My fellow Brethren in Christ (BIC) blogger, the prolific Shawn Anthony of Lo-Fi Tribe, has given a synopsis of the three streams of our BIC heritage: Anabaptism, Pietism, and Wesleyanism. He has done this since “most” of his readers are not familiar with the denomination. I, too, have the feeling that most of my readers are not that familiar with the Brethren in Christ denomination. I commend Shawn’s helpful and accessible post to you if you are curious about some of the theological underpinnings of this small and quirky (but wicked cool [yeah, I'm from Massachusetts]) denomination.

Historically, I sum it up this way: the Brethren in Christ are basically Mennonites who like to get caught up in revivals. The denomination was initiated by Mennonites in Pennsylvania who felt like their own Mennonite community did not have the kind of “heart-felt” relationship with Jesus that they should have. The historic movement of the BIC church, I think, was motivated less by theology in their adoption of Pietism and Wesleyanism, and more by the passionate spirituality of those movements. The fact that these traditions did not conflict too much with their Anabaptist heritage helps. One of the connecting factors for all of these movements, I believe, is a commitment to radical and visible obedience to God.

Now the BIC church struggles with the influences of generic Evangelicalism, and even a little bit of fundamentalism in some areas of the country, which I think is unfortunate. But that’s true of a lot of denominations. One of my Anabaptist professors said that a lot of Mennonite churches in the South are basically fundamentalist congregations with a peace stance. Kind of odd. Anyway, I’m getting away from myself a little bit here. Mainly, I’d just like to send you over to Shawn’s post.