A History of the Mennonite Brethren Church, Ja Toews

ology as being church-centered. For them the congregation was a company of committed disciples who had entered into a covenant with their Lord and with each other for holy living and faithful service. This aspect is reflected in the M.B. Confession of Faith: The characteristics of the true church are: The fruits of conversion and of the right faith of Jesus Christ revealed in a life of sanctification according to the teaching of Christ and His apostles; the diligent searching of the Scriptures and the preaching of the pure gospel in all the world; practice of the holy ordinances of Christ which are baptism and the Lord's Supper; the free confession of God and Jesus Christ before all men; fervent brotherly love, fellowship and submission among themselves and love of their neighbors; diligence to uphold the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace; taking up the cross in following Jesus. . . . 41 Although the Brethren emphasized personal acceptance of Christ as Savior and Lord, they had a strong consciousness and conviction with regard to the corporate nature of salvation. For them the church was not merely an aggregate of individual believers, but an organism, the body of Christ. "Without this corporate oneness," F. C. Peters wrote some years ago, "there can be no church."' 2 It is this consciousness of interdependence which forms both the basis and the motivation for church discipline — a Mennonite Brethren distinctive which seems to be rapidly disappearing. This "brotherhood-consciousness" saved the brethren from individualism and an overemphasis on the autonomy of the local church. In describing the distinctive characteristics of early Mennonite Brethren theology, A. H. Unruh makes the following observation: "Although the brethren as individuals and as groups lived in widely scattered areas, they constituted only 'one' church. The brethren in the Molotschna, in Chortitza, and on the Kuban considered themselves as one church, which walked according to the same rule." 43 In recent years the brotherhood-consciousness and church loyalty among Mennonite Brethren has been undermined and weakened by the inroads of American individualism as well as by modern interdenomina- tionalism. UNDERSTANDING BIBLICAL REVELATION 373 6. Evangelism and Missions "The divine assignment to preach the Gospel to every creature is the privilege and responsibility involving every member of the brotherhood." This statement from a recent report of the Board of Missions and Services indicates the central place that Mennonite Brethren have given to evangelism and missions in their theology. If, as has been claimed, the Mennonite Brethren Church "was born in an atmosphere of missions and missionary endeavor," 44 then it is not surprising that Mennonite Brethren theology is evangelistic in spirit. As indicated earlier, no other cause or concern has received such wholehearted and universal support in the M.B. Conf