A Different Kind of Freedom? Order and Discipline among the Moravian Brethren in Germany and Salem, North Carolina 1771–1801

Abstract

On 19 January 1774, Joseph Müller was expelled from the town of Salem, North Carolina for becoming engaged to Sarah Hauser without the permission of the Elders Conference. On 23 August 1775 Mattheus Weiβ was likewise expelled forwriting a “bad letter” to friends in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and on 4 November 1789, Jacob Bonn Jr., who hadbeen struggling with chronic debt, was expelled for refusing to sell his house and accept a steward for his finances. Theexpulsion of inhabitants for such offenses seems odd in a century labelled the “age of enlightenment.” It might well be viewed by good American constitutionalists as an unacceptable intrusion into the private lives of the individuals concerned. For the Moravian Brethren who built Salem on an ideal molded in Germany, the behavior of such offending Brethren represented a conflict between two different concepts of freedom: that of individual freedom, whichcame to be identified by both the European and American leadership of the Brethren as “American,” and that ofa spiritual freedom, which found expression in the submission to the good of the whole and obedience to Christ as literallord of the community. Historian A. G. Roeber has pointed out that many Germans were puzzled by “the American freedom” especially in the post-revolutionary years and did not always even agree among themselves over its precise meaning. Clearly, however, for many of them it represented a sharp departure from the more communal orientation of German society and government. Even the greater spiritual freedom offered by the lack of a state church was often viewed ambiguously. We can gain insight into the particular meaning of the conflict for the Brethren by first looking at the origins of the Moravian behavioral ideal, then at the way in which the dynamics of church/town discipline illustrate the tension between communal ideal and individual freedom, and finally by considering the specific impact of the translation of this ideal to an American setting.