Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany and North Carolina, 1727-1801. (Book Reviews).

Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany and North Carolina, 1727-1801. By Elisabeth W. Sommer. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, c. 2000. Pp. xviii, 234. $39.95, ISBN 0-8131-2139-6.)

Eighteenth-century Moravian Brethren established communities both on the Continent and in America that provided sanctuaries to cultivate an intense Christian piety and witness to the world. These closed communities melded the religious, social, and economic aspects of life, subordinating the well-being of each person to the vitality and mission of the community.

Elisabeth Sommer has admirably reviewed the background and development of these communities in Germany, the transplanting of Moravian ideals to America, and the inevitable changes in both areas in the late eighteenth century. She has employed archival resources in both Europe and America, smoothly integrating them with modern interpretations. Her thesis is not new, but her comparison of community evolution in the two settings represents a significant advance in scholarship. While many factors contributed to the transformation of the communities, she asserts that two causes can be discerned and evaluated. First, German and American Moravians shared one important characteristic: the maturation of a second generation of Moravians reared within the communities and lacking the intense conversion experience of the pioneers. These younger Brethren frequently resisted the regulations considered oppressive, subtly at first but more aggressively toward the century's end. Second, Germany and America differed in a crucial element: continental Moravian communities exhibited remnants of a feudal and manorial past, while Americans lived in a wilderness. The spirit of freedom inherent in American geographical and social space and demonstrated politically in the Revolution infused the American Moravian second generation, helping to initiate substantial change more rapidly than among their European counterparts.

Armed with these theses, Sommer carefully analyzes the communities of Herrnhut and Salem as well as other less exclusive settlements. She demonstrates Moravian pioneer ideals in elements of early community control: religious authorities owned the land, managed businesses, regulated social relations, and inspired piety through intense devotional practices. Enlightenment rationalism was considered inappropriate and threatening to the covenant-based foundation of Moravian towns. Chapter 4 is crucial, elaborating the use of the lot by which Moravians discerned the providential will of God. The lot determined leadership appointments, community and business management, and even personal matters such as admission to the congregation, house ownership, and marriage mates. Early Moravians, covenanting with God and their fellow believers, were confident of God's leadership in the lot, but later generations grew restive with decisions regarding individual lives. "Brotherly reasoning" (p. 87) increasingly gained validity as a means to discern God's will. Chapter 5 is equally important, exploring experiences of freedom, questioning of authority, and advocacy of local autonomy. In each successive synod, pioneer ideals yielded to those of a generation that had incorporated enlightenment reasoning into the management of their lives.

Sommer's study contributes significantly to our understanding of the evolution of Moravian communities and of the forces that influenced their future direction.