Needed Truth Brethren
| Needed Truth Brethren (or Churches of God) | |
|---|---|
| Classification | Protestant |
| Orientation | Plymouth Brethren |
| Polity | connexional |
| Origin | 1892 |
| Separated from | Open Brethren |
Needed Truth Brethren, as they are sometimes known, call themselves “The Churches of God in the Fellowship of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus Christ". Although this is their official legal title, other Christians often classify them as a very conservative strain of the Plymouth Brethren, connexional in nature, and holding themselves separate from what they consider to be erroneous practices. The designation "Needed Truth" was given to them by others based on the Needed Truth Magazine, which began to be distributed among the Open Brethren in 1888. This magazine espoused what it claimed was a fresh understanding of biblical teaching of the proper constitution of the local church, principles of church government, and doctrinal subjects such as The House of God, the Church of God, the Kingdom of God, and the Body of Christ. The magazine itself, however, presented these circulated views as being a return to fundamental New Testament principles which it claimed had been forgotten. (The Plymouth Brethren movement as a whole had also, from the beginning, seen itself as practicing a return to fundamental New Testament principles which denominational organizations had lost sight of.)
The Churches of God (Needed Truth Brethren) seceded from the Open Brethren around 1892 ("The Separation"), as a result of the ideas propagated in the Needed Truth magazine finding acceptance in some Open Brethren circles, but not all. This division: 1) put into effect what they considered to be a clearer biblical understanding of the different usages of the term 'church' as found in the New Testament (specifically differentiating between local gatherings of faithful disciples and the overall spiritual entity known as the Church which is Christ's Body); 2) took adherence to the Apostles Teaching as the ground of gathering (as opposed to the simple possession of common life in Christ); and 3) established a system of church governance between the local churches which featured local elders consulting together (as an elderhood) across the entire community of churches, so maintaining unity of teaching and practice throughout (something they saw to be manifestly lacking among the Open Brethren).
Although a minority of the Open Brethren assemblies officially separated and joined the Needed Truth movement, their literature continued to influence many of the "Gospel Hall Brethren", who tended to be more conservative than many of their fellow-Brethren.
The Needed Truth Brethren teach that the basis of reception to local assembly fellowship is faithful adherence to the Apostles Teaching as defined in the New Testament, as opposed to the One Body basis of reception taught by Open Brethren - especially the Bible Chapel Brethren. Their basic doctrine regarding the functioning of the local church can be viewed as summarized in Act 2:41 - 42, which is seen by them as consistent with all other New Testament teaching. They understand that there is only one church of God in any particular city where such exists, and that the weekly Christian ordinance of the breaking of bread in remembrance of the Lord is a function of that one church (albeit there may be multiple companies of that one recognized church which each break bread). According to Needed Truth teaching, two or three believers gathered together informally or temporarily, and not gathering as a scripturally designated gathering of the local church, do not by themselves constitute a church, and so it is inappropriate for them to attempt to fulfil the functions of a church of God (they can of course meet for prayer and to carry out the procedures described in Mat.18).
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