Concerning the Brethren Revival Fellowship

The Church of the Brethren spans from very progressive to very conservative, truly that they can all come together once a year and say "we are Brethren" is a strength.  Yet there is a problem.  Those who deem themselves to be Conservative Brethren (primarily members and supporters of the Brethren Revival Fellowship) are by and large Fundamentalist in doctrine.  In theory this should mean that they are invested in the Fundamentals of the Bible, or the Fundamentals of the Church of the Brethren.  However that is impossible if one believes that the Bible is to be taken completely literal and that it is without flaw.  I can argue against the idea of Fundamentalism all day long however the problem that I have with Fundamentalists within the Church of the Brethren is less with Fundamentalism (towards the Bible) its self, and more with the idea that we have always been Fundamentalist.  Which is the position that the Brethren Revival Fellowship (or at least some of its members) would position.

In the early 1900’s a (then progressive) group of individuals split from what was then known as the German Baptist Brethren (now known as the Church of the Brethren) to form the Brethren Church.  The Brethren Church wanted to do several things that the German Baptist Brethren were not ready to do.  The Brethren Church wanted Sunday schools, upper education, paid ministry, and a new form of theology that was sweeping the land known as Fundamentalist Theology.  Two years later the German Baptist Brethren changed their name to the Church of the Brethren, adopted Sunday schools, paid ministry and upper education.  Several members within the Church of the Brethren adopted Fundamentalist Theology, several did not.  The claim then when the Brethren Revival Fellowship (their supporters and members) says that “we’ve always been fundamentalist” is blatantly false.  We have always taken the Bible seriously, we continue to take the Bible seriously, taking the Bible seriously does not necessarily mean being Fundamentalist, and some would argue that one can be serious about the Bible or one can take it literally but not both.

I would argue that taking the Bible seriously means taking it in the understanding that it was written, that it is the Truth, not in the scientific manner that many think of things being true but rather that within the stories that these early people told was the meaning for their lives and the lives of their people.  Those truths can still be found in the stories for example allow me to retell a story that I find a great deal of Truth in.  There once was a man who was born in the projects of Detroit, he traveled around, talking about a different way of living, rather then cheating ones neighbors and swindeling and stepping on people to get by people could instead live in harmony.  Unfortunately the government didn't like what he had to say and so they came down on him hard, police rolled up beat him in the streets and then like governments do to any out spoken person they found a reason to kill him.  Yet his followers, the people whos lives he had touched continued to talk about him and those very people still talk about him trying to follow his example and sometimes getting in a lot of trouble for it.  In this story I find the Truth for how to live my life, with compassion and understanding for others, whether it really happened just like that doesn't matter quite as much and is more a biproduct of our modern society that is so bent on having exact scientific truths.  Not bad mouthing science here.. just saying its not necessary to view the Bible as science... though... there's Genesis and the leading Evolutionary theory and the fact that they match up well.. but that's a rabbit hole.