Brethren Society: The Cultural Transformation of a "Peculiar People"

Rating:
Summary: Provides and in depth interpretive history of the Dunkards.
Review: Bowman presents good information which is not easily found in the Brethren History Books. However, when charting the demise of the Brethren Movement, he identifies the loss of peculiarness as the reason the group lost its influence. While he documents the increase of bureaucratic baggage to the denomination and the abandonment of the original simplicity of the group, he does not see this as causal in the group loosing its original impact. He does not hedge or create heros as other Brethren history works tend to do, which is a definite value to this work.

Rating:
Summary: Provides and in depth interpretive history of the Dunkards.
Review: Bowman presents good information which is not easily found in the Brethren History Books. However, when charting the demise of the Brethren Movement, he identifies the loss of peculiarness as the reason the group lost its influence. While he documents the increase of bureaucratic baggage to the denomination and the abandonment of the original simplicity of the group, he does not see this as causal in the group loosing its original impact. He does not hedge or create heros as other Brethren history works tend to do, which is a definite value to this work.