Family: What’s In A Name?
By Bill Bowser

Brethren: Growing up, it's how I defined myself. In a world that seemed unsafe, "Brethren" was an identity I clung to passionately. But it's a word I now regard as an unfortunate illusion.

In college, I looked forward to studying in Germany. I wanted to get closer to my spiritual roots. Ironically, it was on a visit to Schwarzenau, where our church was founded, that I discovered that the word "Brethren" doesn't even exist in German! A street sign explains that Alexander-Mack-Strasse (Street) is named for the Mitbegründer der Kirche der Brüder. That's "Co-Founder of the Church of the . . . Brothers?" I vaguely remember a friend asking whether Brethren are celibate -- to him, a native German speaker, Kirche der Brüder meant "Church of the Monks."

I struggled with the idea that "Brethren," this word which had meant so much to me, wasn't an original part of my heritage. In time I learned it has nothing to do with religion or theology at all. Instead, "Brethren" owes its origin to European political history, namely, the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. In that grand linguistic collision between Anglo-Saxon and French, English came to have separate words for cow and beef, swine and pork, sheep and mutton. Having two plurals for "Brother" is uniquely, quintessentially English! And Alexander Mack's German baptism, some 642 years later, had absolutely nothing to do with it.

But long before we spoke English, long before we could be called "Brethren," we were a Gemeinschaft. That German word means "community", "(business) partnership", "association" or (sometimes) "union." A communion (of churches) is a Gemeinschaft.

The Quaker term, "religious society," comes close. Even a "team" or "(college) fraternity" can be a Gemeinschaft. All of these words describe groups working together for a common purpose. But not one of them means "Brethren" or "family!"

And yet, even before the Norman Conquest, German already had the word Geschwister, which derives from Old High German (750-1050 AD). It means ‘brothers and sisters’ and is still in use today, every time someone asks if you have any siblings: Hast Du Geschwister? Geschwisterliche Liebe means “love as between brothers and sisters.” If “being brethren” or “being just like family” were what the earliest Dunkers had in mind, here was the perfect German word, centuries old, ready and waiting. But they did not choose this word; it didn’t describe how they thought of themselves.

Today, many of us (but not all) still feel a strong attachment to this word “Brethren”. We are under the illusion that “being just like family” means being spiritually healthy. But as a preacher’s kid, I know better: some church families are like Ozzie and Harriet, others like Ozzy Osbourne!

No, I haven’t rejected my heritage. My spiritual taproot still feeds in Dunker soil. But I now see the word “Brethren” as a theological drifting away from that Dunker center. I reject the word “Brethren” because I want to get back to my Dunker roots.

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