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Chapters: Church of the Brethren, Newington Green Unitarian Church, Schwarzenau Brethren. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 47. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Newington Green Unitarian Church -After the end of Oliver Cromwell's Commonwealth and the Restoration of Charles II, those in England and Wales who were not members of the Church of England found themselves in an uncomfortable position. Several pieces of legislation, known collectively as the Clarendon Code, made their lives difficult. The first restricted public office to Anglicans. The Act of Uniformity the following year was a step too far for many clergymen, and about 2,000 of them left the established church in the Great Ejection of 1662. The third act forbad unauthorised religious meetings of more than five people. The final one prohibited Nonconformist clergymen from living within five miles of a parish from which they had been banned. Where the ministers went, their flocks tended to follow. Some of these restrictions were ameliorated a generation later, with the passing of the Act of Toleration 1689, which guaranteed freedom of worship for certain groups. It allowed Nonconformists (or Dissenters) their own places of worship and their own teachers and preachers, subject to certain oaths of allegiance and to the registering of these locations and leaders, but it perpetuated their existing social and political disabilities, including their exclusion from political office and also from universities (Oxford and Cambridge were the only universities in England and Wales at that time). Roman Catholics were specifically targeted by these acts, and many of them went underground. Some Christians who had hoped for a more Protestant Reformation within the Established Church chose to emigrate, especially to the American coloni...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=22451397 ... Read more

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Chapters: Schwarzenau Brethren, Universalist Church of America, Philadelphians, Primitive Baptist Universalist. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 31. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Christianity Protestantism Anabaptism Radical Pietism Radical Reformation The Schwarzenau (German Baptist) Brethren, originated in Germany, the outcome of the Radical Pietist ferment of the late 17th and early 18th century. Hopeful of the imminent return of Christ, the founding Brethren abandoned the established Reformed and Lutheran churches, forming a new church in 1708 when their apocalyptic hopes were still unfulfilled. They thereby attempted to translate "the Philadelphian idea of love into concrete congregational ordinances obligatory for all the members." Unlike the Philadelphians, Brethren rejected Leade's embrace of direct revelation and emphasized early ("Apostolic" or "primitive") Christianity as the binding standard for congregational practices. The founding Brethren were also in conversation with Mennonites and influenced by Anabaptist writings. In Germany the Brethren became known as Neue Täufer (New Baptists), in distinction from the older Anabaptist groups. In the United States they became popularly known as Dunkers, Dunkards or Tunkers, corruptions of the German verb tunken, to dip. Other religious groups related historically to the same Radical Pietist ferment as the Brethren are the Community of True Inspiration and the Moravians. The Schwarzenau Brethren organized in 1708 under the leadership of Alexander Mack (1679-1735) of Schwarzenau, Germany. They believed that both the Lutheran and Reformed churches were taking liberties with the "true" Christianity revealed in the New Testament, so they rejected established liturgy, including infant baptism and existing Eucharistic practices. T...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=366650 ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination originating from the Schwarzenau Brethren ("Schwarzenauer Neutäufer") organized in 1708 by eight people led by Alexander Mack, a miller, in Schwarzenau (Bad Berleburg), Germany. The Brethren movement began as a melding of Radical Pietist and Anabaptist ideas during the Protestant Reformation. The first of its churches in America was established in 1723. These churches became commonly known as Dunkers and more formally as German Baptist Brethren. The denomination holds the New Testament as its only creed. Historically the church has taken a strong stance for non-resistance or pacifism. Distinctive practices include believers baptism by trine immersion; a threefold Love Feast consisting of feet washing, a fellowship meal, and communion; anointing for healing; and the holy kiss. The Church of the Brethren represents the largest body descending from Mack's Schwarzenau Brethren church. The German Baptist Brethren suffered a major division in the early 1880s, creating the Old German Baptist Brethren and the Brethren Church, with the original majority later adopting the name "Church of the Brethren" in 1908. ... Read more