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The
Brownstone Journal >>
Issues >> Vol.
XII Spring 2005
Gender Equity in the Choirs of Bethlehem:
The Moravian Threat
Rachel Eyler (CAS 06) is majoring in
Anthropology, and is the Executive Editor of The Brownstone
Journal for 2004-2005 and 2005-2006.
The Moravian Congregation of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania,
espoused a strict and novel theology that included "protective
religious settlements”(Faull xxxii). Their exotic ideology created
an elevated sense of moral exclusiveness so radical that the
host population vehemently rejected the sect during the "Shifting
Period," 1741 though 1762. This exclusion instigated a
recursive pressure for the Moravians to further retreat into
their insular community, averting assimiliation with a host
population comprising German Lutheran, Reformed and other factional
groups (Sessler 297).
Barth suggests, "boundaries of pariah
[minority] groups are most strongly maintained by the excluding
host population" (220). Since 'mainstream' society shunned
their practices, the Moravians were forced to strengthen and
solidify their own identity until the social and religious barrier
surrounding them was impregnable. Sessler writes: "None
could be compelled to work for the church, but all had to be
either within or without its walls. Those who were within were
the servants of the Church, and any who objected had to move
beyond its bounds" (99). Moravians defined themselves primarily
through a unique socio-political structure, Choir communalism.
I examine here a peculiar consequence of the Choir system—the
spontaneous gender equity it bred, a case of ideological speciation
in a more openly misogynistic host population that felt its
norms threatened. Thus the surrounding Americans shunned, condemned,
and expelled the Moravians (1).
Moravian Town Planning Reflects Social Structure. Click
to view full-size graphic. |
The Moravians arrived in America in early 1741
with missionary zeal. From December 1741 (when Count Nicholas
Ludwig von Zinzendorf blessed the sole Moravian log cabin in
his self-proclaimed Bethlehem; see image) to 1762, Bethlehem
was partitioned into "Choir" houses (2).
The Choir system was implemented to serve both economic and
ideological purposes. According to Count Zinzendorf, "the
difference in class, temperament, life and age all make an immediate
difference to the way in which the individual serves the Savior"
(Faull xxiii). This dogma was expressed in a system in which
individuals of different gender and age could be educated and
raised (3).
This ideological requirement demanded separate houses, or dormitories,
holding "married people, the widowers, the widows, the
unmarried men, and unmarried women, the older boys, the older
girls, the little boys and the little girls" to be constructed
(Sessler 97). A single roof over many heads was a cheaper alternative
than many single-family dwellings. Although socially separated
by the Choir system, the Moravians remained unified through
both their unique ideology (4)and
system distribution of power. Indeed, the Choir system was a
consequence of the dialectical relationship between their religious
ideology and congregational social structure (5).
A system of power—really, of decision-making—was
needed to sustain the daily life of the Choir communes. Choir
‘Bands’, a characteristic artifact of the Moravian community's
saturation by communalism, filled this need. Bands subdivided
the already divided congregation into a nested hierarchy, granting
each individual a specific role that entailed a relative authority
to enforce both orthodoxy as well as the very power structure
that sustained the Band system. The subdivisions were extensive.
For example, the Married Women's Choir "was divided into
five groups: the newly married, those married several years,
the elderly couples, the nursing mothers and the pregnant."
Bands ostensibly met for prayer, song and testimony, but by
creating reproducing positions of authority they ensured that
each member was invested in social regimentation.
From 1742 to 1762, Pennsylvanians, who felt
that the Choir system threatened its traditional social structure,
persecuted the Moravians. The most distressing of the Moravian
habits was the position of women (6).
The Choir system provided women with an independence contradicting
the acceptable roles of women in 18th-century America (Benson).
Many women defected from other religions for this freedom, promoting
a bias that would be recognized in contemporary culture as a
'dangerous cult' (Faull xxviii). Women comprised half of Moravian
leaders, a necessary consequence of Zinzendorf's sex segregation
according to 'differing experiences of Christ' (7).
Within the Women's Choir were positions echoing the symbolism
of the general choir: Eldress of the Choir, Choir Helper, Deaconess,
Choir Labouress, Acolyte and Servant. These were not mere ritual
roles, but true positions as those found within any political
body. Women not only held authority, but also enjoyed an affirmation
of equality, and sometimes superiority (8).
The Count's proclamation that women are more "receptive"
to religion and that "women are also stronger than men
in that they are more faithful, more responsive, and more watchful"
gave them access to all aspects of Moravian life, not just the
"practical positions" (Faull xxviii). Indeed, the
Count reaffirmed the female superlative: "These qualities
should be encouraged whereas wit, super intelligence and reasoning
should not" (Faull xviii). In the mainstream, these latter
qualities were defining male properties. Zinzendorf's concept
of women's spiritual receptivity culminated in the unprecedented
ordination of fourteen women priests by 1758 (9).
Even the existence of such feminism (though not explicitly advocated)
was enough to make the host population uncomfortable (10).
Although other factors contributed to Pennsylvanians'
revulsion (see Appendix),
none surpassed in effect the role of women in the church. The
hostility of local competing sects is overt in the words of
John Phillip Boehm, a German Reformed pastor in Pennsylvania
in 1742: "clearly . . . .the Devil has drilled into the
head . . . of the Moravian sect" (Fogleman 295). Fogleman
writes:
. . . Moravians threatened gender and sex
norms and boundaries, because sexuality was central to Moravian
understanding of piety, because patriarchal authority in the
family was central to Lutheran and Reformed theology and social
practice, and because of the specific time and place where
this collision occurred, that is, during a period of heavy
migration into the German-speaking settlements of North America,
where there was no church establishment and significant level
of religious freedom. (Fogleman
304)
Pennsylvanians' revulsion was a unifying distraction
for the unstable and fractious population, a common denominator
of prejudice against the radical Moravians. Explosive reproach
from this host population, when acting against the preexisting
insularity within the Moravians, effected what I call ‘Religious
Speciation’. The Moravians, cut off socially and economically
from their surrounding neighbors, were left to form increasingly
different and exotic ideologies. The Moravians were spiritually
disconnected from the surrounding Lutherans, Reformists and
Piest German immigrant communities. In biology, speciation refers
to divergence from a main body into an isolated population;
speciation inherently erodes cohesion. Though the radical Moravians
might once have shared common foundational beliefs with the
host population, they drifted apart and lost cohesion due to
ideological (rather than reproductive) isolation. From a common
Christian ancestor, the Lutheran faith fractured and a bizarre
religious species was formed that would compete for membership
and ideological dominance.
Disturbed at the promotion of primitive feminism,
the mainstream forced the Moravians to seclude themselves in
their own society. With an encompassing look at the Moravian
community we can see the constant action of a dialectical relationship
between ideology (symbolism) and defined social structure (political
power). The Moravian case affirms Cohen's theory of a dialectical
relationship between power relations and symbolism. Change in
one aspect of the relationship necessarily alters the entirety
of the system. The thus established social structure is potentially
fragile but certainly dynamic. Although the Moravians might
have physically and religiously separated themselves from the
host society, they could not render themselves invisible or
nonexistent. The majority population around them condemned their
manner, according to Cohen, to preserve their ideological and
political identity from the perceived threat. Since the rise
of empowered females seduced the minds of majority women, it
was perhaps a legitimate fear that the Moravians, if given license
to preach freely, would drastically pervert the established
social system. TBJ
Appendix:
On Side-Wound Theology
NOTES
1. "The
true church of Jesus Christ has had no more destructive, dangerous
and crafty enemies since the time of the apostle than the Zinzendorfian
(Moravian) sect." Attributed to Heinrich Melchoir Mulenberg,
Lutheran pastor in Pennsylvania, 1751 (Fogleman 295). >>
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2. Originally,
the Unity of the Brethren or Unitas Fratrum, the Moravian church
draws its roots as early followers of Jan Hus. Settling in Bohemia
in 1457, these early Protestants lived piously, quietly and,
according to emperor-elect George Podiebrad upon whose estate
the Fratrum resided, they lived as heretics. Persecutions beginning
as early as 1461 running through the Thirty Years War ultimately
pushed the liquidated Brethren to covert communities in Poland,
Moravia and Bohemia. (Faull xvii-xxi) Although living a seemingly
futile existence, in 1722 the egocentric yet pious Count Zinzendorf
welcomed the Brethren to his Saxony estate and would later become
their ideological, political and social leader (Ibid. 297).
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3. Although the
Choir structure was used as early as 1728, it was primarily
for single women and single men, reasons being fairly obvious.
It was not until Count Zinzendorf implemented his "stages
of life" ideology did they become a community wide structure
(Sessler 92). >> RETURN
4. Not the least
unusual component of this ideology was the doctrine of “Side-Wound
Theology.” See Appendix B for a discussion. >>
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5. Brethren of
the Choirs in Bethlehem were so dedicated to the system that
most chose to be buried with the Choir rather than with the
nuclear or genealogical family (Sommer 30). >>
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6. The Reformed,
the Shakers, and particularly the German Lutherans, were physically,
politically and ideologically hostile toward the Moravians'
sexually perverse, generally grotesque and fundamentally heretical
behavior. The Lutheran and Reformed Churches based their social
and religious structure on patriarchal authority and nuclear
family structures. Moravians not only enticed violence and external
fear due to theocratic issues, but their modification of gender
norms threatened to disturb the very foundations of the Lutheran
and Reformed churches social structure (Spencer 296). >>
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7. Accordingly,
men were not allowed to care for the spiritual needs of women.
>> RETURN
8. Unlike mainstream
early America, Moravian females enjoyed superior education and
in its peak nearly reached a one hundred percent literacy rate
(Attawood). >> RETURN
9. However, after
the death of Zinzendorf in 1760 the practice was ended, as was
the whole communal system by 1762, possibly indicating that
this "Shifting Period" phase of Moravian life was
more a personality cult than a genuine religious development
(Faull xxix). >> RETURN
10. Pilgrimage
and mission work across the globe were powerfully emphasized
in the Moravian community; "One of the consequences of
this world-wide Moravian mission was that a simple woman . .
. could find herself transported from rural Germany to the forests
of Pennsylvania within the space of only a few years" (Faull
xi). That such practices could have broadcast the Moravians’
primitive feminism did not make for better relations with competing
sects that were devoted to patriarchialism. >>
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