Abstract
The reading of female religious literature on the South African frontier allows us to reconstruct important elements of a shared religious mentality profile of these pioneer female believers. Such a reconstruction of the religious mentality profile of pietistic women on the frontier reveals a number of important aspects for understanding their spiritual life: self-awakenings and conversions; self-purification; self-illumination and mystically tainted experiences; recollection and the experience of quiet; meditation, contemplation, ecstasy and rapture; spiritual desertion, and abandonment of the soul and the unitive life with God in Christ.
Highlights
Research on Pietism in religious communities in Europe has flourished over the past few decades1 and Pietism, as a religious phenomenon in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South African communities, has received increasing attention
Flowing from the foregoing, this essay first investigates the basic elements of female spirituality on the South African frontier, in order to reconstruct the collective mentality profile of women believers in frontier religious communities from 1750 to 1860
The literary forms and contents of the mostly unpublished religious texts produced by feminine Pietists on the South African frontier from 1750-1860 are analysed
Summary
Research on Pietism in religious communities in Europe has flourished over the past few decades and Pietism, as a religious phenomenon in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century South African communities, has received increasing attention. According to Strom (2002:536-554), scholarly interest in Pietism has increased significantly since 1970, and research on Pietism – once the distinct province of German church historians – has become increasingly international as well as interdisciplinary in scope, as Germanists, musicologists, and historians of Christianity explore the influence of this movement in Europe and the New World. General traits of the pietistic spiritual culture of women believers in South Africa have been covered in scholarly research, a deeper analysis of the typical features and importance of commonly held religious beliefs by women on the South African frontier during the Trekboer era and the Great Trek period remains outstanding. Flowing from the foregoing, this essay first investigates the basic elements of female spirituality on the South African frontier, in order to reconstruct the collective mentality profile of women believers in frontier religious communities from 1750 to 1860. For this purpose, the literary forms and contents of the mostly unpublished religious texts produced by feminine Pietists on the South African frontier from 1750-1860 are analysed.. To what extent did women believers on the frontier express their religious thought in typical pietistic mediums parallel to devotional spirituality in Europe at the time? Do the ego-texts of women believers reveal common traits reflective of a shared spiritual mentality?
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