Evangelical Bretheran Church
| Evangelical Brethren Church | |
|---|---|
| Église des Frères Évangéliques | |
 Church of New Life, Jacqueville, Upper Asema | |
| Type | Free Church |
| Orientation | Salvationist |
| Theology | Conservative |
| Polity | Congregationalist |
| Region | Worldwide, Significant populations in Arcadia, The Libertines, and Upper Asema |
| Language | Multiple |
| Liturgy | Contemporary worship |
| Members | 13,147,791 |
| Church buildings | 14,782 |
| Aid organization | Global Brethren Network |
The Evangelical Brethren Church is a Christian Denomination which operates globally but is based in Arcadia. It is the largest denomination within the Brethren Tradition and is a growing tradition in several countries worldwide. Founded in 1949 by D.W.C Chaloner it initially started as a single church in the small town of Beckettsville, Arcadia and has grown steadily ever since. The church holds to Fehrian Theology and teaches free grace, conditional security, and free will.
The church, while small in its native Arcadia, has seen exponential growth in places like Upper Asema thanks to well funded missionary work in the 80's and 90's. with over 2/3rds of its practitioners being of Maurian origin.
History
D.W.C Chaloner
David Whitney Charles Chaloner was born to David Allen Chaloner and Whitney Goutbosch on June 7th 1927, in Yanceyville, New Estarian Commonwealth, Arcadia. Growing up the Chaloners attended Mt. Bethel Church, a Old Order Salvationist church. the younger David would fall out with the church at a young age. He viewed the churches adherence to Denisot's five-points as shallow and illogical. He would continue life as a non-believer for most of his teens. He would get a job as a Sawfiler for a time. In 1946 Chaloner would be a approached by an old school friend named Clint Nicholls and was offered to join up with the Forces Internationales de Sécurité Publique Volontaires, a military unite sponsored by the Béringer- Sauvageot Company which operated large plantations in Colonial Asema. Chaloner agreed, persuaded by the pay and claims of an adventurous lifestyle in Mauria.
Upon arrival, Chaloner was given training and sent out to protect corporate assets from rebel forces in the country. However the FISPV would conduct military operations against communities where corporate interests were threatened, like the mining community of Gbangouésoba which had forcibly expelled white foremen from the copper processing facility located in the city. FISPV forces would forcibly retake the facility and would conduct the Gbangouésoba Massacre. Soldiers rounded up the villages men and would go through a lengthy process of killing them via firing squad. The woman and Children were forced to stay in the towns mosque. After the murder of the men in the village, Soldiers of the FISPV would set the mosque housing the woman and children on fire and shoot into the building as it burned down.
Chaloner claims this was a major part in his eventual conversion back to christianity. The next would be the Battle of Bléniéouzon where a large FISPV force would battle with rebels for control of an important river crossing near the town of Bléniéouzon. The battle quickly ballooned in size, and the weather conditions made the area hazardous to fight in, eventually developed into a form of trench warfare as both sides battled across the river and attempted to make crossings to secure the bridge, all eventually made moot when a small mudslide cause the bridge to collapse. After this, Chaloner deserted and went back home in 1948. He worked various jobs while attending a new church in Beckettsville, only a few miles east of his home town.
United Grace Fellowship and Formation of the Evangelical Brethren Church
Upon returning to Arcadia, Chaloner started attending the United Grace Fellowship, a church in the Brethren Tradition, specifically belong to the the Spenerian movement. Chaloner would soon become a popular fixture of the church. supposedly overcoming a stutter in order to deliver sermons about particular passages of the bible. During this time Chaloner began to have disagreements with many of the church elders over theology, specifically Teaching Elder Willliam Clarke Waightstill. The controversy started after Chaloner publicly proclaimed to the congregation that he did not see particular redemption as biblically supported, and instead held to universal atonement. Several more issues arose as Chaloner butted heads with the church's teaching elders, he was eventually prevented from delivering sermons, and in 1953 he was formally kicked out of the church after telling people he believed women could be pastors.
Chaloner would be churchless for a few years, but would buy a small, abandoned church building with the help of friends Louis Applegate, and Maxwell Quickenden. These men would officially found the Evangelical Brethren Church, with Applegate and Quickensen handling operation and finances, while Chaloner was the Pastor and the public face of the church. For much of the 50's and 60's the church would progressively grow as congregants took to Chalenor's theology and went out and formed their own churches. Pastor William Joseph (Billy Joe) Pyne would start a Evangelical Brethren church in Hickoria, a small community nearby Beckettsville, later Lucial Oatway would travel to Warren in the Palm Desert Commonwealth to establish her own church. starting in 1967 Chaloner would go on traveling Revival Tours where he would host large seminars, blending Christian Ministry and the rising Self-Help Movement. Labeled "God's Self-Help Guru' by some in the media, Chaloner's revivals were popular and succeeded in pulling in more traditional christians as well as secular youths. He avoided health and wealth gospel and charismatism which was popular with contemporaries like Han Yong-Seok, David Monsell, and Jim Stoehr. This distinction helped him to shed the "Jesus Freak" label, as his style of preaching avoided the theatrical nature of many others.
1980 - 2000
Into the 80's the church had amassed a healthy amount of churches, mostly centered around the East and South of Arcadia. It was during this time that Chaloner and Applegate established the Global Brethren Missions Network, a body which facilitated efforts to evangelize internationally. Chaloner himself would pioneer the idea of "Localized Worship", which aimed to integrate cultural traditions into the worship style of a local church. One of Chaloners first experiments with this was when he and Braxton Covently went to the community of Assoulèbou, where the church integrated traditional style of music to integrate themselves better into the community. The church in Assoulèbou would be the first in a quickly spreading movement.
Chaloner specifically targeted Upper Asema for his church's missionary work. Organizing medical drives, encouraging missionaries to help build up local infrastructure as part of their ministry, and emphatically pushing for peaceful solutions to the ongoing conflicts in the region. Chaloners transition from a traveling revivalist, to an international humanitarian caused him to take a back seat from the daily function at many of the church's organizations. Together with Boniface Chughweh and Marie Altagrâce Ayim Chaloner would spend the years from 1987 to 1994 in the country helping to evangelize to local people. He would return to Arcadia between 1994 and 1997 before heading out again into Upper Asema. Between 1987 and 1998, the number of Evangelical Brethren Churches in the country rose from about a dozen to nearly 5,000. Expanded by a policy of quick ordination and publishing testimonies of faith in local languages to help expedite evangelism from converted locals.
In 1999 Chaloner would contract Malaria and died from the disease in early 2000 at the age of 72.
Beliefs
Evangelical Brethren believe that the bible is the inspired word of god free of error in all that it affirms. Evangelical Brethren believe that Jesus was sent and died for everyone, but that humanity has the free will to follow Christ, and that salvation is dependent on one's willingness to accept and live as Jesus commands. hold that both Faith, and good works are the ultimate basis for salvation. The church also affirms only using the Authoritative King Edward Version (AKEV) Bible as the sole bible to use in church functions. while other versions are not explicitly discouraged for congregants to also read. The church believes in the superior source for the AKEV's translation. The Brethren are biblical literalist, and see the AKEV as coming from more authentic early sources, as well as the faithfulness of the translation itself.
Brethren hold very orthodox views of the divinity of christ and of most issues of Christology. Evangelical Brethren hold to three [[Wikipedia: Ordinance|Ordinances]], Baptism, Lord's Supper, and Unction. Brethren have a unique baptism formula, where people are fully immersed backwards in water three times, once when baptized in the name of the father, once in the name of the son, and once more in the name of the holy spirit. Evangelical Brethren Have a congregationalist polity and hold to a strictly independent view of church authority. While brethren churches are allowed to meet and network with one another, Churches are discouraged from taking part in or starting formalized church associations. Local pastors hold sole authority over their congregations so long as said pastor has the blessing of the Congregation. Seminary education is not mandatory for one to become a pastor, however many do so.
The Evangelical Brethren are a Peace Church and opposes tyranny, injustice, exploitation, and dehumanization as interpreted from a biblical perspective whenever and wherever they exist since its inception. Through its charity, the Global Brethren Network the denomination has supported efforts to help those affected by war. While ideas of how one is to live in accordance with a peaceful lifestyle, the prevalent position is that violence as an act of immediate self-defense is not sinful itself, but that political action is prefered. Many groups called the Manifestants Anti-Guérilla were formed by Brethren Churches during the Third Asemese Civil War, and played a role in the peace process in the country. These groups would organize in villages, and would on occasion defend communities from direct militants and government attacks, but would facilitate localized peaceful resolutions. However this belief is not universal and many Brethren are members of the military today.