Pietism and the Atlantic World

Jonathan Strom, Hartmut Lehmann, James Van Horn Melton, eds.. Pietism in Germany and North America, 1680-1820. Farnham: Ashgate, 2009. x + 289 pp. $114.95, cloth, ISBN 978-0-7546-6401-7. Reviewed by Eric Carlsson Published on H-German (October, 2012) Commissioned by Benita Blessing (Oregon State University) Scholarship on international Pietism has tutional, and economic networks that would flourished over the past decade. Three Interna‐ shape religious and social life on both continents. tional Congresses on Pietism Research have been Strom casts the volume as a challenge to the held in Halle since 2001, and recent years have parochialism of much previous scholarship. seen several academic conferences in the United While German work has largely persisted in see‐ States devoted to the subject. In 2004 appeared ing Pietism as a mainly German phenomenon, his‐ the fnal installment of the Geschichte des torians of North American religion have tended to Pietismus, which is likely to remain the standard focus on radical forms of Pietism at the expense of reference work on the topic for years to come.[1] more mainstream varieties and have not integrat‐ On both sides of the Atlantic the monograph liter‐ ed Pietism adequately into their broader narra‐ ature on Pietism continues to expand apace. tives. The length and quality of the following sev‐ The present collection of essays both reflects enteen essays vary, and not all ft the announced and adds significantly to this new scholarship. theme neatly, but many of them suggest how The fruit of a 2004 conference at Emory Universi‐ some of these defects may be remedied. Penned ty, the work is billed as an exploration of Pietism mainly by U.S. and German historians, but also in‐ in the long eighteenth century from a transat‐ cluding contributions from Canadian, British, and lantic perspective. In his introduction Jonathan Swiss scholars, some pieces take a historiographi‐ Strom invokes Bernard Bailyn's concept of an At‐ cal or theoretical approach, while others draw on lantic World to frame the volume's agenda. Ger‐ empirical studies to challenge entrenched para‐ man immigration brought a sizable Pietist pres‐ digms and open up new lines of inquiry. ence to North America, establishing diverse com‐ How to define Pietism remains a vexed ques‐ munities that stayed tied to like-minded groups in tion, so it is ftting that co-editor Hartmut the Old World through a variety of personal, insti‐ Lehmann addresses the problem head on in a H-Net Reviews manifesto for future inquiry. In line with recent communities in the New World, and a shift of fo‐ approaches--most notably W. R. Ward's Protestant cus away from New England and towards the Evangelical Awakening (1992), which Lehmann Middle Colonies, the South, and the trans-Ap‐ inexplicably slights for "fail[ing] to discuss Pietism palachian regions. The volume ends with another explicitly" (p. 15)--Lehmann depicts Pietism as a manifesto for future work, this one from Ulrike distinct wave within a vast Protestant renewal Gleixner on how to incorporate gender more fully movement that extended back to English Puri‐ into narratives of German Lutheran Pietism. tanism and forward to Methodism, the Great Gleixner underlines the prominence of women Awakenings, and beyond.[1] The interconnected throughout the early Pietist movement, something and complex nature of this movement, contends often noted by contemporaries but mostly over‐ Lehmann, means that scholars should eschew looked in later accounts. She suggests how both national traditions of interpretation and sources may be mined to construct counternarra‐ rigid research agendas guided by terms like "Puri‐ tives that restore women's historical role and to tanism" and "Pietism" and instead "attempt to an‐ probe the construction of gender in Pietist circles. alyze the causes, the character, and the conse‐ A fne example of such work appears in Ruth Al‐ quences of the sequence of waves of revivals and brecht's chapter on Johanna Eleonora Petersen, awakening since the seventeenth century in vari‐ early Lutheran Pietism's most prominent woman. ous European countries and in North America" Albrecht argues that Petersen's case calls into (p. 16). Noting that Pietism has "deeply influenced question common notions about women and laity the genesis of the modern world," Lehmann posits in the movement. She contends that Petersen that "[i]nternational and interdisciplinary Pietism should be seen not mainly as a mystic or vision‐ research ... may be the frst step toward a new his‐ ary, as she often has been, but as a lay theological tory of the Western world that, in turn, may pro‐ author who purposefully sought public argument vide a means to reconsider the whole of modern by pronouncing on theologically disputed sub‐ history" (p. 21). These are high hopes indeed--per‐ jects. While Albrecht concedes that Petersen ac‐ haps impossibly high--to pin on any single sub‐ cepted traditional views of gender relations, she field of early modern history. But Lehmann's ca‐ maintains that Petersen's publishing activity nev‐ pacious view of Pietism and its role as an agent of ertheless challenged those norms in the long run. change underlines the significance of the present [2] studies and gives conceptual orientation to the A couple of essays illustrate how the study of volume as a whole. Lehmann's caveat about using communication networks can shed light on the term "Pietism" to frame research agendas goes dynamic of transatlantic Pietism. The late Donald mostly unheeded in a volume devoted to the sub‐ F. Durnbaugh (to whom the volume is dedicated) ject, but many of the essays draw attention to focuses on three radical groups--the Philadelphi‐ links among branches of the evangelical awaken‐ ans, the Ephrata Society, and the Separatists--to ing in central Europe, England, and the New make clear that Pietism must be understood as a World. self-consciously ecumenical and international Lehmann's statement is complemented by a movement focused on "heart religion." Durn‐ proposal by Stephen J. Stein highlighting the gains baugh shows that Pietists, both churchly and sec‐ of integrating Pietism more fully into the Ameri‐ tarian, agreed that true Christians could be found can religious narrative. According to Stein, these in many confessions, denominations, and ethnic include, among others, a greater sensitivity to the groups, a conviction reflected in and reinforced transatlantic dimensions of America's religious by the many letters, publications, and travelers history, a new emphasis on non-English-speaking that crossed the Atlantic in both directions. 2 H-Net Reviews Alexander Pyrges examines the Ebenezer settle‐ Another group of essays explores the experi‐ ment in Georgia and its century-long correspon‐ ence of Pietist communities in the New World and dence with the Society for the Propagation of the effects of the North American context on Christian Knowledge in London as well as with Pietist identity, organization, and mission. In a Lutheran Pietists in Halle, Augsburg, and else‐ piece too brief to ground its claims adequately (a where in the German Empire. Drawing on this mere six pages), Hermann Wellenreuther uses the correspondence, Pyrges challenges the view of American experience of Heinrich Melchior Müh‐ Ebenezer as an outpost of Halle Pietism that grad‐ lenberg to highlight conflicts among Moravian, in‐ ually became Americanized and instead depicts it dependent, and Hallensian Pietists over church as the hub of an intricate socioreligious network governance and to argue that, along with reject‐ that helped establish the Atlantic system and ing the structure of the institutional Lutheran shape religious developments on both continents. church in Germany, American Pietists gave a Durnbaugh's and Pyrges's contributions under‐ more prominent and active role to the laity in score the ecumenical nature of the awakened congregational affairs. In the volume's longest es‐ communities and suggest the historiographical say (twenty-nine pages), Beverly Prior Smaby tells riches yet to be mined from reading their mail. the sorry tale of how, after Nikolaus von Zinzen‐ Migration of both people and ideas forms a dorf's death in 1760, Moravians in Bethlehem, central theme in another set of essays. Douglas H. Pennsylvania, following the lead of their Euro‐ Shantz deploys Peter Berger's sociology of knowl‐ pean brethren, systematically curtailed women's edge, particularly his theories about mobility and activities and excluded them from leadership po‐ intellectual rootlessness, to analyze the embattled sitions. The Bethlehem community is also the fo‐ careers of two radical German clergymen, An‐ cus of an astute and well-documented study by dreas Achilles (a Lutheran), and Heinrich Horch Katherine Carté Engel, one with broader ramifica‐ (Reformed). Shantz draws connections between tions for the study of American Pietism and ques‐ both fgures' experience of homelessness, their at‐ tions of assimilation and secularization. Engel an‐ tachment to conventicles, and their theologies, alyzes, via a scrutiny of Bethlehem's communal particularly their chiliasm. In a too-brief article, economic system (Oeconomy), its shift in identity Willi Temme illustrates relations between radical from the 1740s to the 1760s, from being a Pil‐ groups in England and Germany by sketching out gergemeine, an outwardly-focused base of mis‐ the "transmigration and transformation" of the sionary activity, to becoming an Ortsgemeine, a concept of Divine Sophia from the theosophist closed Moravian community focused on the spiri‐ Jakob Böhme via Jane Leade and the English tual up-building of its members. The fact that the Philadelphians back to Germany, to Eva von Butt‐ old-style Oeconomy ended, argues Engel, testifies lar's Mother Eve Society, notorious for its apoca‐ to a shift in the identity of the Moravian commu‐ lypticism and sexual practices. Literary scholar nity in Pennsylvania. In an interesting narrative Hans-Jürgen Schrader focuses on the peripatetic that regrettably skirts larger historiographical life of the radical Inspirationists and their mis‐ questions, Helene M.

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