Word-Spirit Communal Revelationalism: The Brethren-Evangelical Theological Epistemology of Dr. J. Allen Miller (1866–1935)

By Jason S. Barnhart

This work first examines the theological streams of influence that constitute Brethren theology--Anabaptism and Radical Pietism--with particular focus given to key thinkers and leaders. It then explores the nuances of what came to be American Fundamentalism and Protestant Liberalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, which provide important context to the thought of J. Allen Miller (1866-1935), a central Ashland Brethren theologian of that period. Miller's theology demonstrates sympathy with both poles of the theological spectrum but remains distinct as a thoughtful mediation between these two extremes.

Miller's theological approach, termed "Word-Spirit Communal Revelationalism," consists in his particular theological epistemology and biblical hermeneutics. When Miller's theological witness moves into conversation with American evangelicalism, it proves helpful for the Ashland Brethren as they engage with the contemporary American evangelical landscape. His witness assists Brethren and other American evangelicals in offering a corrective to several pathologies or distortions identified within American evangelicalism. His theological method assists the larger American evangelical movement with tools for mediation over against polarization.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Oct 28, 2022
• ISBN: 9781666729030

Jason S. Barnhart

Jason Barnhart is Assistant Professor of Historical Theology at Ashland Theological Seminary in Ashland, Ohio. He is the co-author of A Brethren Witness for the 21st Century and editor of A Brethren Way.

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Introduction

Why propose that a particular individual, in this case J. Allen Miller (1866–1935), is important to any path forward for the Ashland Brethren amid American evangelicalism? Viewing Miller as a central theologian for the Ashland Brethren, then and now, takes a starting point from James McClendon’s Biography as Theology: How Life Stories Can Remake Today’s Theology (2002).¹ McClendon proposes that biography is essential to theology because

by recognizing that Christian beliefs are not so many propositions to be catalogued or juggled like truth-functions in a computer, but are living convictions which give shape to actual lives and actual communities, we open ourselves to the possibility that the only relevant critical examination of Christian beliefs may be one that begins by attending to lived lives. Theology must be at least biography. If by attending to those lives, we find ways of reforming our own theologies, making them truer, more faithful to our ancient vision, more adequate to the age now being born, then we will be justified in that arduous inquiry. Biography at its best will be theology.²

Miller remains an exemplar for the Ashland Brethren as they seek to live out their distinct witness in their communities, their churches, and especially in the classroom. He also serves as a helpful guide in Brethren engagement with American evangelicalism.

Since the mid-twentieth century, the Brethren have largely behaved as bystanders in evangelical developments. Aside from the role Ashland Theological Seminary has played within evangelical, theological education, the Brethren Church, as a denomination, has weathered numerous trends originating within evangelicalism. The Brethren have participated in developments from seeker-sensitive congregations to the church growth movement, from evangelistic renewal efforts to the latest missional church movement. But they have often failed to ask whether they should participate or what it means to be Brethren in such engagements.

This has changed over the past few decades as younger generations within the Brethren have responded to the research and scholarship of Brethren theologians to reclaim the distinct story the Brethren Church has to tell and to consider how such a narrative may assist them in a more self-conscious critical engagement with evangelicalism. Work by Ashland Brethren theologians like Dale Stoffer, Brenda Colijn, and Jerry Flora has laid a solid foundation on which thinkers and leaders of my generation can build. They have done the hard work of primary excavation.

It is also important to acknowledge the pastor-theologians of the Brethren Church who have assisted with the ongoing excavation of Brethren identity. Of note is the late Brian Moore (1943–2015) who called the larger Ashland Brethren family to reclaim their heritage in his small book, A Brethren Witness for the 21st Century: A Search for Identity and Cultural Relevance (2008). It was this book that reignited my personal journey into Brethren identity. Seven years later, my friend Bill Ludwig and I would feel called to take Brian’s challenge seriously and commit our lives to making this distinctive heritage known within our denomination. Bill now pastors a local church in Ashland, Ohio, and is making the Brethren heritage tangible in that context. Much progress has been made. The Brethren Church National Office, our executive director, Steven Cole, and the Executive Board of the Brethren Church have a renewed interest in the heritage of the Brethren Church. This work materializes in a serendipitous moment for the Brethren.

From my time at Ashland Theological Seminary, I have been drawn to J. Allen Miller. His witness was one of loving obedience and trust in God, the Bible, and the Brethren way. As I explored his specific context, leading and teaching during the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy of the early twentieth century, my appreciation for him grew as I discovered a thinker who rose above the anxiety that marked the two camps. Through conversations with Dale, I came to realize that Miller was assisting, and still assists, the Ashland Brethren with reclaiming their distinct heritage. In a way, Miller was helping the Brethren Church to think and behave as Brethren again. This is helpful to understand the flow of this research project.

Chapter 1 explores the theological streams of influence that constitute Brethren theology—Anabaptism and Radical Pietism—with particular focus given to key thinkers and leaders. It provides a high-altitude assessment of the theological antecedents that went into each and how the two streams of Anabaptism and Radical Pietism established the founding dialectic of Word and Spirit that marks Miller’s, and the Brethren’s, theology. So important was this founding dialectic, that central practices like believers’ immersion baptism testify to it—inner and outer, individual and community.

Given the subsequent persecution of the early Brethren, chapter 2 traces their immigration to America and their assimilation into larger American society—first in Germantown, Pennsylvania, and then their western progression. Along the way, Brethren identity was tested, leading to schisms at the end of the nineteenth century that formed three expressions of Brethren—Old Order, Moderate, and Progressive. The Progressive camp became the Ashland Brethren who would experience further schism in the 1930s due to the Fundamentalist-Modernist controversy and its specific role in shaping the disagreement over the type of school that Ashland College, Ashland, Ohio, would be.

Chapter 3 inquires into the nuances of what came to be the American Fundamentalism and Protestant Liberalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, which provide important context to the thought of Miller. Chapter 4 explores the distinct theological pilgrimage and witness of Miller. His biography and theology are explored to reveal the contributions that both conservative and progressive theologies of the period made. Special attention focuses upon Miller’s theology of the atonement as it captures the blending of both conservative thought alongside an evangelical liberal influence.

Chapter 5 seeks to explore the theological epistemology and biblical hermeneutics of Miller. Miller’s theology demonstrates sympathy with both poles of the theological spectrum mentioned above, he remains distinct as a thoughtful mediation between these two extremes. His theological approach, which will be identified as a Word-Spirit Communal Revelationalism, consists in his particular theological epistemology and biblical hermeneutics—a centered set theological approach that keeps Christ at the center of biblical study and theological reflection.

Chapter 6 then brings Miller’s theological witness into conversation with American evangelicalism and argues that this theological approach is helpful for the Ashland Brethren in their engagement with the contemporary American evangelical landscape. Miller’s witness can assist the Brethren in offering a corrective to several pathologies or distortions identified within American evangelicalism.

The hope of this project is that Brethren can develop a positive presence in their engagement with American evangelicalism. Over against the rationalism and scholasticism that underwrites much of Reformed, evangelical scholarship, the posture of Miller can reunite both doctrine and devotion in service of evangelical Christian scholarship. Miller can assist the Brethren in finding their voice in this context and can remind evangelical scholarship of both their Reformed and Pietist heritages.

1

. See McClendon, Biography as Theology. McClendon uses the biographical sketches of Dag Hammarskjöld, Martin Luther King Jr., Clarence Leonard Jordan, and Charles Edward Ives to discern how biography assists in deepening one’s appreciation for each of these leaders’ respective theologies and how their biographies assist us in moving from theology as an academic pursuit to, what McClendon’s identifies as, a theology of life.

2

. McClendon, Biography as Theology,

22

(italics original).

1

The Confluence That Became the Schwarzenau Brethren

In 1708, a new group emerged in the German village of Schwarzenau in the territory of Wittgenstein, that synthesized the theological views of Swiss-German Mennonites and Radical Pietism. In their theological outlook, they would end up creating a theology of Word and Spirit that provided balance to the two streams of thought that formed the burgeoning movement. They chose to call themselves Brethren after the Apostle Paul’s name for his fellow believers in the various churches he addressed in his epistles. To the church leaders around them, they were known as the Neu-Täufer, New Baptists of Schwarzenau, after their unique practice (and insistence upon) baptizing forward by trine immersion.¹ In his book Another Way of Believing: A Brethren Theology, Dale Brown captures the centrality of baptism to Brethren history and theology (albeit a little tongue in cheek):

To baptize or be baptized was originally an act of civil disobedience, a stance that espoused religious freedom, separation of church and state, and voluntary acceptance of the faith. Unlike most of our history, early converts needed to count the cost of possible imprisonment, banishment as refugees, and suffering even to death. In a safer nineteenth century, baptism at an earlier age seemed more feasible. A frequent historical caricature of Brethren preaching claims that whatever the text, the minister always managed to get around to the topic of baptism.²

The centrality of immersion baptism came from the growing sect’s reading of the New Testament and a study of the early church, synthesized through the writings of Radical Pietist Gottfried Arnold.³ In this practice they found a convergence of the inner change of heart described throughout Pietist literature and the outward form they believed Scripture and the early church required to indicate such a change. Baptism remains central for Brethren groups as a signifier of the central dialectics at the heart of our faith—inner and outer, individual and corporate, Word and Spirit.

The conversations that sustained the group that would become the New Baptists trace their origin to another Radical Pietist, Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hochenau, a disciple of Arnold. Hochmann had a tremendous impact on Alexander Mack, considered the founder of the Brethren movement. If Arnold was the great teacher of the movement of Radical Pietism, then Hochmann was its chief evangelist. Hochmann’s teachings provided the necessary catalyst to coalesce varied theological sentiments into the firm convictions that would serve as the foundation for the congregation in Schwarzenau. Mack did not blindly assent to Arnold’s and Hochmann’s views but drew upon insights gained in conversations with Swiss-German Mennonites in the region. Such an infusion of ideas helped form the historic dialectic that makes Brethrenism possible—Radical Pietism and Anabaptism.

Pietist and Anabaptist Challenges

Pietism

Pietism, especially the Radical Pietism that informed the early Brethren, is an important stream of thought in Brethren theology. If Anabaptism is the structure of the Brethren, then Pietism is the soul. Pietism is difficult to distill down to core tenets. The term first comes into vogue by a professor in Leipzig in 1689. The name Pietist is known all over the city, he writes. What is a Pietist? One who studies God’s word and leads a holy life. This is well done; indeed, it would be good for every Christian.⁴ Though difficult to discern, Brian Moore has argued that four themes are common to this large umbrella movement. (1) The fall of the church, (2) a disassociation from fallen Babel, a term applied to the fallen church, (3) an emphasis on new birth, the Holy Spirit, and personal holiness, and (4) an emphasis on an adult response to Jesus.⁵ Roger Olson and Christian Collins-Winn further develop lists like Moore’s and suggest that Pietism emphasized ten core tenets:

(

1

) The embrace and acceptance of orthodox Protestant doctrine, broadly defined; (

2

) experiential, transformative Christianity; (

3

) conversion, the regeneration of the inner man; (

4

) conversional piety—a strong devotional life and a personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ crucified and risen; (

5

) visible Christianity—holy living and transformed character; (

6

) love of the Bible understood as a medium of an immediate relationship with God; (

7

) Christian life lived in community; (

8

) world transformation toward the kingdom of God; (

9

) ecumenical, irenic Christianity; and (

10

) the common priesthood of true believers.⁶

Pietism challenged the state religion to a more robust, vibrant expression of orthodoxy and discipleship. Born out of Lutheranism, Pietism differed in that unlike the increasingly pessimistic and quietistic Luther, Pietists believed in the possibility of the active transformation of this world, the achievement of the kingdom of God on earth; and they believed . . . that it was their duty towards God, for the greater glory of God, to attempt to change conditions in the here and now.⁷

This Pietist challenge came in response to the systematizing of Luther’s theology by the generation that followed the great Reformation thinker. Known by later scholars as Verkonfessionalisierung, this development

refers to the rigid confessionalizing of Lutheranism which was undertaken by its seventeenth-century theologians. The process was aided by the reappearance of Aristotelianism in German universities and gymnasia early during that century. The result was an unprecedented hardening of Lutheran doctrine. Not only did the guardians of orthodoxy endeavor to keep pure the teachings of the communion but the truth had to be stated in accepted phrases. Any deviation in phraseology was immediately viewed with great suspicion. After John Gerhard, the various minutiae of the seventeenth-century systems of Lutheran theology had to be treated in proper order and sequence so as not to raise apprehensions of heresy. In this heavily dogmatic atmosphere, the essence of Christianity came to be regarded as consisting in a series of rationally ordered propositions. Faith had been largely re-defined so as to consist in personal assent to those propositions. Confessional theology and Christianity were regarded as almost synonymous.⁸

Brown is similarly critical in his evaluation of Lutheran Confessionalism, viewing it as a virtual reversal of the Reformation. Protestant Scholasticism became a sort of intellectual Pelagianism in which good works of the medieval church were traded for works of understanding. Justification by faith, a central belief to Luther, became a dogma to Luther’s posterity. The pietistic source of dogma that marked the reformer’s theology was lost by subsequent generations. The testimony of the Holy Spirit and the reading of the Bible were reduced down to mere intellectual processes . . . to verify the creedal dogmas.⁹

What developed in light of this scholastic theology is what Stoeffler describes as doctrinal nominalism. As a result, fiducia had become assensus, the liberty of the Christian man had given way to the tyranny of scholastic theology, and the Bible had once again become an arsenal of proof texts.¹⁰

The liberty of the Christian becomes front and center in the writings of Pietism. Lutheran confessionalism saw an unfortunate collapsing of faith into mental assent to Lutheran symbols and theology. Johann Arndt (1555–1621), considered the grandfather and precursor of Pietism, makes this criticism one of the central themes in his foundational book, True Christianity. True Christianity, argues Arndt, consists not in words or in external show, but in living faith, from which arise righteous fruits, and all manner of Christian virtues, as from Christ himself.¹¹ With these words, Pietism emerged as an impulse within Reformation theology.

These Pietist concerns, however, are not merely Christian humanism. Arndt writes later that true Christianity recognizes the need for an experience of the divine. Faith is less intellectual assent and more a transforming experience of the transcendent.

Note that faith consists in living, consoling trust and not in empty sounds and words. . . . This is true knowledge of God, which arises out of experience and consists in living faith. Therefore, the Epistle to the Hebrews calls faith a substance, a being, an undeniable witness (Heb.

11

:

1

). This is a piece of the inner, spiritual worship, the knowledge of God, which consists in living faith, and faith is a spiritual, living, heavenly gift, light and power of God.¹²

Adding to this sentiment, Arndt writes, In the living and working faith and in the following of the holy life of Christ, the true living knowledge of Christ consists.¹³ Arndt’s teaching inspired the central catalyst of Pietism, Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705).¹⁴ As early as 1670 Spener was calling believers to meet in small groups. These small groups were known as conventicles and their central purpose was to take the Sunday sermon and discuss its application.¹⁵ The seminal work of Pietism, Pia Desideria (Pious Desires) was originally a foreword to one of Arndt’s devotional works. In this work, Spener called for six reforms needed for the church to experience reform:

1.More thoroughly acquaint believers with Scripture by means of private readings and study groups in addition to preaching;

2.Increase the involvement of laity in all functions of the church;

3.Emphasize that believers put into practice their faith and knowledge of God;

4.Approach religious discussions with humility and love, avoiding controversy whenever possible;

5.Ensure that pastors are both well-educated and pious; and

6.Focus preaching on developing faith in ordinary believers.¹⁶

Spener along with August Hermann Francke (1663–1727) would become central to one of two pietistic movements that sought to reform the church from within. Their particular branch of Pietism has been termed classical or churchly Pietism. In that spirit and pursuit of internal reformation, individuals like Spener and Francke became involved with the growing presence and teaching of Pietism at the University of Halle (Universität Halle) that was founded in 1694. In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, Halle became the intellectual center of Pietism. Spener encouraged Francke to teach at Halle where, for the remainder of his life, Francke both pastored and taught theology. Francke would add significant theological basis for Spener’s ideas.¹⁷

The other camp found the institutional church too corrupt and separated entirely. This branch, known as Radical Pietism, was never satisfied with merely reforming the church. The Radical Pietists argued that the true church had been lost through centuries of complicity with the empire dating back to the fall of the church under the Emperor Constantine. Encouraged by the writings of the mystic Jakob Boehme (1575–1624), these Radical Pietists called for a full separation from the institutional church. Boehme’s writings had a strong underground influence on this blossoming movement detailing illuminations of the deep mysteries of life and cosmos via a school of thought known as theosophy.¹⁸ His most famous works were Aurora¹⁹ (1612), which detailed visions he had received in 1600, and Weg zu Christo (The Way to Christ) (1622), which was a collection of several short works. Boehme’s writings were influential on the Radical Pietist Gottfried Arnold.

Gottfried Arnold (1666–1714) studied at the University of Wittenberg, considered the citadel of Lutheran orthodoxy, where he focused his studies on the thought of the early church. While at Wittenberg he was influenced by Spener. Arnold, like other Radical Pietists, struggled with Spener’s reform when contrasted with the vision of the early church that Arnold discovered in his studies. Therefore, in 1696, his first work, Die erste Liebe zu Christo, oder, Wahre Abbildung der ersten Christen: nach ihrem lebendigen Glauben und heiligen Leben (The First Love for Christ, or, True Illustrations of the Early Christians according to Their Living Faith and Holy Life), depicted the first three hundred years of church life in an attempt to capture the primitive church’s understanding of the faith and the necessity of a life changing, loving relationship with Christ.²⁰ In this first work, Arnold began to make his defense of immersion baptism based on the example of the early church.²¹ This mode of baptism became a signifier of his quest for a larger retrieval of the witness of the New Testament church.

In 1699, Arnold published his largest work, Unparteiische Kirchen- und Ketzer-historie (Impartial History of the Church and of Heresy), the first work to describe church history from the dissenters’ point of view (many of whom were deemed heretics). Arnold’s thesis was cutting: Heretical movements had actually perpetuated the true church, while the orthodox church that had persecuted them was, in reality, the anti-church.²² His critique of the established churches sounds quite similar to that of the Anabaptists:

The church has always flowered best under the cross; it was never the majority and the persecutor but rather the minority and the persecuted. The anti-Christian false church has always found its work and its holiness in outward things, symbols, shadows, sacraments, manners, and ceremonies.²³

This project, consisting of two large volumes, led to accusations by established church leaders that Arnold showed more sympathy toward heretics than established churches or their clergy.²⁴ Yet it was this last work that solidified Arnold’s classification as a Radical Pietist. Arnold argued that works were deemed heretical by those in positions of empire in the conflated existence of church and empire. This produced an accommodated church. When faith and empire were at odds, Arnold claimed, empire always defeated a true understanding and presentation of the faith. What remained was an accommodated church devoid of the true gospel.

With this distortion came an accommodated understanding of baptism. Where the early church employed baptism by immersion as a sign of a believer’s commitment to a life of regeneration and discipleship, the accommodated, established churches promoted infant baptism. Arnold . . . holds that the introduction of infant baptism, for which he sees no historical evidence prior to the third century, tends to distort the connection between baptism and faith.²⁵ Stoffer continues, [Arnold] insisted that early Christianity involved first of all a true, vibrant, living faith; and that secondly it involved pious behavior which is inseparably related to faith.²⁶

Bringing together the examples of the early church, the writings of Arndt and Spener, and patristic sources, Arnold becomes the first Pietist to advocate for immersion baptism. Such a practice captures Arnold’s rediscovery of the witness of the true church since the true church was not known by its orthodoxy (correct doctrine) but by its orthopraxis (true life/behavior).²⁷ Stoffer captures the importance of water baptism for Arnold (and eventually the early Brethren):

Arnold understands baptism as a sign of an already commenced conversion and rebirth; by virtue of this rite, one is received into community. For Arnold baptism is integrally tied to the active faith which must follow repentance. . . . Because [the water of] baptism effects nothing, it realizes its true meaning only through conversion and a change of character. Thus, renewal of the heart and daily repentance are necessary aspects of every Christian life.²⁸

By viewing baptism as a sign of the new birth and a pledge to live a new holy life, Arnold maintained a close connection between regeneration and baptism without baptismal regeneration. Counter to baptismal regeneration that posits that the act of baptism is a mediation of grace, Arnold held that the original connection between regeneration and baptism, found in the thought of the early church, was immersion baptism conveying the visible fruit of the grace of God, namely conversion. The water does not save nor does the act of baptism. Baptism is the outward expression of an inner change. In obedience to the witness of Scripture and the early church, the inner working of the Spirit is publicly expressed with the outer witness of immersion baptism that is evidenced in the New Testament. This insistence on the outward form of baptism put Arnold at odds with other Radical Pietists, including his disciple Ernst Christoph Hochmann von Hochenau (1670–1721), who would influence Alexander Mack.²⁹

The early Brethren are heavily indebted to the Pietist witness for their desire to have a lived faith, to lead a devotional life, and to model a transformative witness to the world. The absence of any sort of structure to Christianity, as several Radical Pietists espoused, created friction between the early Brethren and other Radical Pietists. The early Brethren disagreed with other Radical Pietists who held that the way to restore the primitive church was to abandon external symbols altogether. Brethren advocated, instead, a blessed middle way. Stoffer remarks, One of the hermeneutical principles that guided the Brethren was a harmonizing approach to Scripture [and theology] which sought to give due consideration to all the biblical data.³⁰ With practices like immersion baptism, the inner experience of the faith demanded by Radical Pietism was balanced with the need for an external witness and structure advocated by Anabaptist piety.³¹ For this structure, the early Brethren looked to Anabaptism.

Anabaptism

Three important groups for the early Brethren were the scattered Radical Pietists, Dutch and North German Mennonites, named after the Anabaptist churchman Menno Simons (1496–1561), and the Swiss Brethren.³² The Brethren wholeheartedly affirmed the Pietist concern regarding the fallen nature of the church. If the Radical Pietists gave the Brethren an awareness of the fallen nature of the church, the Mennonites and Swiss Brethren gave them a rationale for establishing a true church and a blueprint for its structure.

The early Brethren would have agreed with Menno’s famous document Why I Do Not Cease Teaching and Writing:

Behold, beloved reader, in this way true faith or true knowledge begets love, and love begets obedience to the commandments of God. Therefore, Christ Jesus says he that believes on him is not condemned. Again, at another place, Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that hears my word, and believes on him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but is passed from death unto life (John

5

:

24

). For true evangelical faith is of such nature that it cannot lie dormant, but manifests itself in all righteousness and works of love; it dies unto the flesh and blood; it destroys all forbidden lusts and desires; it seeks and serves and fears God; it clothes the naked; it feeds the hungry; it comforts the sorrowful; it shelters the destitute; it aids and consoles the sad; it returns good for evil; it serves those that harm it; it prays for those that persecute it; teaches, admonishes, and reproves with the Word of the Lord; it seeks that which is lost; it binds up that which is wounded; it heals that which is diseased and it saves that which is sound; it has become all things to all people. The persecution, suffering, and anguish which befall it for the sake of the truth of the Lord are to it a glorious joy and consolation.³³

Menno’s writings reflect the importance of the communal witness of the church. The church is to be a community of regenerate individuals who together provide an alternative witness to the ways of the world. This witness was centered in the christocentric hope which informed their hermeneutic as all Scripture [pointed] to Jesus and proper interpretation [began] with understanding Jesus as the key to understanding Scripture.³⁴

The existential character of the Mennonite witness with its simple coherency was attractive to the early Brethren. The emphases of a

view of Christ as the Example of the new life, the straightforward approach to the Word which emphasized the Gospels rather than the more theological Pauline corpus, a conception of soteriology which saw all the aspects of the conversion experience pointing to the actualization of the new life in Christ, the prominent kerygmatic quality of the ordinances, the mild realized eschatology of the visible church all played a part in making Mennonite doctrine life-oriented.³⁵

Such emphases were evident in the central Anabaptist texts of the period that were formative for the early Brethren. One of those texts was the Martyrs Mirror (1660).³⁶ Providing a detailed martyrology of seventeen centuries, Martyrs Mirror advocated distinction from the world, which was a formative posture to the Anabaptist, and stressed piety and obedience.³⁷ Early Brethren would have read Martyrs Mirror alongside the Swiss Brethren text Guldene Aepffel in silbern Schalen (Golden Apples in Silver Bowls: The Rediscovery of Redeeming Love) published in 1702.³⁸ The Swiss Brethren, recovering from a 1693 schism with the newly formed Amish sect, found a willing and open dialogue partner with the early Brethren, in their shared desire for an Anabaptist piety.³⁹ Unlike the Swiss Brethren, however, who began with an Anabaptist foundation and were later influenced by Pietism, the Brethren began with a Radical Pietist perspective that was modified in the direction of Anabaptism. This pursuit of both inward piety and outward structure was a needed corrective for the early Brethren