Communities And Assemblies Evangelical France

Communities and evangelical Assemblies of France (FSD) is one of the branches of evangelical Protestantism French. They are the French version of the Plymouth Brethren say "open" or "broad" or also known as Plymouth Brethren. They claim the double origin, Swiss and British, but as the whole of evangelical Protestantism, the FSD heirs assert the Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth and thirteenth Clocks.

Root in the Reformation and Revival

Like most of Evangelicals, the roots of the FSD Reform back to the sixteenth and eighteenth Clocks with special emphasis on return to New Testament model. The Plymouth Brethren hold especially of the Protestant Reformation, the attachment to the Bible, the importance of its practice, the insistence on free salvation without works, a distrust of large institutions that seek to control the churches ... In Radical Reformation (Anabaptism or) they retain the emphasis on personal commitment including professed in baptism of believers, some distance with governments ... With the crisis of Enlightenment, part of Protestantism bogged down in rationalism and one enters a revival "gospel" first with "pietism" German late seventeenth (Spener, Francke, Zinzendorf ...) and then with the Anglo-Saxon Revival ( John Wesley , George Whitefield , Jonathan Edwards ( theologian) ...). These clocks, the FSD retain the call to march in the consecration and holiness, a closer reading of the Bible, the centrality of the cross, the need to be a witness of the Gospel ...

The First Meeting Swiss

The first "House" was born in Geneva in 1817 is claimed as being both the first Free Church and the first "Meeting of Brothers" in this country . In a highly rationalistic, several students in the faculty of theology of Geneva discovered a new reading of the Bible by a Scottish way, Robert Haldane. They experience a deep conversion and thus, the main principles that have characterized previous Clocks German and English. After a painful break with the official church in 1817 for the first time, ten people (including Mjanelle, Malan, Pyt ...) meet to take the Lord's Supper. In 1819, two pastors are appointed officially: Guers and Gonthier. This church, several missionaries crisscross first Switzerland and then France. They will not try to create a new name: Henri Pyt be involved mainly in the French Baptism, Frederic Monod in the creation of Churches Free French, Felix Neff in the Reformed Churches of the Isere and Hautes-Alpes ...

Origin UK with Plymouth Brethren

At first, unrelated Switzerland, grown quite young Christians gather to study the Bible and live it more intensely in Dublin around 1825 and, almost independently, Plymouth, Bristol and Barnstaple in Britain . The study of Bible prophecy is an important place in the context of such fears the consequences of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars. There is already talk of the restoration of Israel and preparing for the return of Jesus Christ. They came from different churches and wanted to demonstrate the unity of Christians. Their understanding of the priesthood and therefore rejects the distinction between "clergy-lay". Among the pioneers were found Anthony N. Groves, John G. Bellet, Edward Cronin, John Parnell (later Lord Congleton), Henry Craik, George Muller ... In 1825, Groves, dentist and future missionary, published a small pamphlet under the name "Christian Devotedness. It calls into question the implicit system of social castes in English society accepted even in evangelical circles. He insists on finding the treasures of heaven. Groves put into practice what he wrote, giving much of his income to God's work. He formulated missiological principles that will be taken over by George Muller, Hudson Taylor ... Henry Craik was converted in 1828 and became guardian of the children of the family Groves, Muller married a sister of Grove. In 1831, Craik and Muller start a group in Bristol a few years that will reach the 1000 members. Muller, a man of exceptional faith, will be the source of orphanages in this city famous. In Plymouth, leaders like Benjamin Newton, Samuel Prideaux Tregelles occasionally helped by John Darby led one of the most radiant assemblies. In 1832, the periodical Christian Witness is created stating this House and the network begin to weave. Hence the name "Plymouth Brethren". John Nelson Darby, meanwhile, waives a legal career to become a pastor in the Anglican Church in Ireland about 1826. The following year he met the group in Dublin with whom he sympathized. He broke with the Anglican Church after 10 years. The impressive capabilities of Darby will open many doors for him in these new and informal meetings of Brothers. By his incessant travels he became one of the main ambassadors of these churches in the British Isles, Switzerland, France ... But in many areas, its position will cause a strong challenge including the design of the apostasy of Christianity or infant baptism ... For the severity of exclusions it had imposed in the 1840s, the Brotherhood movement will lead to its largest division in 1848. A wing "exclusive" will follow the positions of Darby and the others follow the more 'open' Muller, Craik, Chapman ...

Despite these tensions will grow churches and missionary zeal, following Groves will be deployed in many nations. In Britain, the Awakening of 1859 benefit all of Evangelicals and enabled strong growth of the Assemblies of Brethren.

Development in Switzerland in the nineteenth

The number of dissenting churches grow after the zeal of the Church of Bourg-du-Four, but the exclusions imposed by the official Church against those who too favorable to the clock. Many of these churches later joined the Brotherhood in 1840 under the impulse of visits undertaken by John Darby and the influence of British literature of the first meetings. But by 1842, the Geneva Assembly, and a few others later, broke with Darby on the same grounds that the division in Britain. Of these changes, three emerging trends: 1) the Union of Free Churches established in 1849, 2) A stream of meetings called "darbystes" 3) A stream of meetings known as "Brothers broad" . This combination will be closest to the Open Brethren in Britain and will, sometimes with British missionaries, the creation of new assemblies in the world. They were at the origin of the creation of those in Romania (1899), the Lao Evangelical Church (1902) ... and also in France.

French Origin

Darby is very active in France since 1837. After the split of 1848, he leads all meetings in his vision more closely. They thrive in the mid-nineteenth to the chagrin of the Reformed Church from whence some of its members. In 1880 we are talking of 146 Assemblies "exclusive" in France .

The current Brotherhood wide "very shy, makes an appearance in the Paris region in 1850 in Vitry with family Bieler. In 1897, the magazine of the Assemblies of Brethren (large) in Switzerland, Sowing and Reaping, by simply identifies four in France: Paris, Die-in-Drome in Vallauris and Cannes . Among the pioneers who will start these meetings large late nineteenth and early twentieth include Swiss missionaries like Henry Fritz Widmer and Countess of Montbliard in the country in 1897; hawkers from Italy, which are themselves marked by the current Brothers, who will very active in Vallauris, Cannes, Antibes ... and an English missionary working among the Italians, N. Newberry behind the church in Nice. Throughout the twentieth century, new churches will be based. The missionaries Anglo-Saxon and Swiss will play a significant role. Other churches have developed independently and, from some point in their history, have chosen to join the approach "Brothers," as was the case of the Good News in Strasbourg. In 1971, there were about 40 assemblies to over 100 at the end of the century.

Principles of current FSD

These colleges, although they have dropped the word "Brotherhood" in 1975, - perhaps out of respect for the sisters - to recognize their full part in this historical trend. A summary of the particulars of the FSD drafted by the Coordination Commission recalls:

• These colleges are part fully in the legacy of the early Christians, the Protestant Reformation, the Anabaptist faith and evangelical revival of the 18th and 19th centuries.
• At the theological level, they have a confession of faith rather classical, being within the current network FEF
• They have a functioning Congregational, that is, each local church or congregation has no structure above it that dictated his conduct. Decisions are, ultimately, at the local church and not at the level of a national committee, a synod, a bishop or an international structure.
• However, FSD stand of Churches "completely independent", they think it is essential to live and witness to the unity of the Body of Christ, and to establish fraternal relations with sister churches concrete, including those of its own family of churches. These colleges also have a national General Assembly may make decisions with some involvement in all the churches.
• They are fully respectful of the structures that have sought and still seek to reconcile the Evangelicals on a biblical basis as the FSF network, the former French Evangelical Alliance, the National Council of Evangelicals in France ...
• Churches often have FSD "pastors" in their midst as they call "servant", but they are among the old ones. The College of the Church is one of the highlights of the FSD. In this they are fully in the network of churches Brothers internationally.

References Internet

Site history of Plymouth Brethren

• Site on the history of the Open Brethren
• Wiki page angais

Open site in France called Brethren, Evangelical Assemblies and Communities of France (FSD)

• Official site of the current "open" Brothers, the FSD

References

• The Brethren , a novel written by American writer John Grisham and published in 2000
• (In) This article is partially or entirely from the article in English entitled " Brethren "(see the list of authors )
• GRASS Tim, Gathering In His Name, The Story of Open Brethren in Britain and Ireland, Paternoster, 2006;
• COAD EN, A History of the Brethren Movement, Regent College Publishing, 2001 (1st edition, 1968, published by Paternoster);
• Robert BAYLIS, My People, The History of Those Christians Sometimes Called Plymouth Brethren, Harold Shaw Publishers, 1997;
• Rowdon Harold H., The Origins of the Brethren, 1825-1850, London: Pickering and Inglis, 1967;
• DICKSON GRASS Neil and Tim, The Growth Of The Brethren Movement, Essays in Honor of Harold H. Rowdon edited by Paternoster, 2006
• The series of articles by Jean-Pierre Bory published by the journal Serve the meantime, from January 1996 to August 1998 downloaded from www.caef.net
• KUEN Alfred, the boldness of faith, George Muller, Emmaus.
• GUERS E. The first clock and the first independent church, Geneva, 1871;
• MAURY Leon, The religious revival in the Reformed Church in Geneva and France (1810-1850), Paris, 1892, 874 p. ;
• MOURS Samuel, A century of evangelization in France (1815-1914), Flavion, 1963;
• MUTZENBERG Gabriel, Listening Revival, Editions Emmaus, 1989;
• Peloux Alfred, the preaching of the Revival in France, Montauban, 1908;
• Robert Daniel and Samuel MOURS, Protestantism in France from the eighteenth to the present day, Paris, 1972, 446 p. ;
• KOZYCKI Reynald, Revival Theology at Felix Neff, Master's thesis, Free Faculty of Reformed Theology at Aix-en-Provence, 1996, 130 p.

References

• Protestantism portal
• France portal

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