Evangelical United Brethren
Evangelical United Brethren
CHURCH
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),
(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
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 “Americanborn”
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
friendship with Methodist bishop FRANCIS ASBURY, the United Brethren would
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
The United Brethren adopted a CONFESSION of faith and a discipline at their first
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
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
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
German immigrants to the UNTTED STATES, and so retained a longer use of that
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
(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.
(1850), from where they established a strong “free church” presence throughout Germanspeaking
Europe, including hospitals and benevolent homes operated by a deaconess
German cities. Other overseas fields included Japan (where their missionaries first
translated the Old Testament into Japanese), central China, and NIGERIA, plus “home”
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Both denominations experienced division in the nineteenth century, for which leading
causes included controversies over FREEMASONRY and the revision of the original
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
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
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.
University, 1966.
O’Malley, J.Steven. Pilgrimage of Faith: The Legacy of the Otterbeins. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow,
1973.
——. On The Journey Home: The Central Role of Missions in the Evangelical United Brethren
J.STEVEN O’MALLEY