This is an excellent study of the history of the Christian Brethren in England in the first seventy years of the twentieth century. The influence and impact of the assemblies of Brethren upon the wider evangelical community in the UK is unfolded in this book. Brethrenism was flourishing and reached the period of its greatest development just at the point when Evangelicalism was at its lowest ebb. As the good influences of Brethren doctrine and practice impacted Evangelicalism it seems that Brethrenism went into a persistent decline that has not yet been arrested. Roger Shuff is the minister of an Evangelical Church in the south of England and he comes from a Brethren background. He writes in an interesting and scholarly way and there are many lessons to be learned from his examination of his subject. This book is well balanced and challenging. Those from a charismatic background will find much to ponder on here. He looks at the strengths of the Brethren movement as well as its dangers including those of its Exclusive wing (which Shuff prefers to call the Connectional Brethren) where authoritarian leadership developed into extremes of doctrine and control in the middle of the last century. I hope this book will be widely read by those who are in leadership in the various streams of the charismatic movement in the UK. To see something of your antecedents, to examine the influence of a comparatively obscure group of churches upon the general emerging evangelical church, strengthening it, which, in the end eclipsed it, is instructive to say the least. A high doctrine of the church coupled with a love of the scriptures and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper are three of the dominant emphases of the Brethren. In the case of the independent assemblies there is added the autonomy of the local church and all these emphases can be seen in certain streams of the Charismatic movement in the UK, in some cases to its detriment. This book gives pause for thought, even serious warning in some matters too. It also encourages us to see how great influences for good can come out of small assemblies of Godly people who cling tenaciously to the love of God and His word. So, here is readable recent church history, well presented and balanced in its emphasis. Even the cultural shifts taking place in the 1960’s are shown to have their bearing upon the quest for spiritual liberty in the churches of that era. There was much formalism in those days and the throwing off of traditional values in the cultural milieu of the day had its counterpart in both wings of the Brethren churches. Much as some people in the churches seek to throw off the influence of the past, this book shows how impossible that is to do.
