What happened between 1910 and 1980 in regards to the Brethren in Christ? What factors spawned such a dramatic cultural transformation among the Brethren in Christ? The answers to these two questions were the subject of the recent presentation “Born-Again Brethren in Christ: The Brethren in Christ Church in an Age of Evangelicalism,” facilitated by Devin C. Manzullo-Thomas at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies on March 19. The presentation focused on Evangelicalism and how it influenced the Brethren in Christ faith.
Manzullo-Thomas graduated from Messiah College, received his master’s at Temple and is now an adjunct professor of interdisciplinary studies at Messiah. Manzullo-Thomas is also the assistant editor of the “Brethren in Christ History and Life” publication and a member of the Brethren in Christ Historical Society.
“My presentation tonight is about the Brethren in Christ Church, which was a small group with roots in the Anabaptist and Pietist movements,” Manzullo-Thomas said. “[I] focused specifically on how the Brethren in Christ were transformed culturally as a result of their interactions with the larger Evangelical world.”
Manzullo-Thomas continued, “Sometimes within the scholarly and popular study of Anabaptism and Evangelicalism, there’s a tendency to say that Evangelical influence corrupts Anabaptists distinctive-like peace, nonconformity, [and] the gathering of church … and my argument tonight is that, within the Brethren in Christ context, some of these interactions were a lot more complex than that. The Brethren in Christ people didn’t just lose their commitment to nonresistance because they engaged Evangelicals; in fact, sometimes the engagement with the Evangelicals galvanized the Brethren in Christ nonresistance efforts.”
Manzullo-Thomas began his presentation with a photograph of members of the Brethren in Christ Church from 1911 standing in front of their meeting house. In the photograph, the members are dressed appropriately for the time period: very modest, and in a formal fashion. The next photograph displayed was that of the Brethren in Christ Church members from 1984. In this photograph, the members wore very different clothing than in the 1911 photograph; the women wore pants and open shoes, while the men wore dress shirts and ties. The photographs showed a very different-looking group of people, even though the groups of people in both photographs were Brethren in Christ Church members.
The cultural changes that occurred between 1910 and 1980 forced the Brethren in Christ to respond. Manzullo-Thomas said, “Members moving from rural agrarianism to suburban professionalism — off the farm and into the cul-de-sac, away from grueling manual labor and into careers as teachers, doctors, and entrepreneurs. By necessity, these members were better educated than their parents and grandparents.” He then went on to talk about the two different responses to these changes. The first response was that members felt they had a historical commitment to the gathered church and therefore held on to their traditions. The second response was influenced by integration into North American Society, which resulted in a wider religious context that was foreign but appealing to the members. In any case, the Brethren in Christ had to look at these new developments from different perspectives.
Manzullo-Thomas defined Evangelicalism as “both a historical movement and an ethos, or set of shared convictions.” He then gave background details about Evangelicalism, for instance that Evangelicalism roots trace back to the Great Awakening of the 19th century.
According to Manzullo-Thomas, there were three ways in which Evangelicalism was perceived from the 1950s to the 1970s. These three different perceptions were “one, as a system of empowerment and liberation; two, as an encroachment to be opposed; or three, as a broken vessel in need of restoration.”
Evangelicalism, Manzullo-Thomas said, forced people to leave behind some of their old ways to make room for change. He spoke of how the task of reigning in the children and youth became a priority, as well as advertising the group and church services, which allowed for members to become more relaxed and a part of the changing society.
“Without a doubt,” Manzullo-Thomas said, “they had joined the Evangelical mainstream — but they had not, in the process, forgotten their roots.”