Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a "Peculiar People." - book reviews

Christian Century, Nov 22, 1995

By Carl F. Bowman. Johns Hopkins University Press, 491 pp., $65.00; paperback, $19.95.

* This model study of a small denomination's history, sociology and anthropology will inspire scholars who study larger, less definable religious groups. Johns Hopkins University Press has lavished care on the work and allowed Bowman enough pages to give readers carefully detaided sketches. The Church of the Brethren, one of the fabled peace churches," has been challenged and even benumbed by changes. Bowman provides a good chronology of events and shows the walls of rural protection, sectarian ethos and geographical distance breaking down. There has been statistical decline, and Brethren have struggled with identity, definition and mission. This history evokes ambiguous feelings: mourning for a lost world mixed with an awareness that the price for community had often been confinement and claustrophobia. This work, however, is far from a morose exercise. Bowman excerpts generously from letters, minutes and chronicles.