Church of the United Brethren in Christ

It is Protestant, with an episcopal structure and Arminian theology, with roots in the Mennonite and German Reformed communities of 18th-century Pennsylvania, as well as close ties to Methodism.

It was organized in 1800 by Martin Boehm and Philip William Otterbein and is the first American denomination that was not transplanted from Europe.

In 1889, a controversy over membership in secret societies such as the Freemasons, the proper way to modify the church's constitution, and other issues split the United Brethren into majority liberal and minority conservative blocs, the latter of which was led by Bishop Milton Wright (father of the Wright Brothers).

The Wright-led faction was known as the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, Old Constitution until 1946 when it resumed usage of the original name.

[1][2] The US National Conference consists of about 200 churches and 25,000 members in the United States, plus mission districts in Haiti and India.

Martin Boehm (1725–1812), a Mennonite preacher, spoke of his becoming a Christian through crying out to God while plowing in the field.

Philip William Otterbein (1726–1813), a Reformed pastor at York, Pennsylvania, left his seat, embraced Boehm and said to him, "Wir sind Brüder (we are brethren)."

A Confession of Faith was adopted in 1815 (similar to one written by Otterbein in 1789), and it has remained the statement of church doctrine to the present.

However, the denomination believed these changes were necessary for the good of the church, and chose to enact them without this near consensus at the 1889 General Conference, held in York, Pennsylvania.

A minority, mostly conservative faction felt the changes violated the Constitution because they were not made by a 2/3 majority of all church members.

The Church of the United Brethren in Christ is a conservative Trinitarian body of Christians that hold the deity, humanity, and atonement of Jesus; that the Bible, in both the Old and New Testaments, is the inspired Word of God; and that salvation is through faith, repentance, and following after Christ.

Although there was influence by Pietism and the Moravians on the founders of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, there is no direct organizational link.

[5] During the 19th century, John Swank and a small number of supporters left the United Brethren Church.

The Mennonite Brethren in Christ eventually contributed to the convergence of denominations of what is now the Missionary Church, USA, headquartered in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

[5] In addition a small group of members withdrew (primarily over a desire for a stronger stand on pacifism) to form one of the denominations known as the United Christian Church around the middle of the 19th century.

Later, because of international laws and legal requirements by Revenue Canada, the Canadian branch of the Evangelical Church of North America withdrew to form its own denomination.

In the late 1980s through the early 21st century, a need to comply with changing international laws resulted in the creation of a number of self-governing United Brethren "national conferences", organized by country.

These independent national denominations covenanted together to create an interdependent body called the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, International.

[citation needed] The General Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, International, meets every three years.

The Executive Committee meets annually, usually electronically, to take care of business between sessions of the General Conference.

Canadian Bishop Brian Magnus is the current chair of the United Brethren International Executive Committee.

[citation needed] The Church of the United Brethren in Christ, International currently consists of ten self-governing national conferences.

For example, UB Global, the joint mission organization of the United Brethren churches in the United States and Canada, currently oversees a mission district in India and the two churches in Macau, while the Hong Kong Conference oversees the work in Thailand.

[citation needed] Any mission district can seek status as a national conference if it meets and maintains the following criteria: If a mission district meets those requirements, it can apply for national conference status through this procedure: These are the current mission districts: (see also: other Protestant missionary societies in China during the 19th century) The General Conference of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, International, meets every three years.

The Executive Committee meets annually to take care of business between sessions of the General Conference.

Led by an elected bishop, it is composed of clergy and lay representatives from US congregations and US-sponsored mission fields.

At the 2005 National Conference of the United Brethren Church, USA significant changes were passed that initiated a major restructuring and refocusing of the denomination.

The new organizational structure eliminated the multiple geographical "annual conferences" which had existed since 1810, and replaced them with smaller groupings, called "clusters", consisting of 5-10 churches and their senior pastors.

The covenant, as most recently revised, includes these points: The total number of United Brethren churches is 600, with a membership of 47,300.

Outside the United States, there are churches in Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Liberia, Macau, Mexico, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, France, and Thailand.