Church of the United Brethren in
Christ
The Church of the United Brethren in
Christ is an evangelical Christian denomina-
tion based in Huntington, Indiana.
Overview
The church is a Protestant denomination of
episcopal structure, Arminian theology, with
roots in the Mennonite and German Re-
formed
communities
of
18th
century
Pennsylvania, as well as close ties to Method-
ism. It was founded by Martin Boehm and is
the first American denomination that was not
transplanted from Europe.
In 1889, a controversy over membership
in secret societies, such as the Freemasons,
the proper way to modify the church’s consti-
tution, and other issues split the United
Brethren into majority liberal and minority
conservative blocs, the latter of which was
led by Bishop Milton Wright (father of the
Wright Brothers).
The majority faction merged with the
Evangelical Church in 1946 to form a new de-
nomination known as the Evangelical United
Brethren Church (EUB). This in turn merged
in 1968 with The Methodist Church to form
the United Methodist Church (UMC).
The Wright-led faction (The Church of the
United Brethren in Christ, Old Constitution)
continues today as a denomination of about
550 congregations, with 47,300 members in
fifteen countries. The US National Confer-
ence consists of about 200 churches and
25,000 members in the United States, plus
mission districts in Haiti and India. The Un-
ited States national office, known as Healthy
Ministry Resources, is located in Huntington,
Indiana, as is the denomination’s only col-
lege, Huntington University and its Graduate
School of Christian Ministries.
History
Though not organized until 1800, the roots of
the church reach back to 1767. In May of
that year, a Great Meeting (part of the inter-
denominational revival movement known as
Martin Boehm.
the "Great Awakening") was held at a barn
belonging
to
Isaac Long
in Lancaster,
Pennsylvania. Martin Boehm (1725-1812), a
Mennonite preacher, spoke of his becoming a
Christian through crying out to God while
plowing in the field. Philip Will