Open Brethren: A Christian Sect in the Modern World

Peter Herriot, who was brought up in a Brethren family, was Professor of Psychology at the City University and at Birkbeck College, University of London. He has since written on fundamentalism from a social psychological perspective. Among his books are ‘Religious Fundamentalism: Global, Local, and Personal’ (2009) and ‘Warfare and Waves: Calvinists and Charismatics in the Church of England’ (2017).

• Chapter 1. The Tight Brother’s Tale.- Chapter 2. The Loose Brother’s Tale.- Chapter 3. The Historian’s Tale.- Chapter 4. The Psychologist’s Tale.- Chapter 5. Brethren Lives.- Chapter 6. Salvation and Service.- Chapter 7. Conformity and Belief.- Chapter 8. Authority in Action.- Chapter 9. The Authority of the Bible.- Chapter 10: The Authority of the Brother.- Chapter 11. Separation and Identity.- Chapter 12. Pure from the World.- Chapter 13. Separated from the Sects.- Chapter 14. Apart from the Apostates.- Chapter 15. An Archetypal Fundamentalism.- Chapter 16. The Brethren and Modernism.- Chapter 17. Fundamentalism and Christianity.- Chapter 18. Religion and Globalisation.

“It is written in a pleasantly readable style, and the reader is left with a clear-cut picture of a fundamentalist sect that is frequently hidden from view in our contemporary, global society.” (Joonhwa Cho, Reading Religion, readingreligion.org, March 2, 2020)“Herriot describes what life is like within the tight Open Brethren, including in the discussion conversion, service, opposition to political activity, and the role of women in the church. … Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.” (W. T. Lindley, Choice, Vol. 56 (11), July, 2019)