Church of the Brethren Inglenook Cookbook

                     

I received  "The New Inglenook Cookbook" (Brethren Press, 2013) for my birthday (arrived Friday for my September birthday). I have my mother's "Granddaughter's Inglenook cookbook" (Brethren Publishing House, 1942), and someone in the family may have the first one that was my grandmother's (1901). I don't do a lot of cooking that needs recipes anymore, but I love to read them. Also, I love looking at the names of the women who contributed the recipes. Still so many old Brethren names. I see "Sweet sour meatloaf" very similar to mine, which I hand out to new brides. Things have changed: Gluten free scones contributed by Elsie Holderread of McPherson, KS (2013) compared to Wieners in Creole Sauce by Mrs. Irva Kendrick Haney, Muscatine, IA (1942).

Also listed for a 1942 school lunch was cottage cheese and chopped pepper sandwiches with raw turnip strips. I don't know about other people my age, but cottage cheese was in everything at our house.

I think the reason women my mother's age (b. 1912) used so much cottage cheese is that their mothers made it from the skim milk left after separating the cream. My grandmother (b. 1876) used several pounds of real butter a week--I have her butter churn--and that's a lot of skim milk left over which needed to be made into something. I watched her working with (I thought it was a smelly mess) it, but by then she must have used purchased milk since they no longer had a cow. If all the liquid is pressed out (whey, which is then fed to the pigs), it is called farmer's cheese. This is from someone who knows nothing about it, so corrections are welcome.

The 2013 edition has a symbol for gluten-free.  This one looks impossibly easy.

“The best peanut butter cookie” contributed by Sharon A. Walker (Brumbaugh) Clayton, Ohio, p. 290

• 1 c. creamy peanut butter
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 t. baking soda
• Preheat oven to 350 and grease 2 baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
• Beat together the peanut butter and sugar until combine.  Beat in the egg. Sprinkle baking soda over the mixture and beat until combined.
• Roll heaping teaspoon-size pieces of dough into small balls. Arrange on the prepared baking sheets and with the tines of a fork, flatten the balls.
• Bake the cookies in batches in the middle of the oven until puffed and pale golden, about 10 minutes
• Cook the cookies on the baking sheets for 2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks.  This is important because they are very fragile when hot from the oven.

After checking the internet, I see Ms. Brumbaugh Walker also contributed to a genealogy book (found it on WorldCat) and I'm sure if I dug a little deeper, we'd find some Brethren relatives in common from Montgomery County who came there from Pennsylvania.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/CottageCheese.html

Leaning on the everlasting arms

We sang that old hymn at the dockside service at Lakeside last Sunday, Sept. 4. Published in 1887, it tells of the assurance of God's steadfast care and guidance in tough times, and offers the peace of a relationship with him. I grew up in the Church of the Brethren where I don't recall we sang anything that had a beat--and then in 1974 became a Lutheran and they missed out on those twangy camp songs too, being mostly ethnic Scandinavians (in our synod). The first time I heard it was in Flat Creek, Kentucky in 1956 where my sister Carol was a volunteer church worker through Brethren Volunteer Service. Because she was only 19 at the time, and I was her "little" sister, I was stunned at the level of spiritual and social responsibility she had. Like riding horseback into the mountains to provide Sunday school in areas that had no passable roads; working in the garden and taking care of chickens (and plucking them) for food for the staff (I think there were 5 people living in a little house); helping the local women with sewing and. . . leading hymns like this one. In that area of the country it was sung like a dirge and a capella--not peppy and clappy the way we did it at dockside with an electronic organ. Carol went to be with the Lord in 1996, but everytime I hear "Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms," I think of that amazing, fearless teen-ager. Now I keep track of her 5 grandchildren (4 teens) on Facebook, Will, Jenny, Rachel, Catie and Chris.

Carol's BVS unit 1955. Wearing white blouse, looking between two women in the second row. She also helped flood victims in Pennsylvania, canvassed a neighborhood in Denver for a church plant, and was a "guinea pig" for the NIH. In 1957 she entered Goshen College in Indiana where she got her RN.

Are you ashamed of your roots?

This may be the all time favorite e-Christmas card going around. It's from 2004, but never gets old. One of the lists from my high school (Bill L.) sent it this year. It comes from Ashland University here in Ohio, and I think may be one of the best PR tools a school could have. Great links, easy to read web-page.
http://ecard.ashland.edu/index.php?ecardYear=2004adm

But checking those links, it's really difficult to find that Ashland was the only college supported by the Brethren Church after the big break in the 1880s which split the German Baptist Brethren. When I have mentioned to fellow Ohioans that Church of the Brethren and Brethren Church are "sister" denominations (just try to get a librarian to straighten out the subject headings) and that Grace Brethren is the child and niece, they don't believe me. Well, it's true. That tiny group of anabaptists has had numerous splits, often dividing over minor issues, just like other denominations. But the big one was in the 1880s, a division three ways. To this day, they do little together, not even "good works." They did celebrate their 300th anniversary together in 2008 (founded in 1708 in Germany).

Back in the 90s when I was doing some research on Brethren roots for a publication project, I travelled to Ashland, because the library has great resources for all members of the German Baptist groups. Sometimes in genealogy searches you find some folks you'd rather not claim, but I know of nothing that Ashland needs to hide about its Brethren founding and roots. Yes, it was a family fight, but lots of churches did that. You'd have to know about Ashlands religious founding before coming to their excellent website, because I went through various links and clicked in pretty far, and found nothing obvious. There seem to be some active Christian groups on campus, but I didn't find anything related to the Brethren Church (Ashland).

Get out now--nothing is going to change

I grew up in the Church of the Brethren, as did my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents (in 1888 there were several splits, but you get the idea). The church dates its beginning to 1708 when a group decided after much prayer and Bible study that they needed to re-baptize themselves--thus Anabaptist. It is one of the historic peace churches with strong ties to the Mennonites (and a lot of intermarriage). Each year it has an Annual Conference to discuss the business of being a church--a very tiny church, I might add. I attended one in 1949 with my grandparents in Ocean Grove, and one in Dayton in 1974. Some people go every year to see old friends. I think there are about 50,000 members--so it's not hard to run into someone you know. At the Newsletter of the Brethren Rival Fellowship (now 50 years old) a group that has attempted to return the group to its Biblical Anabaptist Pietist roots, I noticed this report on the 2009 Annual Conference.

1. The 223rd recorded Annual Conference was held in San Diego, California, on June 26-30, 2009, with attendance at an unusual low of just slightly under 2,100 in attendance.

2. The theme was, “The Old Has Gone, The New Has Come, All This Is From God.” It was based on 2 Corinthians 5, on becoming new creatures in Christ.

3. While the theme emphasized the new things in Christ, the Conference spent most of its time dealing with what is becoming an increasingly old issue at Annual Conference–namely homosexuality.

4. Last year’s Standing Committee had formed a statement of Confession and Commitment in response to the repeated requests that came to the Program and Arrangements Committee from BMC (Brethren Mennonite Council­a pro gay organization) to have a display area among the exhibits. This request has consistently been denied.

5. The Standing Committee Statement essentially affirmed the 1983 decision on human sexuality and acknowledged the tension that exists in the denomination over this issue. The statement cautioned against the meanness that has been expressed at some levels and said this kind of activity must stop.

6. This year a new item of business was received from the Northern Indiana District that raised the question, “Whether it is the will of the church that this language on same-sex covenantal relationships [in the 1983 Annual Conference decision] will continue to guide our journey together?” . . .

I think we know what the result of this struggle with the advocates from the LGBT group will be. I’m not sure why every denomination tries to reinvent the wheel on this. A tiny percentage of the group advocates for acceptence of their unbiblical life style; a larger group doesn't want to be mean or judgemental (because that would be unbiblical) and supports them; the majority waffle and wait (which is also unbiblical since there is an outline on how to handle this) and finally leave a weakened, gutted denomination. The solution might be to get out now so you can move ahead with the Lord’s work. Their sexuality statement goes back to 1983, and when I went back and looked at some of the archives, even 26 years ago teen-agers at the youth conferences were being told same sex attraction was OK and they should be working for “justice” for the gay community.

The ELCA task force statement to recognize and bless homosexual unions goes back to 1989, but only because ELCA was birthed in 1988 through a merger of two of the largest synods, the Lutheran Church in America, and the American Lutheran Church. The individual statements on sexuality from those groups probably predate 1989.

Trying to explain the Brethren

At Bible study last week I was trying to explain the relationship between Grace Brethren and the Brethren Church (Ashland). A friend of mine has attended classes at Ashland University and insisted that the two were not related and that EUB was in that mix somewhere. EUB was created in 1946 from a merger of the Evangelical Church and the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, both home grown American denominations made up of German immigrants (now part of United Methodist Church). The German Baptist Brethren originated in Germany, came to the U.S. and split into three main factions in the 1880s. The members of the progressive group, The Brethren Church (headquarters in Ashland, Ohio), were in disagreement about some theological things in the 1930s, and in 1939 they split into two groups, The Grace Brethren and the Brethren Church (Ashland). Grace Brethren has a huge presence here in Columbus. Other than trine immersion baptism and the Love Feast/Lord's Supper, I'm not sure the two groups have much in common today--maybe a member of either group could explain. Trying to sort through the various "Brethren" names in church denominations is really tricky. It's like the Millers or Yoders if you're doing genealogy.

However, this blog is about another reunion, not a split. After all these years, the Brethren Church and the Church of the Brethren have finally worshipped together! Today I came across an account of the 300th anniversary celebration of the Brethren (formed in 1708). The German Baptist Brethren split three ways in the 1880s. The Progressives became the Brethren Church (Ashland), the moderates changed their name to Church of the Brethren in 1908, and the conservatives are/were called Old German Baptist Brethren. From this outsider's point of view (I'm now a Lutheran but was baptized CoB), I can see no difference in what they believe--they just have a different history since the 1880s. This was reported in the Church of the Brethren Newsline

Brethren meet in Virginia for historic 300th Anniversary Conference.
It has been 125 years since the Brethren worshiped together like this at Annual Meeting. The last time this took place was at a field in Indiana in the late 1800s, after which the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church experienced a split.

On July 13, these two Brethren denominations held Sunday morning worship together at the 300th Anniversary Conference in Richmond, Va. The Conference sang on this historic morning, "Brethren, we have met to worship and adore the Lord, our God!"

The Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church both stem from the Brethren movement that began in 1708 in the village of Schwarzenau, Germany, where the eight founders of the movement were baptized in the Eder River. At the Anniversary Conference, water was poured into a fountain worship center from the Eder River, from Wissahickon Creek in Philadelphia where the first Brethren baptisms in America took place, and from the districts of the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church.

The whole of Sunday was given to anniversary events. After worship, the John Kline Riders greeted worshipers on the plaza outside the coliseum--the group remembers the life of Civil War-era Brethren leader and peacemaker John Kline.

That afternoon, participants had their choice of workshops under the theme "An Experience of Brethren Faith Journeys." An evening celebration of mission featured music and stories from the international mission work of the Church of the Brethren and the Brethren Church.

In addition, a Service Blitz and a food drive marked 300 years of Brethren faithfulness by sharing a witness of service and caring with the Richmond community.

Anniversary committees from the two denominations worked jointly on the celebration. The Church of the Brethren's 300th Anniversary Committee has been planning for this Conference for eight years.

The 300th Anniversary Committee included Jeff Bach (chair), Dean Garrett, Rhonda Pittman Gingrich, Leslie Lake, Lorele Yager, and Annual Conference executive director Lerry Fogle. The late Donald Durnbaugh also was a member of the committee.

Source: 7/16/2008, Church of the Brethren Newsline

Here's a longer account at a Grace Brethren blog.