THE CHURCH THAT KEEPS TO ITSELF IN AN ‘EVIL’ WORLD
THe Plymouth Brethren is an evangelical Protestant conservative church with 46,000 members worldwide.
Members follow a rigid code of conduct based strictly on Biblical teaching, which provides a family-centred way of life and a strict moral framework.
As far as possible, they keep themselves separate from other people, including other Christians, because they believe the outside world is full of evil.
Brethren shun the distractions of the modern age including television, film, literature and pop music.
However, wine is drunk at Brethren meetings. Hymns are traditionally sung during weekly meetings unaccompanied by any musical instrument. The church also discourages traditional symbols such the cross.
Following a passage in the Corinthians book in the Bible, women cover their heads in church and there are no clergy – instead the congregation is led by a group of elders.
The group was founded in Ireland in the early 1800s by aristocratic law student John Nelson Darby after he broke away from the Anglican Church.
A meeting in Plymouth, Devon, in 1832 gave the movement its name and the Brethren adopted many of the simpler ways of the early Christians, believing it would create a more straightforward relationship with God.
Evangelists have taken the church’s beliefs as far afield as India and South America.