Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany and North Carolina, 1727-1801

Abstract

Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany and North Carolina, 1727-1801. By Elisabeth W. Sommer. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. Pp. xvii, 234. Illustrations, map. $39.95.) Elisabeth W. Sommer joins recent writers on Moravian experience in seeking to bring a scholarly perspective to a group too often viewed through a religious or sentimental lens. Sommer focuses her study on two communities-Herrnhut in Germany and Salem in North Carolina-and traces change over time in those communities from founding of Moravian community on estate of Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf in 1727 to synods of 1801 and 1818. She compares German to American experience within these communities and argues that experiences diverged over the American freedom (xi) and over interpretations and uses of Enlightenment. The strengths of Sommer's work are several. She has crucial skills in reading German and uses them effectively, giving occasional original German for benefit of those who also read language but not including so much German as to overwhelm rest of us. The comparison between Germany and North Carolina, possible only for someone with such language skills, allows this work to reveal a great deal about Moravians while also contributing to broader historiographical debates. For example, Sommer explores ways in which lack of feudal tradition and broad availability of land influenced experiences and beliefs of Moravians in Salem, while continuing influence of European social hierarchies and German patterns of town settlement helped to determine experience of German Moravians. Sommer also recognizes that Moravian use of lot provides insight into larger issues of community and freedom. The lot involved raising a question-should a particular individual be allowed to take communion? should two people wed?-and finding an answer by drawing a slip of paper out of several on which were written yes, no, or nothing at all. Moravians perceived lot as a way of discovering will of God. Conflicts over authority and values found expression in disputes over use of lot in both Germany and America. Over time, Sommer finds, both arguments over lot and use of lot changed. Finally, in 1818, synod eliminated use of lot on questions of marriage-a change that Sommer presents as both a turning point and a decision that revealed long-developing tensions within community. The place of Sommer's book can perhaps best be understood by comparison with other works on Moravian experience. Gillian Lindt Gollin's 1967 book, Moravians in Two Worlds, showed way for comparative work by examining Herrnhut and Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. …