The Schwarzenau Brethren, the German Baptist Brethren, Dunkers, Dunkards, Tunkers, or sometimes simply called the German Baptists, are an Anabaptist group that dissented from Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed European state churches during the 17th and 18th centuries. German Baptist Brethren emerged in some German-speaking states in western and southwestern parts of the Holy Roman Empire as a result of the Radical Pietist revival movement of the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Hopeful of the imminent return of Christ and desiring to follow Jesus in their daily life, the founding Brethren abandoned State churches and officially formed a new church in 1708. They thereby attempted to translate the New Testament idea of brotherly love into concrete congregational ordinances for all the members. The Brethren rejected some Radical Pietists’ focus on emotionalism and direct revelation, and emphasized early ("Apostolic" or "primitive") New Testament Christianity as the binding standard for congregational practices. The founding Schwarzenau Brethren were also in fellowship with other Anabaptists, such as the Mennonites, and influenced by their writings.
As with many other Anabaptist traditions, the Schwarzenau Brethren are divided into Old Order groups (such as the Old Brethren German Baptist) that practice a lifestyle without certain elements of modern technology, Conservative groups (such as the Dunkard Brethren Church) that preserve traditional theological distinctives while allowing for the usage of modern conveniences, and mainline groups (such as the Church of the Brethren) that are assimilated in society.
In German-speaking Europe, the Brethren became known as (New Baptists), in distinction from the older English Baptist groups with which they had no formal ties. In the United States, they became popularly known as "Dunkers", "Dunkards", or "Tunkers", terms that stem from the German verb tunken (Pennsylvania German dunke), to dip, to immerse.
History
The Schwarzenau Brethren were first organized in 1708 under the leadership of Alexander Mack (1679–1735) in the Schwarzenau, Wittgenstein community of modern-day Bad Berleburg, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. They believed that the Roman Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed churches were taking extreme liberties with the true, pure message of Christianity as revealed in the New Testament. As they began to have the New Testament available in German and read it for themselves, they rejected the established state church liturgies and sacraments, including infant baptism and Eucharistic practices in favor of following plain New Testament practices. The founding Brethren were broadly influenced by Radical Pietism understandings of an invisible church of awakened Christians who would fellowship together in purity and love, reaching out to the lost and hurting in Jesus' name and working together as equal brethren while awaiting Christ's return.
A notable influence was Ernst Christopher Hochmann von Hochenau, a traveling Pietist minister. While living in Schriesheim, his home town, Mack invited Hochmann to come and minister there. Like others who influenced the Brethren, Hochmann considered the pure church to be spiritual, and did not believe that an organized church was necessary. By 1708, the date of the first Brethren baptisms, Mack had rejected this position in favor of forming a separate church with visible rules and ordinances—including threefold baptism of repentant adults by immersion, a Love Feast (that combined communion with feetwashing and an evening meal), anointing, and church discipline according to Matthew 18 culminating in use of the "ban" against members who fall into sin and refuse to repent.
Religious persecution drove the Brethren to take refuge in Friesland, the Netherlands. In 1719 Peter Becker brought a group to Pennsylvania. In 1720 forty Brethren families settled in Surhuisterveen in Friesland. They settled among the Mennonites and remained there until 1729, when all but a handful emigrated to America, in three separate groups from 1719 to 1733.
Peter Becker organized the first American congregation at Germantown, Pennsylvania, on December 25, 1723. In 1743 Christoph Sauer, an early pastor and a printer by trade, printed a Bible in German, the first published in a European language in North America.
