This denomination was the result of the union in 1946 of two church bodies formed among German Americans in the early nineteenth century, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church (see EVANGELICALISM). The former body traces its origin to the evangelistic work of Philip William Otterbein (1726–1813), an immigrant missionary-pastor of the German Reformed Church, who established a partnership in ministry with the “converted” Mennonite, Martin Boehm (1725–1812). Otterbein was educated at the Herborn Academy in Germany, a Pietist-oriented school (see PIETISM). It was Otterbein’s embrace of Boehm, following the latter’s testimony to the new birth in Christ at a barn revival meeting in Pennsylvania on Pentecost, around 1767, that launched their common mission (see REVIVALS). It represented an eschatologically driven enterprise to form a higher unity among German Americans, based on a shared experience of personal new birth in Christ, that would transcend the barriers of adversarial church bodies of their day (see ESCHATOLOGY). Using that date as their point of origin, the United Brethren declared itself to be the first “American-born” DENOMINATION.
In actuality, Otterbein’s intent was not to found a new church, but rather to nurture a revival among German Americans that would transcend existing church structures of all sorts. However, a new denom-ination it would become. Despite Otterbein’s personal friendship with Methodist bishop FRANCIS ASBURY, the United Brethren would eschew the episcopally grounded Methodist ecclesial structures in favor of a more democratic, “nonpartisan” brotherhood in Christ. Their bishops were elected to quadrennial terms from among the “brothers” in conference. In Pietist fashion, the early United Brethren hoped to manifest a “more glorious state of the church on earth” (Otterbein), as an end-time community of the reborn. This brotherhood would extend conference voting privileges in church conferences to lay preachers, recognize the diverse sacramental practices of persons coming from a variety of ecclesial backgrounds, and (by 1851) begin extending preaching licenses to WOMEN. By 1889, the General Conference approved the ordination of women (see WOMEN CLERGY).
The United Brethren adopted a CONFESSION of faith and a discipline at their first General Conference in 1815 (see CHURCH DISCIPLINE). Both were based on documents prepared by Otterbein for use in his Reformed congregation at Baltimore (1774–1813). Their early missionaries, led by Bishop Christian New-comer, received ordination at the hand of the aged Otterbein, after Newcomer and others had advanced into the Ohio Valley (c. 1810). Their itinerant successors reached to the Pacific Northwest by 1853 (see ITINERANCY). On peace and justice issues, the United Brethren Discipline of 1821 committed members to renounce SLAVERY and slaveholding, making them one of the earliest denominations to adopt an official antislavery position (see SLAVERY, ABOLITION OF). A missionary presence was established in the British colony of SIERRA LEONE in West Africa that began in the 1850s and eventually flourished with the help of an African-American couple, the Joseph Gomers. This mission grew to become the largest Protestant church in that nation. The leaders of the newly independent Sierra Leone in 1960 were graduates of the United Brethren Albert Academy in Freetown. In other overseas fields, beginning with South CHINA (1889) and then JAPAN, the PHILIPPINES, and LATIN AMERICA, United Brethren missionaries were pioneers in establishing indigenous-led united churches, in cooperation with other American mission boards (see MISSIONS; MISSIONARY ORGANIZATIONS). Home mission centers were launched among Spanish-Americans in New Mexico and Florida.
Alongside this work, Jacob Albright (1759–1808), a Pennsylvania-born farmer of Lutheran background, underwent a profound experience of the new birth and then launched an evangelistic mission among his neighbors that resulted in the formation, after his death, of the Evangelical Association (1816). Unlike the United Brethren, this body patterned itself more closely after Methodist DOCTRINE and POLITY. In fact, one of its early names, in addition to the “Albright People,” was “The Newly Formed Methodist Conference.” However, Albright’s ordination had been conferred by his lay associates, rather than by established church authorities. After their humble origin, Evangelicals prized church order and an efficient itinerancy plan. They were the first denomination in America to include in their Book of Discipline an extended essay on the doctrine of entire SANCTIFICATION. Evangelicals also labored among the succeeding generations of German immigrants to the UNTTED STATES, and so retained a longer use of that language than did the United Brethren.
By the mid-nineteenth century, both Evangelicals and United Brethren also began founding colleges and then SEMINARIES for the training of Christian workers, although neither church required seminary education for ordination (see HIGHER EDUCATION). Whereas the United Brethren followed the single-track ordination plan of the Reformed Church (elders only), Evangelicals followed METHODISM in adhering to two orders (deacons and elders). Led by their missionary bishop, John Seybert (1791–1860), their expansion beyond their Eastern Pennsylvania base was centered in the upper Midwest and Canada, whereas United Brethren missionaries favored a line of expansion in the lower Midwest.
Fittingly, Evangelicals launched their major overseas mission effort in GERMANY (1850), from where they established a strong “free church” presence throughout German-speaking Europe, including hospitals and benevolent homes operated by a deaconess society, a seminary, and numerous congregations, including locations in all major German cities. Other overseas fields included Japan (where their missionaries first translated the Old Testament into Japanese), central China, and NIGERIA, plus “home” missions in Appalachia, and among urban ethnic minorities (see ETHNICITY).
Both denominations experienced division in the nineteenth century, for which leading causes included controversies over FREEMASONRY and the revision of the original church constitution (the United Brethren in 1889), as well as disagreements over language, polity, and the interpretation of the doctrine of sanctification (the Evangelicals in 1891). The leader of the “Old Constitution” minority among the United Brethren was Bishop Milton Wright, father of the Wright brothers of aviation fame. The schism among Evangelicals was healed in 1922, resulting in the formation of the Evangelical Church. Evangelicals contributed one president of the Federal Council of Churches (Bishop John Stamm) and one president of the NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (Bishop Reuben Mueller). Their church united in 1946 with the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, forming a church comprising more than 700,000 members and almost 5,000 congregations in North America that would be known as The Evangelical United Brethren Church. Its overseas constituency was found in five annual conferences in Europe and West Africa, and was also distributed throughout a variety of indigenous united churches on five continents. Its strong ecumenical commitment resulted in the union of their church with Methodism in 1968, resulting in the formation of the UNITED METHODIST CHURCH, which for a time was the largest Protestant denomination in North America.
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