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I Wish I Had Been There
by E. Morris Sider
Around 1788, some residents of the northwest corner of Lancaster County separated from fellow church members to form the River Brethren, later known as Brethren in Christ. Most members of the new group had been Mennonites, including their leader, Jacob Engel.
Following conversion experiences in pietistic revival meetings, Engel and his fellow converts began to meet together, also in pietistic fashion, to talk about the spiritual renewal they had received. Continued discussion convinced them that baptism should be by immersion. Baptizing each other in this fashion became the catalyst to form a separate group.
This scene raises many questions–both religious and sociological–that I wish I had been there to ask and to explore the answers.
Why was the pietistic conversion experience and immersion baptism such strong impulses to separation? How much was the separation influenced by religious/spiritual conditions among Mennonites? Had church membership in their congregations become mainly a matter of family or ethnic identity? When Mennonites talked about conversion, what did they mean, and how did this contrast to the pietistic concept of conversion?
I wish I had been there to observe what dialogue took place between Mennonite leaders and those who were thinking about leaving the fellowship. Was there any attempt to accommodate opposing views, or, as frequently happens in such cases, were lines drawn and did they become more fixed with further discussion? And when the parting came, was it with goodwill–with the blessing of Mennonite leaders–or were feelings exacerbated by probable attitudes of religious superiority by the River Brethren?
I wish I had been there to note the degree to which strong personalities fed the differences leading to division. I assume that they were significant; probably at the bottom of most divisions lies a conflict of personalities.
I wish I had been there to observe what happened to social relationships. What effect did the separation have on families who had members in both groups? Were relationships as warm as before the break? Did Mennonites and River Brethren intermarry–as frequently as they would have done had the break not occurred? Was exchange work on their farms done as often, and with the same good will? Did former fellow members, now separated, support each other financially in cases of personal economic hardship?
I wish I had been in Jacob Engel’s living room (the small house still stands) to observe the nature of early River Brethren worship. Beyond “testimony meetings” (telling of religious experiences), how did the pietism of the new group affect their previous worship patterns, including such corporate worship expressions as singing and prayer?
Few of these questions can be answered from Brethren in Christ sources, which are virtually non-existent for that early period. As Carlton Wittlinger observes in Quest for Piety and Obedience, most of our knowledge of the early years of the Brethren in Christ is circumstantial. Our understanding of those years must be drawn from what is known about the group some 100 years after its founding. But were the sources available, they would be the basis for a valuable case study in the dynamics involved–both religious and sociological–in divisions and formations of new groups within the Anabaptist tradition.
E. Morris Sider has recently retired as Archivist for Messiah College, Grantham, Pennsylvania, and the Brethren in Christ Church. He will be the Young Fellow at the Young Center for the Study of Anabaptist and Pietist Groups at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania.
Mennonite Historical Bulletin, October 2000