THE FIRST DIVISION
The year 1848 saw the separation of the Brethren assemblies in what later became known as “Open Brethren” and “Exclusive Brethren”. I'll dedicate some posts to this infamous incident but before that I would like to spend this post and probably others on an article written by Dr. Nigel Tomes, THE CHURCH UNDER ATTACK
—GEORGE MULLER & BETHESDA CHAPEL, BRISTOL—
AN HISTORICAL CASE STUDY
After a brief appraisal of the Brethren movement (trough the “mouth” of W. N.) Dr. N. T. (NT, a nice acronym ) asks some questions.
“Implications for today’s recovery are suggested, including the following:
1 · Are groups practicing ‘Quarantine’ destined to stagnate and decline?
2 · Can ‘organic’ be worse than organization?
3 · United leadership is a stabilizing factor during turmoil
4 · Does the ‘local ground’ prevent division?
5 · Should Muller have submitted to Darby as the ‘Minister of the Age’?
6 · The local churches—a ‘loose affiliation’ OR a ‘tight confederation’?”
It seems that the answers to these implications, according to N. T. should be: 1. Yes, 2. Yes, 4. No, 5. No, 6. “lose affiliation”.
To answer the first question more data is required. To try to answer this question based only on what happened in the 1848 among a small group called the Brethren is like figuring out, for example, the average life expectancy of the people of the entire World by considering only as a sample the people of Haiti (that would be 61.5 years for males). If we consider the Roman Catholic Church and the excommunications “administered” throughout the many centuries of its existence, it seems that she is doing pretty well with over a billion members and churches all over the world.
According to Dr. N. T. the “Open Brethren” enjoyed more growth than their “cousins”. Around the 1960 there were roughly 2 Open Assemblies for 1 Exclusive Assemblies, in England and Wales (how about the rest of the World?). Dr. N. T. says, “The Bristol congregation grew steadily—to 900 by1866 and 1200 by 1885.” Wow!
One thing stirred my curiosity, what happened to the Bethesda Chapel? Is it still around today?
“By 1887, four assemblies were part of the United Bethesda Church:
Bethesda, Great George Street
Clifton Bethesda, Alma Road
Stokes Croft Chapel
Totterdown Gospel Hall”
http://www.zetlandchurch.org.uk/about-us/our-history/
Bethesda, Great George Street, was bombed and destroyed during the WWII. “Alma Church, Bristol is part of the Evangelical Alliance. The congregation is about 100 people - small enough to be able to make friends and get involved easily and large enough to have plenty of exciting things going on!”
http://www.almachurch.co.uk/alma%20c...20history.html
Stokes Croft Chapel (“The Croft, as it was known, soon became the largest of the assemblies and, by the early 1900s, it had a fellowship of more than 400 believers.”
http://www.zetlandchurch.org.uk/about-us/our-history/) was destroyed during WWII. In 1957 the members finally moved into the Zetland Hall (at that time there were 400 people present. In 57 years no increase???)
“Zetland Evangelical Church, as Zetland Hall is now called, is no longer a Brethren assembly. It is now an independent church that is committed to the Reformed, Evangelical faith. It still holds to many of the ideals of Müller and Craik.”
http://www.zetlandchurch.org.uk/about-us/our-history/
“Nowadays the Gospel Hall, on Bellevue Road, is used for religious meetings by a Christian Asian congregation; but its founding is strongly linked to the work of George Muller, ‘the founder of British orphanages’, the Prussian-born philanthropist who set up the Muller Orphanage on Ashley Hill.”
https://sites.google.com/site/totter...rian-buildings
Very interesting informations regarding Gospel Halls can be found at
http://www.gospelhall.org/index.php?...=article&id=17
I am still looking for more information about the history of what was called Bethesda Chapel and its other “daughters” churches. So far the story is not as rosy as it has been painted by Dr. N. T.
It is another sad story.