When Pickering wrote his book, it is likely there was a good deal of consensus as to who qualifies for the accolade “Chief man among the Brethren”. With so much fragmentation in the Brethren movement and a growing international dimension, nowadays this is less likely.

The author, with his lifelong association with the Open Brethren (his own background is “middle of the road”, yet in touch with many “Brethren” who aren’t), has identified three unlikely “chief men” he argues fulfils Pickering’s selection criteria and methodology. All were born after Pickering’s second edition (1931) and are no longer with us. All had many dealings with the author and were widely recognised as “chief men” inside and outside the Brethren:

• David Iles (correspondent of Coleman Street Chapel)
• Geoff Carr (Essex “Counties” evangelist)
• Varghese Mathai (Brethren evangelist in Kerala, India)

That was the synopsis to a paper that I presented recently at a conference with the title Chief Men and Women of the Brethren Revisited, aimed at those who had an interest in Brethren history. The “Brethren” in question were/are a group sometimes referred to as the Plymouth Brethren and “Chief men among the Brethren” was the title of a book that my paper referred to and also a phrase that cropped up once in the Bible when describing two key figures in the Early Church.

The paper that resulted was the culmination of considerable research. Even following the conference, I spent a good deal of time refining and adding to my thoughts, including copious footnotes, on what I regarded as the important subject of people who have made a difference to the cause of Christ, in particular within the Brethren movement. Rather than include the text here I give the link (below) to the free download of the paper. I will be submitting the paper to the conference organisers and I hope it will appear in book form next year along with other papers presented at the conference.