Mergers and Acquisitions
Mergers and Acquisitions:
Unions that Did or Could Have Affected Our Denomination
Dr. Timothy J. Schmoyer
Presented to the Historical Society
of the Bible Fellowship Church
October 25, 2025
Introduction
While I updated the Historical Society website three years ago, I learned many interesting things about the issues facing our denomination over the decades. We wrestled with important issues like: could a pastor also be the chairman of a dairy association? Turns out he could not. I witnessed, in my mind’s eye, Eusebius Hershey stirring our conference to take up the call to world missions and leading us to form a missionary society.
One thing I noticed was repeated discussions to merge with this or that denomination. We certainly are the result of multiple successful mergers in our earlier decades (1879-1883), but what made my imagination run wild was that we entertained mergers (that never got anywhere) with the Wesleyans, the Radical United Brethren, the Pilgrim Holiness Church, and many others. Where would our people be today if we had merged with any of the denominations we had interacted with during the long span of our church’s history?
Let’s set out to learn about the mergers that did make us who we are. Then we will explore the seven denominations that we had merger discussions with. We will consider their practices and beliefs at the time. We will conclude with a few what-ifs and resolve to thank the Lord for their impact on society as well as ours as distinct expressions of God’s manifold grace.
The Mergers and Separations the Led to Today’s Bible Fellowship Church
First let us take up an exploration of the unions that ultimately led to the 21st century Bible Fellowship Church. We began as a revivalistic breakaway from the Mennonite Church in 1859. Then twenty-five years later we participated in a string of mergers that made us the Mennonite Brethren in Christ. In 1952, we in Pennsylvania parted with that larger group and became the Bible Fellowship Church.
Every group that merged into the Mennonite Brethren in Christ came from a broadly Anabaptist origin. All had experienced revival in unique and precious ways. Since they wanted their communities and regions to experience as well, they began in new ministries and practices to reach the lost with the Gospel. Each of the groups that came together had been expelled from its inflexible (and sometimes unregenerated) mother organization; “our” groups wanted to take up revivalistic practices while the mother organizations insisted on their older ways. This was not only the experience of Father William Gehman and the first members of what is now the BFC; it was also the experience of each group that joined together to become the Mennonite Brethren in Christ between 1875-1883. The Reformed Mennonites led by Solomon Eby (Ontario) and Daniel Brenneman (Indiana), the New Mennonites led by Daniel Hoch (Ontario), the Swankite Brethren in Christ led by John Swank (Ohio), and the Missionary Church Association led by Joseph Ramseyer all were ostracized by the mother churches they were part of before separating to form their new churches. Some were excommunicated while others withdrew, but it was all because of new forms of expressing the faith. One cannot help but think that the shared trauma and rejection each group felt was a common bond for these otherwise distinct groups. All of these groups later merged into one General Conference of churches. And today, they all still fellowship together (as The Missionary Church) except for the Pennsylvania Conference which is now the Bible Fellowship Church.
Revival Fires and Excommunication
As briefly mentioned above, we spent sixty-nine years in a denomination called the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church (1883-1952). This Conference of churches began as four denominations united over a very brief period from 1875-1883. All of these groups were caught up in the revival fires that popped up again and again in the last half of the nineteenth century. For a little flavor of these revival forces at play in our denomination’s infancy, here are some vignettes from each of the four:
Today’s Bible Fellowship Church began with Father William Gehman in 1859 in Zionsville, Pennsylvania. We were at that time known as the “Evangelical Mennonite Society” or Evangelische Mennoniten Gemeinschaft, since they spoke Pennsylvania Dutch. Harold Shelley, in our definitive history, starts right at the central reason for our founding:
“A few ‘new’ Mennonite revival preachers refused to stifle the enthusiasm which they felt within. They would not curtail their lively prayer meetings. Nor would they check their fiery protracted revival meeting, which could go on every evening for days or for weeks as the Spirit led and people were blessed. … The Holy Spirit was at work among them. They dared not quench the fires of the Spirit. As revival fires burned among the plain German-speaking folk of southeastern Pennsylvania, this zealous handful of Mennonite revivalists defied their Bishops and found themselves at odds with the rest of the new East Pennsylvania Conference of the Mennonite Church.”[1]
It is freely bantered about that the BFC began because of prayer meetings that we wanted to hold while the Mennonite mother church forbade us to hold them. Father Gehman called the Bishops’ decision “unevangelical” because of the many souls who found peace with God at these meetings. People weren’t just praying; they were discovering the inadequacy of their surface-level faith. Many were truly being converted. Others, already born again, were finding a deepness to the Lord’s ways in the experience of pouring out their hearts in emotive prayer. The experience would have been more akin to Sister Sarah Brown’s prayer meeting at the Save-a-Soul Mission from the musical Guys and Dolls than it is to our modern prayer meeting. “Many that attended the meetings became awakened and deeply convicted of their sinful condition, found peace in the wounds of Jesus, and were transplanted into the freedom of the children of God.”[2] Clearly it was not merely a meeting to pray for the infirmed and the missionaries. Rather, personal soul work was the primary focus of these prayer meetings.
The New Mennonites in Ontario began with similar practices like the prayer meeting. Here is one testimony relayed by MBC historian, J.A. Huffman:
“There was a split in the Old Mennonite Church, and those ministers that believed in a new birth and upheld prayer meetings could not preach in the old church. So there were two, Abraham Raymer and Christie Troyer. So Brother Raymer held meetings wherever there was an open door. He held prayer meetings on Sundays, at private houses, and several were converted. My father left the old church and came to those cottage prayer meetings.”[3]
Reformed Mennonites in Ontario and Indiana began with an experience of revival at the same time we were in Pennsylvania. Solomon Eby was chosen as preacher in Port Elgin, Ontario in 1858 at the age of twenty-four. MBC historian, J.A. Huffman writes of Eby that in
“the following years, he was considerably troubled over the condition of the church, and held meetings weekly, although the custom was not common. His trouble increased until he felt unsaved, and, in case of death, was sure that he should be lost. How to get out of that condition and reach life he did not know. The situation grew more tense, and he was troubled day and night. … Some of the brethren got into great difficulty, so much so that they went to their minister for help, only to find to their great astonishment that he was in the same condition. Eby was happily converted in 1869.”[4]
For his part, Daniel Brenneman in Indiana was a zealous preacher in the Old Mennonite Church. “He was a man of commanding presence, forcible and eloquent in the pulpit, apt and aggressive in Christian work, a champion of church doctrines and a good mixer among the people.”[5] With all his zeal, Brenneman started implementing new practices like preaching in English (on occasion) and multiple-part singing. He reflects on the inflexibility of the Old Mennonites to new initiatives, “some of us ministers became depressed and discouraged at the slow progress we as a non-resistant church were making, as a result of a seeming great lack of spiritual energy on the part of the membership in general.”[6] Around that time Brenneman heard about the revival Eby was part of in Ontario and was intrigued by the protracted meetings. He and likeminded revivalists among his Indiana Mennonite churches traveled to Ontario to witness firsthand what the Lord was doing among their Mennonite brethren to their north. After a first trip, and a second one a year later, Brenneman reports about Eby’s services “Arriving there among these zealous worshippers, I at once found that their former zeal had by no means abated, that under the preaching of the Word souls were convicted and pressed through to the King at about every service. What could I say, only that this is the Lord’s doing and marvelous in our eyes.”[7] When Daniel Brenneman returned from his second fact finding trip to Ontario in 1873, he was informed that John Krupp, his travel companion on his first trip, had been excommunicated by the bishop “because he favored protracted meeting and allowed even women to testify.”[8] Later in 1874 Brenneman himself was also excommunicated, largely for not going along with the other leaders when they excommunicated Krupp.
The final group to merge with us was the Swankite branch of the Brethren in Christ Church. The Brethren in Christ, or River Brethren, started in the Susquehanna Valley of Pennsylvania among German immigrants in the mid 1700’s. These first Brethren met in homes for worship. By 1828, some wanted to erect church buildings for worship. Leader among them was John Wenger. These kept the name Brethren in Christ though they had separated from the original group by the same name. A further division occurred in 1861 when John’s son, Johnnie, and John Swank split over a variety of practical differences. The Wengerites baptized three times forwards. The Swankites recognized a variety of immersion styles. The Swankites practiced protracted evangelistic meetings and prayer meetings, while the Wengerites were less enthusiastic and sporadic about their use. But the main factor that drove the two apart was the Swankites wanted a written rule of faith, while the Wengerites claimed the New Testament as their guide.[9] [10] The Swankite revival meetings certainly lined up with our practices of the day. It was a sweet union, to be sure.
Hunger for Union
The Reformed Mennonite Church began soon after Solomon Eby (Ontario) and Daniel Brenneman (Indiana) were excommunicated from their Old Mennonite Conferences. In May 1874, Eby welcomed any who “believe in a present salvation by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, have experienced pardon of their sins and have had the evidence of their acceptance with Christ.”[11] Those who had followed brothers Eby and Brenneman out of their Old Mennonite churches gathered together and united as one church, named the Reformed Mennonite Church.
The very next year, many of the followers of Hoch’s New Mennonites (Ontario) met with the Reformed Mennonites to discuss merging the works together, though Hoch himself was not involved in this merged denomination. We read in the minutes of that meeting of March 23, 1875, “the members of the New and Reformed Mennonite Societies respectively have for some time been anxious that a union of those bodies should take place. And with this object in view, a meeting of the ministers and others interested in the matter was called to be held at the Snyder Meeting House at Bloomingdale, … Ontario.”[12] This merger was called the United Mennonites. The minutes also record who was present. From the Reformed Mennonites: John Bear, Sr., Solomon Eby, Daniel Wismer, and Noah Detweiler. From the New Mennonites: John H. Steckley, Samuel Sherk, John McNally, and Peter Geiger. Those listed were the ministers, also both groups had many lay members present.
In 1875, Eby (Ontario) and Brenneman (Indiana) visited Pennsylvania and met with the Evangelical Mennonites (our people). MBC Historian, Jasper Huffman, writes about the meeting that “almost immediately the thought of union occurred.”[13] The Gospel Banner newspaper, with Brenneman as editor, began discussing union with the Pennsylvania group in articles starting in 1878. Commenting on the Pennsylvania fall conference, Brenneman wrote in the paper that we “hope to effect a permanent union … So far as we have been able to ascertain there is nothing existing between us (the United Mennonites and the Evangelical Mennonites) that is worthy the name of distinction.” In other words, there is no reason we should remain separate denominations; we are too alike. On November 6, 1879 delegates from the two groups met in Upper Milford, Pennsylvania. Both groups had their Doctrines and Disciplines read aloud. The two were “nearly in point” (meaning they were well aligned). The outcome of the meeting produced this statement “There now being perfect union of spirit, faith, and doctrine, the two bodies mutually and unanimously consented to unite in the name and fear of the Lord… It was considered to be only meet that the names as well be combined together also, hence the name Evangelical United Mennonites was adopted, upon which the whole conference with the entire assembly went down upon their knees in honor to God and in thanksgiving and praise to His great and matchless name for thus uniting the hearts of His people and bringing them together into one fold.”[14] A modern reader cannot help but notice the many ways the Body expressed its unity. “Perfect union of spirit”, “two bodies … consented to unite”, “uniting their hearts,” “one fold.” These are all beautiful sentiments of the oneness and joy they all felt. Disparate exiles from the Old Mennonites were all experiencing the newfound fires of revival. From farflung geographic areas, they all found each other. Lonely from the exile of their excommunications, they united and found common ground in their Anabaptist heritage and Revivalist experiences.
As for our final union, that with the Swankite Brethren in Christ. The Ontario and Indiana branches of our Evangelical United Mennonites were zealous for more union. Many articles in The Gospel Banner in 1882 and later call for a merger with the Swankites. Solomon Eby (Ontario) writes in the paper “I feel within me a longing desire that a union with the Brethren in Christ be effected … Though anxious that a thorough acquaintance with each other be formed before we engage together to labor for the Lord.”[15] Brenneman (Indiana) likewise wrote to fan the flames of unity between the denominations. He wrote in the paper “we are glad to say that the prospects for union with the Brethren in Christ, and especially the Swank branch, are very favorable. In fact, we are virtually one now, since in point of doctrine there is no material difference.”[16] Delegations from the two denominations met between Christmas and New Years 1883. They voted to merge on the 29th at 10pm. The new name: The Mennonite Brethren in Christ. This would be our family until 1952, and we would carry that name until 1959. Interesting to note here, the Brethren were Anabaptist as we were, but they were not Mennonite. Each of our previous mergers were with Mennonite groups. Perhaps it was hard for them to join a group with Mennonite in the new name. Perhaps some of our brethren wondered if a merger with a non-Mennonite group was a wise idea. Yet the common bond of historic Anabaptism and the common practices of revivalism did link us well together.
The Organization of This Interstate Union
Now that our church was three states and one province (Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Ontario), keeping everyone informed about the movement was critical to maintain the unity of the Body. Much of the quick news was spread through the Gospel Banner, started by Indiana’s Daniel Brenneman. Each issue carried quick reports from the pastors and presiding elders of the various conferences. Pastors and laypeople alike could stay connected with the activity in the other regions of the church. But all of that was informal; the formal oversight came through the conference structure.
Each church would hold a Quarterly Conference with their presiding elder four times per year. Communion and footwashing would be conducted, and the pastor and the people would account for their activity the past thirteen weeks to the presiding elder.
Once per year, the pastors of a state would gather for an Annual Conference. Decisions would be made at a statewide level. The State Conference would compile petitions for the quadrennial General Conference to respond to. The Annual Conference had a sphere of freedom to innovate new ministry without the General Conference controlling everything. Other matters were relegated to General Conference direct control.
Finally, there was the General Conference which met once every four years, composed of delegates sent by each statewide Annual Conference. When it comes to the issue of interdenominational mergers, Annual Conferences could petition General Conference to discuss a merger with another particular denomination, but the General Conference was the primary decision-making Body in these matters. We will be discovering most of the evidence for merger conversations in the minutes of the MBC General Conference.
Growing Pressures of the PA Conference
Decades after these mergers, fissures began emerging between the Pennsylvania Conference and the General Conference of the MBC. For example, in 1924, Pennsylvania had concerns about merging The Gospel Banner and the newspaper of the Defenseless Mennonite Society. The Seventeenth Meeting began: “W. H. Moore read Romans 15:1-7 and made some very appropriate remarks in connection therewith.” That passage is about bearing with brothers who disagree with you, culminating in verse 7 “Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” We do not fully understand who was ridiculing whom until a few lines down, the secretary records the following resolution:
Whereas, Statements have been made by members of the various Conferences that greatly reflected upon the Pennsylvania Conference as a body and as a result there has been a mutual loss of confidence and feeling greatly grieved at all that has been said and done that has caused any misjudgment in the minds of any one that would cause prejudice against the Pennsylvania Conference, and further since hearing their statements relative to the questions of doctrine, and finding no serious differences be it
Resolved, That we exonerate the Pennsylvania Conference and that in the future we manifest brotherly love and as delegates to the Conference do our utmost to restore confidence and correct any wrong impressions that may have gone out.[17]
We thus learn that someone was speaking ill of the delegates from Pennsylvania over this issue of merging the newspapers. General Conference felt the sting inflicted upon the Pennsylvania delegates and spoke up for them and gently rebuked the unnamed offender(s). Nonetheless, stings can last beyond an apology and this was one of many issues threatening the peace between the great Body and the Pennsylvania churches.
Against the name change. In 1947, the General Conference voted to change the name of the denomination from Mennonite Brethren in Christ to The United Missionary Church. From the minutes of the Conference, the committee working on the name change reported its rationale for the change,
“Your Committee believes that the name, almost unanimously adopted, United Missionary Church, beautifully, appropriately and adequately expresses the work to which the Lord has called our group, and trust that we shall all prayerfully seek to live up to this wonderful new name with all it legitimate connotations, thus adorning the same both in the home and foreign fields, thus proving ourselves worthy of it.”[18]
The same report broaches a delicate subject, that of Pennsylvania Conference’s disappointment with the proposed name. We do not discover in the minutes why our predecessors were opposed to the name change. But the minutes record:
“The Conference having been convinced that the change of our General Church name has become imperative in a number of communities in which we have churches, and being equally convinced that there would be no burden imposed upon the Conference which did not sense a need for the name of the Church, the Pennsylvania Conference, they were guaranteed a full and unqualified relationship to the General Conference, indefinitely, as they continue to use the name Mennonite Brethren in Christ.”[19]
Though the General Conference was allowing Pennsylvania to retain the original name, that we wanted to go it alone reflects our increasing frustration and division from the greater Body. Our intransigence about the name may seem irrational at first without understanding the underlying issue. Looking into the matter more closely, you can see why the name change bothers us when reading our declaration of independence in 1952. One of our stated reasons for leaving was “Our desire to become an independent sending Foreign Mission Board.”[20] The Pennsylvania Conference had been sending its own missionaries since before any of our mergers. Eusebius Hershey led us to form a Mission Society in 1864. We sent out Hershey to Liberia, West Africa in 1890. The Pennsylvania Conference ran its own mission board all the way through its time with the General Conference. But in 1920, other annual conferences wanted to start a unified mission board for the whole Conference. Pastor Sam Goudie from Ontario was a champion of this notion. The chosen name was United Missionary Society. The Resolution read:
“Resolved, That the recommendations of the Ontario, Indiana and Ohio and Nebraska Conferences be granted; that a General Conference Board be organized; that all Conferences which desire to unite in the same be encouraged to do so; that no conference be required to do so; that a committee of one person from each Conference be elected to formulate a plan for the organization, and that they submit the same to this Conference for approval.”[21]
Pennsylvania rejected this idea and continued to operate its own mission board at the annual conference level, while the other conferences united in missions at the general conference level. You can hear the unnamed reference to us in the resolution “no conference be required” to join. When interested parties convened in 1921, constitution and bylaws were drafted and later were ratified by each annual conference except for Pennsylvania.[22] Beginning in 1928, and for decades, the United Mission Society AND the Pennsylvania’s Mission Board both independently reported to General Conference. Later when a name change for the MBC was being considered, people thought to name the church after the mission society. Sam Goudie, of the Ontario Conference, and longtime chairman of the Board, praised the idea, pondering when has a denomination ever named itself after its Mission Board? Yet now the MBC was renamed The United Missionary Church, after its United Missionary Society. So all sides saw the church’s name change as a reflection of the church’s missions work, work that Pennsylvania had not been a part of. This observation helps us understand why the Pennsylvania conference was opposed to the name change.
We were also against a strong statement on the doctrine of Entire Sanctification. In our 1952 declaration to separate from the General Conference, first among them is “Our interpretation of the doctrine of holiness;”[23] That fissure really started cracking a decade earlier in 1943 when the Indiana and Ohio Conference brought petitions to General Conference.
“Whereas, It has been the conviction of the older leaders of the Indiana Conference that the revision of Article 12 of the M. B. C. Discipline, at the Nappanee General Conference held in 1904 and several times since at the General Conferences, has weakened our earlier and clearer doctrinal statement on the subject of Sanctification, and
Whereas, Our leadership, both the older and the younger, keenly feel the ambiguity and confusion of our doctrinal statement on Sanctification as found in its present form, we wish to memorialize the coming General Conference that we, as a Conference never have been, nor ever can be, satisfied with the above mentioned article in its present form, and that we reserve the right to recur to the earlier and clearer doctrinal statement referred to above, and found in our M. B. C. Discipline before the 1905 edition, as our authority on the doctrine of Sanctification.”[24]
While Pennsylvania wanted to retain the old name in 1947, Indiana and Ohio wanted to retain old doctrinal statements in 1943! It is beyond the scope of a paper about church mergers to get into the weeds on Entire Sanctification. Suffice for now to say that Pennsylvania had been party to the evolution towards the “ambiguous and confusing” doctrinal statement that Indiana/Ohio was complaining about. Our pastors were not biblically convinced of entire sanctification. They were recommending new books on progressive sanctification for the new ministers’ reading program. General Conference decided to approve the Ohio & Indiana petition, allowing their annual conference to live by one doctrinal statement while the other annual conferences would live by the latest version. “Resolved, That we recognize the memorial of the Indiana and Ohio Conferences for them to recur to the Article on Sanctification as found in the Discipline before the 1905 edition.” This illustrates the oil and vinegar relationship Pennsylvania and the rest of General Conference had arrived at; we were not entirely happy with the newer, muddier statement on perfectionism and neither were the other conferences.
One last stressor on the relationship between Pennsylvania and General Conference was the potential merger with the Missionary Church Association, as identified in our 1952 declaration of independence. “Conflicts with the principles of the proposed merger.”[25] Our Annual Conference minutes do not identify which church we were worried about merging with, but reading the General Conference minutes from the year before, it is clear our concern was about the Missionary Church Association. We will address that particular denomination later in this paper. For now, it is a stated reason on our part for why we felt 1952 was the time to leave. Did we feel that adding a new group would create a bigger tent at General Conference and thus make Pennsylvania’s voice smaller? Was the MCA just too aligned with the other Annual Conferences on issues like Entire Sanctification, doctrinal battles that Pennsylvania was ready to be done with?
Pennsylvania Conference Separated in 1952
With these many fissures cracking all around the happy unity between the Pennsylvania Conference with the other Conferences of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, a total division was inevitable. So in the minutes of the 1952 Annual Conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ: Pennsylvania Conference, we read
“Whereas, Our Conference differs greatly with the Conferences of the United Missionary Church in doctrine, in organization and in government, and
Whereas, The position of our Conference on:
Our interpretation of the doctrine of holiness;
Our desire to become an independent sending Foreign Mission Board;
Our educational program;
Our plans concerning church government;
Our wish for autonomy in the control of all funds and expenditures; and,
Our desire for proper and fair representation; Conflicts with the principles of the proposed merger, THEREFORE:
Resolved, That we hereby sever all relations with the Conferences of the United Missionary Church, and consider the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church of Pennsylvania, Inc., a separate and distinct body.”[26]
One can note in the grammar of the last rationale the connection of our disagreement with the merger and our “desire for fair representation” at General Conference. At the time, our delegates comprised 30% of the General Conference’s total delegates; no other state-wide conference had more than 15% of the delegates. Given our membership of 4,404, we had five representatives on the Executive Board, while Ontario and Indiana only had two representatives and the others only had one; we held 35% of the votes on the Executive Board. So when we stated one of the reasons for our withdraw from General Conference was “our desire for proper and fair representation,” what we meant was that we were already in a losing battle on issues like entire sanctification and a shared missions board and we feared a merger would dilute our voice even further.
Now that we were truly and fully going it alone, by 1958, we were ready for a new name, and were ready to consider any name (other than United Missionary Church!). Many names were considered, even remaining MBC. Two popular options were “United Bible Church” and “Bible Fellowship Church.” Polls had gone out to the congregations. Ultimately, we changed our name to “Bible Fellowship Church.” It was the first time in one hundred years that the word “Mennonite” was not in our name.[27] Over the next two decades, we modified our doctrines to a more reformed understanding of salvation, distancing ourselves even further from the rest of the conferences in the MBC/UMC. As well, we modified our church government from a top-down approach of bishops and superintendents, to local elders and locally-called pastors. Today’s Bible Fellowship Church is a far different expression of the Kingdom than where it was at its founding.
Mergers that Might Have Been
Now let’s consider the many churches with which we started, but never finished, merger negotiations. We will discuss where they came from, what piqued our common interest in each other at the time, and how enacting a merger may have changed the trajectory of the BFC movement.
Church of the United Brethren in Christ “Radicals” (1892-1896)
My jaw is still dropped after having read two years ago that we entertained merging with a group with the word “Radical” in their name. That we plain Dutchmen would have serious talks with radicals! Joking aside, once you understand why they were called “Radicals”, it isn’t so unfathomable for us to have considered a union.
The Church of the United Brethren in Christ began in 1767 in Pennsylvania by two bishops: Boehm and Otterbein. A hundred years later, an argument over proposed changes to the constitution led to a split. The “Liberals” wanted to change the constitution. The “Radicals” wanted to preserve it as it was. Milton Wright, father of the (airplane) Wright Brothers, led the radicals to form a new denomination.
The ”Liberals” eventually merged with the Evangelical Association in 1946 to form the Evangelical United Brethren Church. That church then merged with the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1968 to become the United Methodist Church.
Figure 14. CUBC Conference in 1885
Soon after the split with the “Liberals”, the “Radicals” had conversations with us about a merger. The years were 1892-1896. We read in the minutes of the 1892 General Conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ “Eld. D. Brenneman was elected Fraternal Delegate to the General Conference of the Radical United Brethren to be held in Hudson, Ind. commencing on the 2nd Thursday of May 1893. Each Annual Conference shall pay their share of his expenses to said conference, at the request of the General Conference secretary.”[28] Sadly, wires were crossed and Brother Brenneman could not attend their Conference. Later at our 1896 General Conference, he reported “as fraternal delegate to the Radical branch of the U. B. General Conference. He was not present, not being able to find out the date of conference until after the conference was over. The report was received as satisfactory.”[29] Did Brenneman’s union passions wane or did our collective passions wane? Had there been more unofficial dialogue that cooled the merger talks? All we know is that during the following General Conference in 1900, we received a Radical as an advisory member to our conference. The minutes record “A. P. Stoltz, minister of the Radical U. B. Church was received as advisory member of the conference.”[30] After these few attempted interactions, our dialogue with the Radical Brethren ended.
After the Liberal branch merged with the Evangelical Association in 1946, the Radicals stopped using that moniker to distinguish themselves. Today, they are The Church of the United Brethren in Christ. They have 23,000 people attending their 200 churches in the United States, 180 of these being in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan. With these statistics, the Radical Brethren are today 2½ times larger than the BFC is today. Could there be a merger today between the Radical Brethren and the Bible Fellowship Church? Doctrinally, it would be hard to see negotiations getting off the ground, more from our end than from theirs. On salvation, they say they are “(Mostly) Arminian” while saying they have “a number” of Calvinists.[31] They would welcome us on this front, but as the BFC attitudes exist today we are not prepared to diffuse our distinctives as the result of a merger. We already know what it was like to be a large vocal minority on a theological debate from when we disagreed with the Entire Sanctification statement of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ. Going back to doctrinal minority is not something we would desire. Their statement on baptism is similarly laisez-faire. “We believe that … baptism … [is] to be in use and practiced by all … but the manner in which ought always to be left to the judgment and understanding of every individual.”[32] Who is to be baptized? How are they to be baptized? The BFC would be considered “too rigid” by the Radical Brethren while we consider them too unspecific. Leaving doctrine aside, our size difference would take our mind back to our MBC days, when the Pennsylvania Conference was the largest subset of the denomination, but all the other groups were moving the denomination one way and we were moving the other. We are too small today to be equals with the Radical Brethren. But we are so big, we would want more influence than is purely democratic for us to have.
The MBC Committee on Church Union
The early twenties was a ripe time for mergers. MBC General Conference seemed very eager to link with some other organization. We put out lots of feelers to lots of groups. From 1920-1951 and beyond, our General Conference had a Committee on Church Union. It started in 1920 when the General Conference received a petition from the Nebraska Annual Conference to consider a union. They decided to appoint a three-man committee to study the scope of a Union Committee. Later that Conference the study committee reported back with the following proposal:
“Report of Committee on Union
We beg leave to report as follows:
We recommend that this Conference appoint a Committee of five from the several Conferences more centrally located, and this Committee be authorized to meet a Committee from each of those churches that have expressed a desire to form a union, that the Committee be empowered to take such steps; and if necessary, shall instruct the chairman of the Executive Board to call a conference of delegates chosen by each Annual Conference, to meet delegates chosen by the above mentioned churches, to adjust differences and perfect, an organization.”[33]
General Conference approved the proposal and elected the following men to the committee: S. Goudie (Ontario), N. W. Rich (Nebraska), B. A. Sherk (Michigan), J. A. Huffman (Indiana), and A. B. Yoder (Indiana). Notice that the Pennsylvania Conference lacks a committee member because the resolution said that the committee should be composed of men “from the several Conferences more centrally located.” Over the years, Pennsylvania was rarely on the Union Committee. In 1924 and 1928, the committee membership was different, but from the same annual conferences. By 1943, a merger with the Missionary Church Association was looking more likely, so the General Conference elected one delegate from each Annual Conference to serve on the Union Committee. That committee was appointed by the Chairman. Pennsylvania’s representative was B. Bryan Musselman, Presiding Elder of Pennsylvania’s Easton District. Those representatives of the nine annual conferences met during that year’s General Conference and reported back:
We, the committee on Church union have met and after carefully seeking information and counsel from those sources available regarding the Doctrine and polity of our sister Churches, the Missionary Church Association and the Defenseless Mennonites, offer the following:
We recommend that the General Conference appoint a Committee of five from the Indiana, Ohio and Michigan Conferences, who shall be authorized to aggressively continue to investigate the possibilities of effecting a church union and further negotiate with the duly elected representatives of our sister churches.[34]
So we learn that Pennsylvania was on the committee for a day or two before the committee was recomposed to include only the three states of the Midwest listed in the resolution. It was
probably frustrating to all that at the next General Conference (1947), the five-member committee reported back that meetings started strong but in the end could not proceed.
At the 1951 General Conference, the Executive Board reported that in between Conferences, they had “elected a committee of five, consisting of R. P. Ditmer, P. G. Lehman, J. E. Tuckey, T. D. Gehret and W. E. Manges, to meet with the fraternal delegates from the Missionary Church Association.”[35] A careful eye will spot a familiar name, T.D. Gehret, who was a pastor from the Pennsylvania Conference and member of the General Executive Board.
The overwhelming norm for the Church Union Committee was to involve Midwest conferences in its leadership. Pennsylvania was rarely included. We do not have records indicating why we were not involved. Was it merely for convenience sake to utilize men from the same geographic region of the other merge parties? Were the PA leaders hesitant to merge with other groups? Were the other MBC conferences disinclined to include us? All we know is that B.B. Musselman and T.D. Gehret both served on the Church Union Committee for less than a year each.
Pilgrim Holiness Church (1923-1924)
One group the MBC held talks with was the Pilgrim Holiness Church. This denomination formed in Ohio in 1897 as a breakaway from the Methodist Episcopal Church. Its original name was the International Holiness Union and Prayer League and was founded by Reverends Seth C. Rees and Martin Wells Knapp as a response to the revival with holiness emphasis of that time (this same revival was affecting our people too). With an emphasis on the regeneration of sinners, entire sanctification, Christ’s imminent and premillennial return, and worldwide evangelization, the League had many of the same doctrinal values of our Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church. The League changed its name a few times until 1922 when it was renamed The Pilgrim Holiness Church.
With their name just recently changed, our records indicate that we were interacting with them about a merger in 1923-24. The Report of the Committee on Church Union reported to our 1924 General Conference that “the Committee held a meeting with several representatives of the Pilgrim Holiness Church, in June, 1923, at Wakarusa, Ind., but nothing of an official character was done.”[36] Modern BFC readers should note that so many of these interdenominational meetings are occurring in the Midwest, presumably initiated by MBC delegates from the Midwest. Pennsylvania so often feels on the fringes of all these union talks. Of further note, PA delegates were rarely on the Union Committees over the years.
In the next paragraph of our minutes, the Pilgrim Holiness Church is mentioned again as still a possible merger with us.
“The Committee also has intimations from several churches that they would be pleased to consider closer affiliations with our church. Among them are the Pilgrim Holiness, The Wesleyan Methodist, and the Defenseless Mennonites. It is probable that some of these and possibly all will have fraternal delegates at this Conference. The Committee proposes to the Conference that it continue a Committee on Church Union during the next quadrennium to meet with similar committees of churches of like faith to consider closer relations.”[37]
The MBC consider the Pilgrim Holiness folks “of like faith.” Though each of our constituent groups had been expelled by their stricter, old Anabaptist churches in the last century and though we still called ourselves “Mennonite,” the PHC and other breakaways from the Methodists were “church[es] of like faith” to us. We must conclude that the holiness revival emphasis both the MBC and PHC embraced was of greater importance to the two groups than was their ethnic (German / English), linguistic (German / English), or cultural (Mennonite / Methodist) origins. Common faith mattered more than common origins.
We never did merge with the PHC. We do not know why negotiations stalled after 1924. No mention was made of the group in subsequent General Conferences. We do have a mention in the Pennsylvania Annual Conference of a R.O. Musser of Bethlehem, PA being introduced at our 1932 (in which he prayed at a meeting’s adjournment) and 1935 Annual Conferences. The minutes do not record anything else about him. But in 1924, someone DID merge with the PHC, that is the Wengerite Brethren in Christ. The Wengerite group struggled along in the decades after the split with the Swankites[38]. They merged with the PHC in 1924. Perhaps their attention focused on assimilating the Wengerites into their Body prevented them from negotiations with us. Perhaps the negative history between the PHC’s Wengerites and our Swankites cooled further talks. It would be interesting to know why we never went any further together.
After we stopped talking about a union with them, the Pilgrims moved on through the decades, ultimately uniting with the Wesleyan Methodist Church in 1968 to form the Wesleyan Church. That these two holiness-minded churches, the WMC and the PHC could find each other in the 1960’s and merge was equal parts wonderful and obvious.
As we have been asking in this study, could a merger between the Pilgrim Holiness Church and the Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church have succeeded? Where would the MBC stand in a 1920’s merger with the PHC? According to their records, in 1926, the PHC had 441 churches and 15,040 members. At roughly the same time, our records show (in 1920) that the MBC had 8,503 members and 200 churches. We were half the size of the PHC and if a merger took place, we would have been a third of the new denomination. A merger would have brought us out of the Anabaptist movement altogether, joining a Methodistic denomination twice our size. Though many of our evangelistic practices were the same at theirs, we were and are credobaptistic. The PHC has since merged with the Wesleyan Church and both came from the Methodist Church. Today’s Wesleyans and Methodists baptize both infants and believers. It is hard to imagine the MBC sincerely entertaining a merger that would eliminate the exclusive practice of believer’s baptism.
Wesleyan Methodist Church (1924)
As was just foreshadowed in our look at the PHC, there were many interactions in the 1920’s between us and the Wesleyans.
The WMC had broken away from the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1841, half a century before the Pilgrim Holiness Church had. Their reason for departure was abolition of slavery, being northern Methodists from Michigan and New York. Yet the Wesleyan Methodist Church had its own encounter with the holiness revival and were at the forefront of it.
At our 1924 General Conference, it was recorded that “Rev. T. P. Baker, Vice-President and Home Missionary Secretary of the Wesleyan Church was introduced to the Conference, who then gave a very inspiring address. Resolved, That the Rev. T. P. Baker be invited to sit in the Conference bar.”[39] After which, we sent our greetings to his denomination using the following resolution:
“Whereas, We have listened with great interest to the address of Rev. T. P. Baker, Vice-President: of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection of America and Home Missionary Secretary of his Church, and,
Whereas, He has come to us as a Fraternal Delegate from his church bringing to us the greetings and good wishes of his people, therefore–
Resolved, That we enjoy the presence of Brother Baker and appreciate the greetings and the expression of fellowship, and further
Resolved, That we wish to return the greetings of this General Conference to the Wesleyan Methodist Connection through Brother Baker their representative.”[40]
During the same General Conference, the Union Committee reported:
“The Committee also has intimations from several churches that they would be pleased to consider closer affiliations with our church. Among them are … The Wesleyan Methodist… The Committee proposes to the Conference that it continue a Committee on Church Union during the next quadrennium to meet with similar committees of churches of like faith to consider closer relations.”[41]
Like we already commented about the PHC, this same report identifies the Wesleyans as a “church of like faith.” Though they are pedobaptistic, more importantly they are revivalistic, like us. Between the lengthy gestures to our visiting Wesleyan guest and the Union Committee report naming Wesleyans as similar enough to consider a merger, one gets the sense that a merger might have really been achieved.
At the next General Conference in 1928, one can read the brief Report of Delegate to Wesleyan Methodist General Conference. “Considering circumstances and conditions, I felt unable to attend, so I have no report to give. – A. B. Yoder.”[42] And that is it; there is no more mention in our records of any merger discussions with the Wesleyans. What were Yoder’s circumstances and conditions? Had sentiments towards the Wesleyans cooled? We wish he had been more specific. Regardless, our merger with the Wesleyans was not in the Lord’s plans for His two churches.
The Wesleyan Church today has 382,000 attendants and 4,300 churches in 99 countries[43]. The BFC pales in comparison with 9,267 in weekly worship attendance in 73 churches.[44]
Today’s BFC congregant cannot even imagine merging with today’s Wesleyan Church. We are Calvinist; they are Arminian. But remember that in the 1920’s, when these discussions were happening, we too were Arminian. Both groups were revivalist. Where would we be today, if the MBC had merged with the Wesleyans a hundred years ago? We would not be Reformed. We would not be elder rule. We have been premillennial since 1895; the Wesleyans do not make such a statement, though they believe in “the certainty of the personal and imminent return of Christ” and “at His return He will fulfill all prophecies made concerning His final and complete triumph over evil.”[45] In this author’s judgement, that is related, but not identical, to our expressed belief in the earthly reign of Christ for 1,000 years. The Wesleyans love our Lord and have genuine faith in the power of His blood for their salvation. But we can say that most in the BFC are glad to be part of this distinct group and not a small fleck in a much larger denomination.
Defenseless Mennonite Church (1920, 24)
In 1866, a group of Amish in Indiana, led by Henry Egly, withdrew from the old order Amish because they wanted to preach the need to be born again. By 1908, they were calling themselves the Defenseless Mennonite Church. It is interesting that they were founded by Amish, yet forty years later were calling themselves Mennonite. There are many points of commonality between us: Anabaptist, German-speaking, mid-nineteenth century revival.
Then in 1920, the minutes of our General Conference has some Defenseless Mennonites present to make formal gestures towards a union. Nebraska Conference made a petition asking General Conference to look into potential church “unions” and listed a few potential groups, among which was the Defenseless Mennonites. When time came to discuss their petition, the minutes report that “J. K. Gerig and Emanuel Slagle, of the Defenseless Mennonite Church also addressed the Conference, again assuring the Conference of their desire to cooperate with us in every possible way.”[46] Later in 1924, the minutes of General Conference only refer to a discussion of merging the Defenseless Mennonite Church periodical into our Gospel Banner. We resolved to allow the union of the two publications if our Executive Committee and The Gospel Banner’s editor and publisher all approved. All we read in 1928 is that our delegate to their conference (C.I. Scott of Nebraska) did not attend. Then it is not until 1943 that another mention is made to potential merger with the DMC. Our Committee on Church Union reported in 1947 that “it seemed that the door was being closed.”
Could a merger of the Defenseless Mennonites and the MBC have worked well in the 1920’s? Across all our General Conference, our number was 8,500 strong; the Defenseless Mennonites had 1,200 baptized members.[47] It could have worked well at that time. Though they had originated as a revivalistic offshoot of the Amish, they soon self-identified as Mennonite. A kindredness between our groups was sure to be felt on both sides since both were Revivalistic Mennonites. Similar passion for the lost finding the washing power of Jesus’ blood would have been seen in both groups’ ministry efforts. A merging of these two denominations really could have worked nicely in the 1920’s.
The Defenseless Mennonite Church changed their name twice more and are still operating today. In 1948, they changed their name to the “Evangelical Mennonite Church” a year after our General Conference removed “Mennonite” from our name. Then again in 2003, the once Egly-Amish changed their name again to “Fellowship of Evangelical Churches”. In 2025, they have 72 churches mostly in the Midwest. Their denomination started Brotherhood Mutual Insurance in 1917, an organization the BFC uses today.
Could a modern merger of the Fellowship of Evangelical Churches and the Bible Fellowship Church be a successful one? They have 72 churches. We have 73 churches. They preach the need to be born again. We preach the need to be born again. Being Anabaptist, both groups only recognize believer’s baptism, though they encourage immersion while we practice only immersion.[48] They do not articulate a rigid Calvinism or Arminianism in their statements of salvation, though in their article on The Fall, they end by saying “Therefore all men are sinners and guilty before God, are dead in their sins, and unable to save themselves.”[49] On the end times, they are historically premillennial though now they allow differing views “in a spirit of unity and charity”[50] a stance we seem to be moving toward today. In this author’s perusal of their Faith and Practice, there is much that commends a merger. In the end, though, our explicit Calvinism would likely be the factor that would prevent a union of the two groups. If conversations began, and they were willing to be a little more explicit and we were willing to be slightly less explicit, perhaps something could work out between us.
Missionary Church Association (1927-1928, 1939-1942, 1951, 1969)
There are whispers that the Missionary Church Association had informal discussions with the MBC back in 1898, the MCA’s early years[51]. But the first time we read of formal talks between the two denominations is in the 1920 minutes of the General Conference of the MBC. Much of the agenda of these General Conferences was in addressing the petitions of the state-wide Annual Conferences. In 1920, the Nebraska Conference made six petitions, the fourth of which read:
“Whereas, there have been some prominent ministers of the Defenseless Mennonite church, and also of the Missionary Church Association who have expressed a desire for an organic union, which union, we believe and trust, would be of much benefit in propagating the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the doctrines which are dear to all of us,
Resolved, That we recommend to the General Conference of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ church to take such steps as they deem proper and fit in looking toward a union with these and other bodies of like faith.”
Conference decided to elect a committee on the question of “union”. Three men were elected: S. Goudie, C. I. Scott, A. B. Yoder. The minutes record a bit of what discussion occurred:
“Resolved, That these recommendations [concerning a school] be laid on the table until after the recommendations of the Nebraska Conference concerning a union, is considered.
Resolved, That N. W. Rich address the Conference on the above recommendation. N. W. Rich then spoke briefly.
J. A. Huffman was also requested to speak on the above recommendation, which he did.
J. K. Gerig and Emanuel Slagle, of the Defenseless Mennonite Church also addressed the Conference, again assuring the Conference of their desire to cooperate with us in every possible way.
After deliberation upon the recommendation from the Nebraska Conference, relative to “union,” the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That a committee be elected to formulate a report concerning the above recommendation.”[52]
While the Nebraska petition mentioned both the Defenseless Mennonites AND the Missionary Church Association, the deliberations at General Conference only cite the Defenseless Mennonites addressing our Body. Certainly the committee assigned to investigate the topic would be free to take a wide look around.
Let’s rewind to the start of the MCA. The Missionary Church Association was founded by Joseph Ramseyer in 1898 as a split off from the Egly-Amish. While Egly and his followers did emphasize the new birth, Ramseyer also wanted to teach “a distinct experience of baptism of the Holy Spirit, premillennialism, and baptism by immersion.”[53] He was removed from the Egly-Amish church in 1896 for having been baptized by immersion in Lake Erie at Cleveland, Ohio and encouraging others to do the same.[54]
The MCA was founded by German-speaking folk in the Midwest who had experienced revival fires that had similarly affected us. So it seemed only natural to initiate conversations with them about merging. In our General Conference minutes it states that we negotiated with them in 1927-1928, 1939-42, and 1951. In the middle of that stream of interactions, the General Conference changed its name from “Mennonite Brethren in Christ” to “The United Missionary Church” in 1947. It takes little imagination to see that the change to United Missionary Church took some inspiration from the interactions with the Missionary Church Association.
Delegates from both denominations met from 1940-1942 and reported back to their respective Conferences that:
“We reiterate the statement made in the previous meeting on our agreement in doctrine; and that we go on record as further agreeing that some progress has been made in formulating a tentative plan of church polity that might be mutually satisfactory, and that while a satisfactory solution of difference has not been reached, yet it is our conviction that a solution can be found under the leadership of the Holy Spirit if we definitely feel that it is God’s will for a merger to be effected.”[55]
Lavish was the anticipation of this MCA/MBC merger. It was to be effected, the two merging in 1969. Only we from Pennsylvania were not to be part of this new union, leaving the General Conference in the midst of the negotiations, and in part, because of them.
We earlier recalled the story of the Pennsylvania Conference (us) leaving the MBC/UMC in 1952, linking it in part to the pending merger of the UMC and MCA. By the time of the UMC General Conference of 1951, it seemed that all systems were go for a merger between the General Conference and the Missionary Church Association. However, the two did not finalize the merger until 1969, eighteen years later. With the departure of the Pennsylvania Conference in 1952, did General Conference take a slower stride towards the merger which caused Pennsylvania to withdraw? Were there a myriad of minutiae to align before the two would unite? Would Pennsylvania have left so precipitously if we had known the merger would take another eighteen years? Would General Conference have dropped the merger discussions altogether if they had known what it would cost? Or was everyone on all sides of the issue finally glad that the withdraw of the Pennsylvania Conference had finally occurred?
After our departure, the remaining annual conferences of the United Missionary Church (formerly Mennonite Brethren in Christ) merged with the Missionary Church Association in 1969 to become The Missionary Church. From their perspective, our departure was a painful separation that was consoled in part by the merger. They write “Both sides had also suffered painful separations: the MCA in the early 1920’s over the doctrine of sanctification and the UMC when the Pennsylvania district broke away in 1952 over church polity to form what later became the Bible Fellowship Church. Thus, the ceremonial tying of the knot in 1969 was the result of a lengthy, thoughtful merger process.”[56]
Christian and Missionary Alliance
We were very close to the CMA in the first decades of the twentieth century largely through the friendship of (our) C.H. Brunner and (their) A.B. Simpson. Many Simpson hymns are in our Rose of Sharon hymnal. Many articles by Simpson were printed in our Gospel Banner as well as news of CMA goings-on. Many of our earliest missionaries were sent out by the CMA because they had the sending arm that we did not have.
C.E. Kirkwood was one of our pastors and was a District Superintendent in the MBC/BFC from 1954-1961. Over his years in the role, he was part of a few inter-denominational conversations about merging. In a 1972 paper he wrote for our Ministerial Convention, he pulls back the curtain on a few of these meetings. He writes:
“Now for the Christian and Missionary Alliance: though we have been closely associated with this group over the years, perhaps less today than in our history, merger seems most remote, I am not sure that the Alliance know what they believe and where they are going. Though there are some that feel this is so of us, so might be the basis of a merger. To my mind, merger with the C & M A would only add to our problems and create more confusion.”[57]
By the 1970’s C.E. Kirkwood seems to think that the CMA’s people were not as devoted to their doctrine as they were fifty years earlier. He then wonders whether we were in the same boat as they were in 1972. To a modern BFC reader, this is a surprising statement. Our love of Reformed soteriology today seems to us to have been experiencing its Renaissance in the 60’s and 70’s. For a central figure in our movement during that perceived Renaissance to say that ‘there are some that feel that we do not know where we are going’ is puzzling to us. When he writes “there are some,” is he making a small swipe at the less Reformed folks in the BFC at that time?
It is not ideal to merge two groups that are not sure what they stand for. Ideally, the two groups should fully grasp where they have been and where they are presently. Only then can the two imagine a future together. You can think of a couple who got married who weren’t really ready; they rushed into it and didn’t fully know the other person or even themselves. Conversely you can recall thinking during the nuptial festivities, “these two were made for each other! This is going to be a happy marriage.” Apparently, Kirkwood did not feel that the CMA and the BFC were ready to unite from 1954-61 since neither knew themselves well enough to be an apt candidate for a union.
Today the Alliance Church has roughly 2,000 churches in the United States and 20,000 worldwide in 81 countries. They have about 500,000 members domestically and 6 million worldwide.[58] Be encouraged that the BFC contributed to that spiritual fruit through missionaries the C&MA sent out from our churches!
Evangelical Free Church
The EFCA had a similar experience in their first decades to our own, as an immigrant minority group. We, of course, were German-speaking immigrants from Switzerland and Southern Germany, largely. They from Sweden, Denmark, and Norway. Their Swedish branch began in 1884 as the Swedish Free Church. This is a similar timeframe to our founding mergers in 1883. So with a similar background of branching out as a subgroup distinct from the popular culture, we could have had sympathetic union.
We turn again to C.E. Kirkwood. Returning to his 1972 paper, he writes regarding the possibility of merging with the EFCA, “The Evangelical Free Church – during my days as District Superintendent they did make rather vague overtures. Their origin in the Scandinavian Tongue has left a mark upon them that does limit their effectiveness in some areas. Their liberal view of baptism would create a hazard to many of us.”[59] The EFCA believes that baptism is an essential practice of Christians; they allow churches and individuals to baptize infants or believers, by sprinkling or immersion; baptism is not necessary for church membership.[60]
So any serious talks about merging the Bible Fellowship Church with the Evangelical Free Church in America was dead-on-arrival because of our incompatibility with them on baptism. As historically Anabaptist, the BFC has always recognized only the baptism of a believer. The predominate practice among their churches is believer’s baptism, but they do not challenge infant baptism among their fellowship.
Let’s imagine if somehow there could have been or today could be a merger of the EFCA and the BFC. In 1950 when the Norwegian-Danish Free Church merged with the Swedish Free Church to form the Evangelical Free Church in America, they had a combined total of 275 churches and 20,000 people. Today, they have bloomed from those 275 churches to 1,600 churches in 2025. Our 44 churches in 1952[61] (when we left The United Missionary Church / MBC) paled in comparison to their 275 of that time. Today their 1,600 churches dwarf our 73 churches. If a merger happened or will happen, our group will be a small fish in a very large pool. As pastors and members would migrate between the churches, the two sides of the merge would gradually integrate. This essentially would mean that the BFC would change to accommodate the significantly larger EFCA. In a merge, both parties need to go in eyes wide opened, understanding the inevitable end result.
It is not surprising that initial gestures never went further than that. Kirkwood for one did not consider a BFC/EFCA merge as a realistic idea.
Conclusion
In the first third of our existence, the Bible Fellowship Church was party to many mergers. Since then, we have had talks, but nothing coalesced.
We should ask ourselves why. Is the lack of a merger good or bad for us? Does it say something about us that we have neither pursued or achieved a merger?
When entertaining similar questions, MBC pastor and district superintendent from Ontario Conference, Sam Goudie, weighed in on why we had remained distinct in his generation. Speaking to the Minister’s Convention in 1924, together with Peter Cober, he listed a few doctrinal distinctives that preserved us as unique across the Universal Church. Cober listed “Repentance, regeneration, entire sanctification” as fundamental doctrines which “have kept us from being swallowed up in other organizations.”[62] Goudie then added “the doctrine of separation, non-resistance, non-swearing of oaths, washing the saint’s feet, baptism by immersion.”[63] These brothers from another state Annual Conference still accurately assess the modern Bible Fellowship Church and its reasons for “not being swallowed up” in another church merger. Our doctrinal distinctives define who we are. They describe us and they limit us. Cober and Goudie’s list may not be our list. But that we have a list at all means we have already limited those with whom we could merge.
Similar to the MBC perspective on future mergers, Kirkwood writing from a 1970’s BFC perspective agrees on our thorough distinctiveness. He writes “Our unique and most distinctive doctrinal and church government and separation position creates the most formidable obstacle to merger. This is something we may be proud of and not state with shame.”[64] By the 1970’s the BFC had concluded its position on so many doctrinal questions that it created obstacles to future denominational mergers. We believe what every evangelical church believes: God is three-in-one, Christ bodily rose from the dead, the Bible is inspired by God and free from error. If we were only to have gone that far, we would retain the possibility of merging with hundreds of denominations. But we did not stop there, and also unreservedly maintain doctrines derived from Scripture that narrow the field of merger candidates. We believe that water baptism is to be received by true believers by the mode of immersion, mankind is totally depraved and incapable of initiating faith in Christ so God elects some to be saved and effectually calls them to be born again, Christ will return to earth and reign over mankind for 1,000 years. These doctrines are precious to us. And there are scores of denominations that would also agree with one or the other of those doctrines. But the combination of all those doctrines together make us distinct. This is a beautiful thing, and we fervently believe they are taught in Scripture. As Jewish Tevye says to his daughter Chava in the musical Fiddler on the Roof when she falls in love with a Gentile young man “a bird and a fish may fall in love, but where will they build a house together?” So the BFC may one day find joyful friendship with another denomination, but our doctrines and theirs will likely keep us from merging together.
Of all the potential mergers that never happened, this author suggests that the one that really could have benefited the Bible Fellowship Church then OR now would be the Defenseless Mennonites, now Fellowship of Evangelical Churches. Being equally sized today, we would enter the merger as equals. Ultimately, they are a softer, gentler version of us. They are Anabaptist. But in many ways they are less precise (maybe less “picayune”) than we are, practicing only believer’s baptism but flexible on mode, and not definitive on divine-sovereignty/human-responsibility like we are, and allowing for diversity with charity and unity on end times doctrines. In some of these areas, the Bible Fellowship Church has recently shown a desire to be more flexible and diverse. However, one would find themselves in trouble for positing we should be more diverse in our salvation doctrinal statements. We would need to move past our desire for distinctiveness if we were to seriously engage merger conversations with the FEC today. Perhaps that day is coming when collaboration will be more highly valued than distinctiveness. Or perhaps we will increasingly appreciate the contribution other groups make to the Kingdom while remaining a unique expression of that Kingdom.
For the Bible Fellowship Church in the twenty-first century, we should always ask ourselves whether our list of practical and doctrinal distinctives are too restrictive. And we should always ask ourselves if we see our faith and practice described in the pages of the New Testament. We should never merge for merging’s sake. But nor should we go alone for going alone’s sake either. Let us keep our eyes open and pray to God for the actual unity of His Church even as He prayed on the night in which He was betrayed into sinful hands for the redemption of our souls.
“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them,
that they may be one, just as We are one;
I in them and You in Me,
that they may be perfected in unity,
so that the world may know that You sent Me,
and loved them, even as You have loved Me.”
John 17:22-23
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Mennonite Brethren in Christ Church, Pennsylvania Conference. (1952). Minutes of sixty-ninth annual conference. https://bfchistory.org/conference/minutes-of-conference/1952-annual-conference-minutes/
Nussbaum, Stan. (1980). You must be born again: a History of the Evangelical Mennonite Church. Evangelical Mennonite Church.
Shelly, Harold P. (1992). The Bible Fellowship Church. The Historical Committee of the Bible Fellowship Church.
Shelly, Harold P. (1972). Comparison of growth of the Bible Fellowship Church and the United Missionary Church since 1952. https://bfchistory.org/writings-from-our-pastors/comparison-of-growth-of-the-bible-fellowship-church-and-the-united-missionary-church-since-1952/
Strand, Greg. (2015, July 22). Baptism: infant and believer. Evangelical Free Church in America. https://blogs.efca.org/posts/baptism-infant-and-believer
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Footnotes
[1] Shelly, 1992, p5-6.
[2] Evangelical Mennonite Society of East Pennsylvania, 1867, p3.
[3] Huffman, 1920, p39.
[4] Huffman, 1920, p41-42.
[5] Hartzler & Kauffman, 1905, p344.
[6] Brenneman, 1917, Nov 28.
[7] Huffman, 1920, p48.
[8] Huffman, 1920, p48.
[9] Huffman, 1920, p84.
[10] The Swankite interest in printed doctrine lines up with the Oberholtzer interest in printed church meeting minutes.
[11] Isaac Moyer’s private letter, referenced in Huffman, 1920, p.52.
[12] Minutes of the March 23, 1875 meeting of the United Mennonites, referenced in Huffman, 1920, p.53.
[13] Ibid. p70.
[14] Evangelical United Mennonites, 1879, Nov 6.
[15] The Gospel Banner. April 1, 1882. p.54.
[16] The Gospel Banner. December 1, 1882. p.181.
[17] MBC, 1924.
[18] MBC, 1947, Eleventh Meeting.
[19] Ibid.
[20] MBC, 1952.
[21] MBC, 1920.
[22] The report to the 1924 General Conference reads “In keeping with the provision of the last General Conference for the organization of a General Conference Board of Foreign Missions, representatives of the Ontario, Indiana and Ohio, Michigan and Nebraska Conferences met in Elkhart, Ind., in January, 1921 and adopted a Constitution and by-laws. The same has been ratified by the following Conferences: Ontario, Indiana and Ohio, Michigan, Nebraska, pacific and Canadian Northwest” (MBC, 1924).
[23] MBC, 1952.
[24] MBC, 1943.
[25] MBC, 1952
[26] Ibid.
[27] Fuller in his book on Ontario’s Sam Goudie reflects on Pennsylvania’s rejection of the UMC name. “For some reason I do not understand, the Pennsylvania Conference opposed the name change and again, negotiated permission to retain the name from 1947 to 1952. Some say it was because they wanted to remain Mennonite, but subsequent events do not support this. In 1952 they finalized their decision not to participate in the United Missionary Church any more and that was accepted by the rest of the Church. The Pennsylvania churches dropped the MBiC name themselves in 1959, to become the Bible Fellowship Church, which they are still called in the twenty-first century.” We can especially appreciate his sentiment at the end of the footnote of his story; he writes “God bless them. They have an active Historical Society” (Fuller, 2024, p316).
[28] MBC, 1892.
[29] MBC, 1896.
[30] MBC, 1900
[31] United Brethren, n.d.
[32] United Brethren, 1841.
[33] MBC, 1920.
[34] MBC, 1943.
[35] MBC, 1951.
[36] MBC, 1924
[37] Ibid.
[38] GAMEO.
[39] MBC, 1924.
[40] Ibid.
[41] Ibid.
[42] MBC, 1928
[43] The Wesleyan Church, Worldwide Wesleyans
[44] BFC, 2025, p184.
[45] The Wesleyan Church, Articles of Religion.
[46] MBC, 1920.
[47] Huffman, 1920, p33.
[48] Fellowship of Evangelical Churches, 2022, Article V.E.1.para 3.
[49] Ibid. Article III.B.para4.
[50] Ibid. Article VI.A.para2-3.
[51] Fuller, 2024, p260.
[52] MBC, 1920.
[53] Nussbaum, 1980, p.14.
[54] Lugibihl & Gerig, 1950, p.27.
[55] Ibid. p135
[56] Erdel & Engbrecht, 1994.
[57] Kirkwood, 1972.
[58] C&MA, n.d.
[59] Kirkwood, 1972.
[60] Strand, 2015.
[61] “At the time of its withdrawal” in 1952 writes Mr. Storms, “the Pennsylvania District had forty-four appointments with 4,489 members.” per Shelly, 1972.
[62] Fuller, 2024, p245-246.
[63] Ibid. p246.
[64] Kirkwood, 1972