterations of Internet socialization tools is that Facebook
has mastered the art of eliciting this information from its users and masquerading it as “conversation.”
This data is then opened up for mining on the back-end by Facebook to its advertising clients,
providing one of the most powerful targeted advertising platforms ever created. An Internet-generation
ago, this type of arrangement was a pipe dream for advertisers. Banner ad networks could only guess at
what your interests as a consumer were, and now here we are joyfully giving it up, only to have it
served back to us in ad form. These advertisements are often so relevant they startle us. People
comment on Facebook about how startlingly relevant the ads on Facebook are. It is a system that is
highly self-supporting and elicits further and further interaction.
In addition to advertisers, game developers have been given a place to play in the Facebook
sandbox. Video games have long been the domain of young men, some now not so young as the
industry is entering its fifth decade of existence and has done well at engendering loyalty. Their
appearance on Facebook gives them access to a market they have mostly dreamed of to this point:
women. Yet the ads for some of these games show that the vestiges of a male-dominated industry
persist. These games are often predicated on violence and objectify women as scantily-clad objects of
male sexual desire, fueling already close ties to another “entertainment” industry, pornography. Their
respective industry trade shows can, at some distance, be hard to distinguish.
Witness also the successful use of video games as a recruitment tool by the U.S. military,
71 "Statistics." Facebook. www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed September 7, 2010).

replacing the quarter-sucking mall arcades of decades prior. Military-themed games are consistently
best-sellers, so aspects of training are built into the games themselves. There's a dark irony to piloting
unmanned, armed Predator drones that drop real bombs on real people in Afghanistan and Pakistan;
their pilots sit in air-conditioned rooms in safe, remote locations in the U.S., using equipment that bears
striking resemblance to that used in video gaming. Basic training for such pilots is far less physically
and psychologically rigorous than for any other combat unit in military history. The jump from video
gamer to this mode of warfare is terrifyingly short.
Turning back to relatively more innocuous Facebook games, their social-competitive element
enters into the broader “conversation” on Facebook, attracting new players with reports of rewards and
accomplishments by your friends as they play. Other networked gaming platforms, the Sony
Playstation and the Microsoft Xbox 360, have an interface to the Facebook system, reporting similar
data. All networked, all the time, all being recorded into a dizzyingly complex and startlingly accurate
“picture” of our increasingly digital lives. Enter the rapid emergence of smartphones whose capabilities
include access to these social networks and their wares, and the degree of digital connection only
deepens.
If there is a place for the social/theological critique of Art Gish in today's world, this is it. The
degree to which we uncritically engage in digital “global villages”72 such as Facebook opens us to a
depth of enculturation that would, pardon the anachronistic analogy, make early Brethren keel over on
the spot. Borrowing Smith's cultural liturgies framework, we can look at digital social networks thusly:
The inherently human desire at which these mediated activities engage is our desire for connection. At
some level, we as a society seem to aware that we need each other. The progeny of the Internet and the
current raft of online social media have facilitated a virtual form of this better than any preceding
technological innovation. But to what telos are these offerings pulling our desires for connection? The
72 A McLuhan-coined term.
liturgy of the digital social network calls us to the telos of being good, consuming citizens. The
advertising culture coerces us to consume goods both material and immaterial. The so-called gaming
culture coerces us to spend copious amounts of time in virtual worlds embedded within other virtual
worlds, often engaged in simulated violence purported to be innocent play. The liturgy of the video
gamer calls us to the telos of being entertained under the apolitical lie that “it's just a game.”
The social, psychological, and physiological impact of this degree of purported connectedness
is only beginning to be explored. Our brains are stimulated by these activities, but our spirits are bled
dry. From the kitchen table we keep up on all the latest gossip on people from high school we haven't
have any meaningful connection with for years and years, but we're doing so while ignoring our
immediate physical living partners, spouses and children. When we lay in bed and close our eyes, they
twitch in their sockets and the activity in our brains from such hyper-connection doesn't stop. Restless,
we reach to the nightstand for our smartphone and pull up the Facebook app, giving the pleasure
centers in our brains the hit they report needing while robbing the rest of our body of much-needed
sleep.
The economic and environmental impact of the cultural liturgy of the digital social network is
rarely questioned. Marketed as must-have goods and services, these things cost money, and lots of it. A
Facebook account is free but only in a sense, as users are bombarded with advertisements both blatant
and subtle, from advertisers and their friends alike. The devices required to interface with Facebook are
far from free, along with the monthly service fees associated with the communications infrastructure
that brings such connectivity. Smartphones require the most expensive monthly service plan that
carriers offer. Most gadgets, from laptops to smartphones, are designed from concept to end-of-life to
have remarkably short shelf lives, an insidious capitalist practice called “planned obsolescence.”
Companies are beginning to have better recycling programs for this type of e-waste, but these are either
opt-in or actually cost the consumer money. Many go directly into the garbage.
From top to bottom, pledging allegiance to the digital age comes with serious implications that
most people are not even remotely aware of. A consistent post-Christendom critique of this system in
the tradition of Yoder and Hauerwas exposes it as a neo-Constantinian political-economic industrial
complex. The poor rarely have voice in this system, as the economic and educational barriers to entry
are high. Christians of means are lulled into a slumber by the flashing lights and excited voices, deaf to
the despairing cries of a fallen world, deaf to even the cries of those closest to them. If what Gish states
is true, that “(u)ncontrolled technology helped us get us into our mess and shows no sign of getting us
out,”73 then where to from here?
Conclusion
Moving back to where Gish starts in Beyond the Rat Race, we find a glimpse that is traditionally
Brethren and faithfully Christian: a call to simple living. Start small. First, through our prayers and
those of the Spirit on our behalf, we must become more critically self-aware of the degree to which
each of us are invested in the digital media “revolution.” It's not all bad, wicked, and evil but it
certainly has much to answer to, theologically. The world wouldn't magically be healed if suddenly
Facebook vanished. Through a faithful eschatological hope for the Kingdom's coming into our midst,
coupled with a clearer awareness of the other temporal kingdoms we're implicated in, further caught up
with a faith community that sojourns/caravans/barbershops together in rich, worshipful liturgies, there
can be salt and light made manifest. Even Facebook interactions can have a different quality, although
some may find it better to drop off that network. Smartphones can lose their stranglehold on our habits,
though some will want to throw them off a bridge (but should rather be cleanly disposed of). Video-
gamers may develop a new awareness of how they're not “just playing a game,” but are rather
themselves being played. Expats of the digital global village may see and hear things around them and
73 Gish, Beyond the Rat Race, 118.

around the world that no degree of global, instantaneous information retrieval could ever provide.
Such a way of being in the world but not of it will look ridiculous at times, but it may also look
radically wise. It will draw the charge of being irresponsible, backwards, or sectarian. These charges, as
we have seen Kenneson point out above, are predicated on a number of questionable presuppositions
that citizens of the altera civitas are not subject to. Free from such ideological constraints, filled with
hope and joyful discipleship, followers of Jesus in his roving band can work for the salvation of the
world through Christ. Singing songs of praise to our Lord, washing each other's feet, feeding the
hungry, and clothing the naked. Welcoming the stranger in our land and celebrating table fellowship
with the presence of Christ in the midst of our church. It can be so. May it be so, God, in the strong
name of Jesus.
Works Cited
Alison, James. Raising Abel : The Recovery of Eschatological Imagination. New York: Crossroad Pub.,
1996.
Avery, Richard K., and Donald S. Marsh. “We Are the Church.” Carol Stream, Ill.: Hope Publishing,
1972.
Bowman, Carl Desportes. Brethren Society : The Cultural Transformation of A "Peculiar People".
Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.
Bowman, Carl Desportes. Portrait of a People : The Church of the Brethren at 300. Elgin, Ill.: Brethren
Press, 2008.
Brown, Dale W. Understanding Pietism. Rev. ed. Nappanee, IN: Evangel Pub. House, 1996.
Cavanaugh, William T. The Myth of Religious Violence : Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern
Conflict. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Driedger, Leo, and Donald B. Kraybill. Mennonite Peacemaking : From Quietism to Activism.
Scottdale, Penn.: Herald Press, 1994.
Durnbaugh, Donald F. The Brethren in Colonial America; a Source Book on the Transplantation and
Development of the Church of the Brethren in the Eighteenth Century. Elgin, Ill.: Brethren
Press, 1967.
Eller, Vernard. In Place of Sacraments; a Study of Baptism and the Lord's Supper. Grand Rapids,
Mich.,: Eerdmans, 1972.
Frye, Michael. “Jesus, be the center.” Sing the Story : Hymnal: A Worship Book – Supplement 2.
Scottdale, Penn., Waterloo, Ont.: Faith & Life Resources, 2007.
Gish, Arthur G. Beyond the Rat Race. Scottdale, Penn.: Herald Press, 1973.
Harvey, Barry. Another City : An Ecclesiological Primer for a Post-Christian World, Christian Mission
and Modern Culture. Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press International, 1999.
Hauerwas, Stanley. After Christendom? : How the Church Is to Behave If Freedom, Justice, and a
Christian Nation Are Bad Ideas. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon Press, 1991.
Kenneson, Philip D. Beyond Sectarianism : Re-Imagining Church and World, Christian Mission and
Modern Culture. Harrisburg, Penn.: Trinity Press International, 1999.
Mack, Alexander, and William R. Eberly. The Complete Writings of Alexander Mack. Winona Lake,
Ind.: BMH Books, 1991.
McClendon, James William. Systematic Theology. 3 vols. Vol. 2, Doctrine. Nashville, Tenn.: Abingdon
Press, 1994.
Nead, Peter. Theological Writings on Various Subjects, or, a Vindication of Primitive Christianity as
Recorded in the Word of God : In Three Parts. Youngstown, Oh.: Dunker Springhaus
Ministries, 1997.
Smith, James K. A. Desiring the Kingdom : Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation. Vol. 1,
Cultural Liturgies. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2009.
Smith, James K.A. "Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation on Vimeo."
Public lecture at Calvin College, online video clip posted to Vimeo. http://vimeo.com/9229782
(accessed August 21, 2010).
"Statistics." Facebook. www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed September 7, 2010).
Stoffer, Dale R. Background and Development of Brethren Doctrines, 1650-1987. Philadelphia, Penn.:
Brethren Encyclopedia, 1989.
Stoffer, Dale R. "A Swiss Brethren (Anabaptist) Source for the Beliefs of Alexander Mack and the
Early Brethren." Brethren Life and Thought 48, no. 1-2 (2003): 29-38.
Yoder, John Howard. The Priestly Kingdom : Social Ethics as Gospel. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1984.

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Brethren Beliefs and Practices

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Brian Gumm

Brethren Beliefs & Practices, a directed study with Jeff Bach1

Christology, Ecclesiology, (Non-)Sacramental Theology, and Nonconformity – all from a Brethren

Christology: “Jesus, be the center”4

None of Mack's writing can be described as systematic so there is no treatment of a

will, who is to be obeyed.”10

our conversion,” Nead says.11

dual tradition of ethically-concerned embodiment of faith practices in discipleship to Jesus, McClendon

honors an embodied faith, McClendon's approach is narrative as opposed to propositional in nature.

view, his work speaks clearly and forcefully to me.

Ecclesiology as Conformity-in-becoming: The Brethren Story

attending church, my friend said: “Brian, I do go to church. I go to church on Saturday mornings in an

allegiances can be formed in American life.

so well to imprint on me. Allow me to begin...

notes, presuppose a congregation.27

began to look increasingly archaic, unusual, and cruel.

29 Ibid., 72.; or perhaps Franz's “whoring members”

was reduced to a mark of organizational affiliation.”33

to which many in the church are completely blind.

This is my visceral Brethren crisis in academic form.

studied it earlier this year in the spring semester.

mainstreaming/respectability.) Making extensive use of postliberal theologians such as Lindbeck, but

societies. The then-recent formulation by Enlightenment thinkers of “Religion” as “an

true of Brethren based on his research.

a “Return to Go” approach.

45 Brethren Society, 289.

(Non-)Sacramental Theology: The significance of doing things in remembrance of Him

happily reporting: The index finger of the left hand!

It is this last observation – de-patterning or “counter-formation”51 – into which Smith provides

simply not do.

denominations as peddlers of a cognitive thought system (confessional orthodoxy, anemic in practice)

at sporting events, allegedly to be “hospitable.”57

was no dour-faced old Dunker.

caravaning in any shape or form.”61

for those already baptized to metaphorically “recall their wedding vows.”63

clearly the spirits animating this present age.

in contemporary Brethren contexts, entrenched as it is within the mainstream American Protestant

implications. First, though, some notes on his approach in the book.

Anabaptist+Pietist, or resembling McClendon's baptist vision. As we have seen, these approaches

“covenantal relationship” (both words implying interconnection), but rather a state-sanctioned

Maybe they like it too.

highly self-supporting and elicits further and further interaction.

respective industry trade shows can, at some distance, be hard to distinguish.

71 "Statistics." Facebook. www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics (accessed September 7, 2010).

gamer to this mode of warfare is terrifyingly short.

the tradition of Yoder and Hauerwas exposes it as a neo-Constantinian political-economic industrial

out,”73 then where to from here?

73 Gish, Beyond the Rat Race, 118.

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