Trine Baptism by Immersion  We have long been known as the Dunkards because we fully immerse or dunk when we baptize. It comes from the German word tunken.  Although modern Germans principally use the transitive verb tauchen (plunge, immerse) or eintauchen (dive into), the obsolete tunken was the moniker applied to the early Brethren.  Our first label was the Schwarzenau Täufer (Baptists) or Neue Täufer (New Baptists) because we wanted to distinguish ourselves from older Anabaptists bodies. While migrating through colonial America, we used the label German Baptist and then appended Brethren about 1836 and officially adopted German Baptist Brethren in 1871.  The Church of the Brethren practices trine immersion (Latin: trinus, of three) for believers baptism, one plunge for each member of the Trinity.  We may never know the exact method used by Christ and his disciples, but three immersions most probably stems from the Great Commission given by Jesus to his disciples: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit ...” (Matthew 28:19).  Trine immersion was practiced from the earliest centuries.  Augustine, the 4th Century Bishop, stated in a Sermon to the Neophytes:  “Rightly were you dipped three times, since you were baptized in the name of the Trinity.  Rightly were you dipped three times, because you were baptized in the name of Jesus Christ, who on the third day rose again from the dead.  For that thrice repeated immersion reproduces the burial of the Lord by which you were buried with Christ in baptism.”  Thus, he infers that three plunges may also signify the three days of Christ's burial.  The Catholic Church practiced trine immersion until about the twelfth century, when it gradually succumbed to aspersion or sprinkling.  Tampering with this trine immersion method of baptism would be regarded by many as severely redefining what it means to be Brethren.