EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN

CHURCH

This denomination was the result of the union in 1946 of two church bodies formed

among German Americans in the early nineteenth century, the Church of the United

Brethren in Christ and the Evangelical Church (see EVANGELICALISM). The former

body traces its origin to the evangelistic work of Philip William Otterbein (1726–1813),

an immigrant missionary-pastor of the German Reformed Church, who established a

partnership in ministry with the “converted” Mennonite, Martin Boehm (1725–1812).

Otterbein was educated at the Herborn Academy in Germany, a Pietist-oriented school

(see PIETISM). It was Otterbein’s embrace of Boehm, following the latter’s testimony to

the new birth in Christ at a barn revival meeting in Pennsylvania on Pentecost, around

1767, that launched their common mission (see REVIVALS). It represented an

eschatologically driven enterprise to form a higher unity among German Americans,

based on a shared experience of personal new birth in Christ, that would transcend the

barriers of adversarial church bodies of their day (see ESCHATOLOGY). Using that date

as their point of origin, the United Brethren declared itself to be the first “Americanborn”

DENOMINATION.

In actuality, Otterbein’s intent was not to found a new church, but rather to nurture a

revival among German Americans that would transcend existing church structures of all

sorts. However, a new denom-ination it would become. Despite Otterbein’s personal

friendship with Methodist bishop FRANCIS ASBURY, the United Brethren would

eschew the episcopally grounded Methodist ecclesial structures in favor of a more

democratic, “nonpartisan” brotherhood in Christ. Their bishops were elected to

quadrennial terms from among the “brothers” in conference. In Pietist fashion, the early

United Brethren hoped to manifest a “more glorious state of the church on earth”
(Otterbein), as an end-time community of the reborn. This brotherhood would extend

conference voting privileges in church conferences to lay preachers, recognize the diverse

sacramental practices of persons coming from a variety of ecclesial backgrounds, and (by

1851) begin extending preaching licenses to WOMEN. By 1889, the General Conference

approved the ordination of women (see WOMEN CLERGY).

The United Brethren adopted a CONFESSION of faith and a discipline at their first

General Conference in 1815 (see CHURCH DISCIPLINE). Both were based on

documents prepared by Otterbein for use in his Reformed congregation at Baltimore

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(1774–1813). Their early missionaries, led by Bishop Christian New-comer, received

ordination at the hand of the aged Otterbein, after Newcomer and others had advanced

into the Ohio Valley (c. 1810). Their itinerant successors reached to the Pacific

Northwest by 1853 (see ITINERANCY). On peace and justice issues, the United

Brethren Discipline of 1821 committed members to renounce SLAVERY and

slaveholding, making them one of the earliest denominations to adopt an official

antislavery position (see SLAVERY, ABOLITION OF). A missionary presence was

established in the British colony of SIERRA LEONE in West Africa that began in the

1850s and eventually flourished with the help of an African-American couple, the Joseph

Gomers. This mission grew to become the largest Protestant church in that nation. The

leaders of the newly independent Sierra Leone in 1960 were graduates of the United

Brethren Albert Academy in Freetown. In other overseas fields, beginning with South

CHINA (1889) and then JAPAN, the PHILIPPINES, and LATIN AMERICA, United

Brethren missionaries were pioneers in establishing indigenous-led united churches, in

cooperation with other American mission boards (see MISSIONS; MISSIONARY

ORGANIZATIONS). Home mission centers were launched among Spanish-Americans

in New Mexico and Florida.

Alongside this work, Jacob Albright (1759–1808), a Pennsylvania-born farmer of

Lutheran background, underwent a profound experience of the new birth and then

launched an evangelistic mission among his neighbors that resulted in the formation, after

his death, of the Evangelical Association (1816). Unlike the United Brethren, this body

patterned itself more closely after Methodist DOCTRINE and POLITY. In fact, one of its

early names, in addition to the “Albright People,” was “The Newly Formed Methodist

Conference.” However, Albright’s ordination had been conferred by his lay associates,

rather than by established church authorities. After their humble origin, Evangelicals

prized church order and an efficient itinerancy plan. They were the first denomination in

America to include in their Book of Discipline an extended essay on the doctrine of entire

SANCTIFICATION. Evangelicals also labored among the succeeding generations of

German immigrants to the UNTTED STATES, and so retained a longer use of that

language than did the United Brethren.

By the mid-nineteenth century, both Evangelicals and United Brethren also began

founding colleges and then SEMINARIES for the training of Christian workers, although

neither church required seminary education for ordination (see HIGHER EDUCATION).

Whereas the United Brethren followed the single-track ordination plan of the Reformed

Church (elders only), Evangelicals followed METHODISM in adhering to two orders

(deacons and elders). Led by their missionary bishop, John Seybert (1791–1860), their

expansion beyond their Eastern Pennsylvania base was centered in the upper Midwest

and Canada, whereas United Brethren missionaries favored a line of expansion in the

lower Midwest.

Fittingly, Evangelicals launched their major overseas mission effort in GERMANY

(1850), from where they established a strong “free church” presence throughout Germanspeaking
Europe, including hospitals and benevolent homes operated by a deaconess

society, a seminary, and numerous congregations, including locations in all major

German cities. Other overseas fields included Japan (where their missionaries first

translated the Old Testament into Japanese), central China, and NIGERIA, plus “home”

missions in Appalachia, and among urban ethnic minorities (see ETHNICITY).

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Both denominations experienced division in the nineteenth century, for which leading

causes included controversies over FREEMASONRY and the revision of the original

church constitution (the United Brethren in 1889), as well as disagreements over

language, polity, and the interpretation of the doctrine of sanctification (the Evangelicals

in 1891). The leader of the “Old Constitution” minority among the United Brethren was

Bishop Milton Wright, father of the Wright brothers of aviation fame. The schism among

Evangelicals was healed in 1922, resulting in the formation of the Evangelical Church.

Evangelicals contributed one president of the Federal Council of Churches (Bishop John

Stamm) and one president of the NATIONAL COUNCIL OF CHURCHES (Bishop

Reuben Mueller). Their church united in 1946 with the Church of the United Brethren in

Christ, forming a church comprising more than 700,000 members and almost 5,000

congregations in North America that would be known as The Evangelical United

Brethren Church. Its overseas constituency was found in five annual conferences in

Europe and West Africa, and was also distributed throughout a variety of indigenous

united churches on five continents. Its strong ecumenical commitment resulted in the

union of their church with Methodism in 1968, resulting in the formation of the UNITED

METHODIST CHURCH, which for a time was the largest Protestant denomination in

North America.

References and Further Reading

Behney, Bruce, and Paul Eller. The History of the Evangelical United Brethren Church. Nashville,

TN: Abingdon, 1979.

Naumann, William. “Theology and German-American Evangelicalism.” Ph.D. dissertation, Yale

University, 1966.

O’Malley, J.Steven. Pilgrimage of Faith: The Legacy of the Otterbeins. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow,

1973.

——. On The Journey Home: The Central Role of Missions in the Evangelical United Brethren

Church. New York: Friendship Press, 2001.

J.STEVEN O’MALLEY