This book gives a personal insight into the hearts and minds of a fundamentalist Christian sect, the Open Brethren. Using Brethren magazine articles, obituaries, and testimonies, Peter Herriot argues that the Brethren constitute a perfect example of a fundamentalism. Their culture is entirely opposed to the beliefs, values, and norms of modernity. As a result, like other fundamentalisms they challenge modern Christianity and impede its efforts to engage with global society.

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 Brothers Tale.- Chapter 2. The Loose Brothers Tale.- Chapter 3. The Historians Tale.- Chapter 4. The Psychologists 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.