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Archiver > BRETHREN > 2008-07 > 1215002191


From: "Bill & Lynn Sewell" <>
Subject: Re: [BRE] DAR/Anabaptists
Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2008 07:37:28 -0500
References: <002f01c8dba3$c6325a40$6601a8c0@thomas01><486B6BEF.7080308@rtkonline.com>


>From a historical view point, many Brethren were in the militias not because
they supported the war, but to protect their land during the Am. Revolution.
Also Pa had fines for those who did not sign up for the militias. Each
county had its own militia. Most Germans already had long rifles, which
were used for hunting game. They did not have uniforms which as pictured in
so many books and many did not even fire a shot during the Rev. Lynn Hilty
Sewell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Merle C Rummel" <>
To: <>
Sent: Wednesday, July 02, 2008 6:52 AM
Subject: Re: [BRE] DAR/Anabaptists



>
> First, I highly recommend you read the book “Brethren in the New Nation”,
> by
> Sappington. Although this book does not deal with the Revolutionary War
> period, it does go into explicit detail regarding how the Brethren dealt
> with the draft during the Civil War. The attitudes toward pacifism shown
> in
> Sappington’s book during the Civil War would also have been the same in
> the
> Revolutionary War. The non-enroller listings for Frederick County, MD,
> and
> the non-associator listings for Lancaster County, support this view.
>
>

Let me complicate the picture -

I took the Conscientious Objector stand during the Korean War, but my
son went into the Marines - so I have some sympathy with both sides -

In this research I've been doing on the Early Brethren in Kentucky - the
"Frontier Brethren" - one of the observations I am making was that these
Brethren held strongly to the Pietist origin of our church - and there
were differences. Dr Dale Brown, who taught the Pietism Course at
Bethany Seminary, made the point strong that we Brethren today do not
know what Pietism was. What he taught was the history of the beginnings
- and he admitted that there were no records, except for Ephrata (a
Radical Pietism), to show what it meant in the life of the individual
and the church.

The Brethren Church of today comes out of the Brethren of eastern
Pennsylvania and Maryland (and slightly in Virginia, the Brethren had
only been in the Valley a couple years before the war started) who
survived the persecution of the Revolutionary period. Our stand was
based both on the Bible -the commandment - "Thou shalt not kill." (The
Hebrew word is "ratasch" - which means to kill a person -as opposed to
"sachat" -which means to kill an animal. - so to explain it as "no
murder" is incorrect!) and through our promise ("A Dunker's word is as
good as his bond!") of loyalty to the King. We appreciated the
opportunity the King gave, to permit us to live in this peaceful land,
after the devastations suffered in the Palatinate during the wars of
Europe. The Sons of Liberty, proponents of the Revolution, but not a
majority of the population, terrorized those who stood in opposition to
them. The Brethren, and Mennonites and Amish (fellow Anabaptists), were
persecuted - some severely. The church "withdrew" into community with
these others also suffering for their stand. Shall I say, we hid out
together.

The early Brethren were nearly opposite. The Germantown Church (mother
church) was reported to pray and sing so loud, that it hurt your ears,
clear down the street (Durnbaugh). Many a Brethren home became a center
of evangelism to their neighbors. Pietism was concerned with a revival
of the individual, to bring them to a closer relationship to Jesus.
Creeds and practices hardly mattered. The original pietism spread
through all the churches of Germany. There were only two denominations
to directly result out of the movement, and the Brethren are one - and
even his mentor, Hochmann von Hochenau, was upset about what Alexander
Mack had done.

As such, Dr Floyd Mallot, professor of Church History at Bethany
Seminary, used to ask - "What happened to the Brethren during the
Revolution? They Changed!" The change was from Pietism to Anabaptism -
from an open freedom to a type of legalism. The church Elders met in an
Annual Meeting, where they determined the direction of the Church, and
they enforced their decisions on the churches.

This was not Pietism, this was Anabaptism - and the Brethren who had
migrated west (Brothers Valley, and Washington Co PA) and south (the
Carolinas), and some few who were in Kaintuck - were Pietist - they had
left before Annual Meeting developed and before the emphasis on
Anabaptism. As one migrant coming to Ohio on the new National Road (US
40) -about 1826 asked: "What do we do about these 'Strange Brethren'?"
There was considerable difference between the Brethren, who were already
here, and these Annual Meeting Brethren who came later -and Annual
Meeting kicked all these early Brethren OUT (unless they changed -and
accepted the Annual Meeting decisions - see the records on the "Far
Western Brethren" and Elder George Wolfe Jr - George Wolfe accepted the
Annual Meeting way, many others did not!)

The Frontier Brethren do not seem to have had the strong stand for
Pacifism that was true of the Annual Meeting Brethren. They did defend
themselves against the British and Indian invasions. Some of them
killed, others reloaded the guns for the fighters or tended injured or
fought fires from the fire arrows. It was as Daniel Boone (Quaker
origin) said (speaking of being a waggoner for General Braddock, at the
defeat at Pittsburg) -he killed the first of only three Indians that he
killed in his life. Many of the early Brethren in Kentucky were youth
who had fought in the Revolution (Capt Henry Rhoads -of Brothers Valley
- in Muhlenberg Co KY 1784). Some had even been expelled from their
family back home, because of the war, but they were still Brethren -and
carried the Brethren faith with them (but Pietism -and not the Anabaptism).

Annual Meeting "expelled" (Frontier Brethren term) these early Brethren
about 1826. Elder Adam Hostetler and Elder Peter Hon were placed on the
Ban (the Brethren Encyclopedia calls them "the Hostetler Brethren", they
called themselves "the Brethren Association"). From what Historian
Abraham Cassel says, in numbers it may have been almost half the
denomination. The Brethren, in that time, practiced what they called:
"Unanimity" - we sought the guidance of the Holy Spirit in our
decisions, so there could be no decision until the whole body voted
unanimous. The Annual Meeting Brethren saw these Frontier Brethren as
not accepting the decisions of the Holy Spirit (but the Frontier
Brethren had not been present when the decisions were made, and seem to
have not even known about the question or the decision!) So they had to
change and accept the Annual Meeting decision - or leave.

The Brethren of the Civil War period were All - Annual Meeting Brethren,
the Brethren of the Revolution were not.

Be sure - there were other differences between the Pietist faith and
Anabaptism - we don't really know them all (someone needs to translate
the commentary of the Pietist Berleberg Bible -I'm sure it would tell us
things we don't know about Pietist beliefs - but it is HUGE - 8 volumes,
over 1000 pages each - 18th Century German)

Merle C Rummel

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