Background
The Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches was founded at Mountain Lake, Minnesota in 1889 as the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren Conference. This body originated among Russian Mennonite immigrants that came to Canada and the United States from Russia around 1874. Their desire was to place greater evangelical emphasis on such doctrines as repentance, conversion, scriptural discipline and non-conformity to the world. A new confession of faith was published in 1907.
The Evangelical Mennonite Brethren and the Evangelical Mennonite Church began talks of merger in 1953, but the effort ended without success in 1962. In this period, the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren Conference was also strengthening ties with the Evangelische Mennonitische Bruderschaft von Südamerika (Evangelical Mennonite Brethren of South America). These South American brethren shared similar background, language, doctrine, and practice. Affiliation was accomplished in 1958, with the South American group being made a district of the general conference, but with self-government. Until 1983, the conference officially held the Mennonite position of non-resistance and not bearing arms in war. Since that year, the constitution, while maintaining the official position, has also recognized the individual's right to their own conscience concerning these matters.
The Evangelical Mennonite Brethren Conference changed its name to the Fellowship of Evangelical Bible Churches (FEBC) on July 16, 1987. At that time the conference consisted of 36 congregations with a membership over 4500 (of which about 500 were in South America). The conference paper is the Gospel Tidings.
In the 1980s what became the Saskatchewan Diocese of the Evangelical Orthodox Church separated from one of the Churches
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