Exclusive Brethren

Brethren Church
Classification	Protestant
Orientation	Plymouth Brethren
Polity	Connectional
Region	19 countries
Founder	John Nelson Darby
Origin	1848 London
Separated from	Plymouth Brethren (N.B. The Open Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren, which emerged from the schism, dispute which party was responsible for it).
Separations	numerous schisms.

The Exclusive Brethren are a subset of the Christian evangelical movement generally described as the Plymouth Brethren. They are distinguished from the Open Brethren from whom they separated in 1848.

The Exclusive Brethren are now divided into a number of groups, most of which differ on minor points of doctrine or practice. Perhaps the best-known of these, mainly through media attention, is the Raven-Taylor-Hales group, now known as the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, which maintains the doctrine of uncompromising separation based on their interpretation of 2 Corinthians 6 and 2 Timothy 2, believing that attendance at the Communion Service, the 'Lord's Supper', governs and strictly limits their relationship with others, even other Brethren groups. These brethren have one fellowship in some nineteen countries — including France, Germany, Spain, Italy, Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Sweden, and Argentina, but they are more numerous in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and North America where they are referred to just as the Exclusive Brethren or Brethren.

The Plymouth Brethren split into Exclusive and Open Brethren in 1848 when George Müller refused to accept John Nelson Darby's view of the relationship between local assemblies following difficulties in the Plymouth meeting. Brethren that held Muller's congregational view became known as "Open", those holding Darby's 'connexional' view, became known as "Exclusive" or "Darbyite" Brethren.

Darby's circular on 26 August 1848, cutting off not only Bethesda but all assemblies who received anyone who went there, was to define the essential characteristic of "exclusivism" that he was to pursue for the rest of his life. He set it out in detail in a pamphlet he issued in 1853 entitled Separation from Evil - God’s Principle of Unity. But a tension had existed since the earliest times, as set out in a letter from Anthony Norris Groves in 1836 to Darby (who was not a believer in adult baptism):

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