The Amana Society, 1867-1932: Accommodation of Old World Beliefs in a New World Frontier Setting Frank M
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Olivet Nazarene University Digital Commons @ Olivet Faculty Scholarship – Theology Theology 5-1988 The Amana Society, 1867-1932: Accommodation of Old World Beliefs in a New World Frontier Setting Frank M. Moore Olivet Nazarene University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/theo_facp Part of the Christian Denominations and Sects Commons, History of Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Moore, Frank M., "The Amana Society, 1867-1932: Accommodation of Old World Beliefs in a New World Frontier Setting" (1988). Faculty Scholarship – Theology. 10. https://digitalcommons.olivet.edu/theo_facp/10 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theology at Digital Commons @ Olivet. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship – Theology by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Olivet. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE AMANA SOCIETY, 1867-1932: ACCOMMODATION OF OLD WORLD BELIEFS IN A NEW WORLD FRONTIER SETTING By Frank M. Moore Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Religion May, 1988 Nashville, Tennessee Copyright by Frank M. Moore 1988 All Rights Reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODCTION 1 Statement of Purpose . 1 Previous Work in the Field 3 Discovery of New Material . 5 Chapter I. A HISTORY OF THE AMANA SOCIETY TO 1867 8 Amana Today . 8 The Pietist Movement and Radical German Pietism . 10 The Formation of the Community of True Inspiration . 16 The Expansion of the Community ..... 22 Years of Transition . 29 The Reawakening . 33 Leadership under Christian Metz . 38 Immigration to America . 42 The Ebenezer Society . 44 The Transfer to Amana . 50 II. THE DOCTRINES AND WORSHIP OF THE AMANA SOCIETY . 55 Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Background . 55 Doctrines of the Amana Society . 64 Der Glauben . 64 The Catechism . 66 The Confession of Faith . 85 "The Twenty-Four Rules" . 90 "The Twenty-One Rules" . 92 Worship in the Amana Society . 96 Regular Worship Services . 97 Special Annual Observances . 101 III. LEADERSHIP AND CHANGE IN THE COMMUNITY 109 Leadership of Barbara Heinemann Landmann . 111 Establishing Her Authority . 111 God's Displeasure With Amana . 117 ii A Predictable Schedule . 120 Offenses in the Community . 121 Leadership of the Great Council . 127 Elders' Conferences . 13 Confronted With Change and Outside Influences . 137 Messages to the Community . 143 Modifying the Rules . 147 The Elders' Response to Offenses . 149 Serious Threats to the Community . 152 The Impact of World War I . 159 Loss of Isolation . 162 The Great Change . 167 IV. THE FAITH OF AMANA AND RELIGIOUS CHANGE 169 A Favorable Environment For Developing Faith . 170 A Voluntary Organization . 176 An Attitude of Asceticism . 185 Industry and Prosperity . 188 Where is the Enemy? . 192 Calamity and God's Displeasure . • . 195 Members Not Spiritual Enough . 200 Free Will and Social Control . 204 Institutionalization . 208 Secularization . 218 A Shift of Emphasis . 222 Disbanding the Communal Organization . 226 V. THE OLD AND THE NEW 236 A New Look at the Faith . 236 Subtle American Influences . 241 Resisting Assimilation . 247 A New Relationship with the World . 248 Change and Continuity in the Faith . 252 Remaining True to the Faith . 254 Adjustments After the Great Change . 256 Faith in Amana Today . 262 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 265 iii INTRODUCTION Statement of Purpose The purpose of this dissertation is to study the religious character of the Amana Society from the death, in 1867, of Christian Metz, the inspired leader who brought the group to America, to the time of the Great Change in 1932 when the religious and economic interests of the society were separated. While some attention has been directed in other studies to Amana as a communal group, almost no attention has been given to its religion. This study will begin with a brief history of the society from its inception in eighteenth-century Germany to the time the community moved to Iowa. This is necessary not only to set the context of the study but also to introduce the connections Amana has with the Inspirationist doctrines of the French Camisards and Boehmist influences in Radical German Pietism. These connections, absolutely necessary to understand Amana's religion, have not been made in previous studies of the society. The dissertation will continue with a presentation of the doctrines and worship patterns of the Amana Society. These doctrines have never been systematically presented in other studies. They, too, must be taken into 1 2 consideration if one is to understand why Amana responded as it did to its rapidly changing environment at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The major thrust of this dissertation will be an analysis of the religious developments of the society from 1867 to 1932. The generally accepted view of Amana's religious development, which has been presented in the course of historical investigations, states that the social changes which occurred within the community reflect a breakdown of the group's religion. This is the conclusion of Barnett Richling's master's thesis, Diane Barthel's recent work on Amana, and a host of magazine 1 articles about Amana published across the years. This dissertation challenges the generally accepted theory of spiritual declension and offers evidence to support another view. The following presentation will attempt neither to give a sweeping religious history of the society nor to give a social analysis of the evolution of the community. 1Barnett Richling, "Sectarian Ideology and Change in Amana" (Master's thesis, McGill University, 1974); Diane Barthel, Amana: From Pietist Sect to American Community (Lincoln: Universityof Nebraska Press, 1984); Marcus Bach, "Amana: The Glory Has Departed," The Christian Century, August 28, 1935, 1083-1086.--- 3 The central agenda will be, rather, to investigate the religion of the society as it was taught and lived throughout the period of study, with special attention being given to the significance of the changes which took place. The dissertation will conclude by suggesting an interpretation for these developments which challenges the spiritual declension theory and presents Amana's faith in a new light. Previous Work in the Field Since Amana was a closed commune until the twentieth century, few outsiders visited the colonies in the early years of their existence. One of the first outsiders to see the colonies in operation and write about 2 them was Charles Nordhoff, who visited in 1875. Information was incomplete until the State Historical Society of Iowa published the first full presentation on the Amana Colonies in 1908 in Amana: the Community of True 3 Inspiration by Bertha M. H. Shambaugh. It offers not a scholarly presentation but rather the conclusions of a lay observer. The book is composed of a collection of two-or- 2charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States (New York: Schocken Books, 1965), 25-63. 3This work was reprinted in 1932 with a section aaaea on the Great Change under the title Amana That Was and Amana That Is. 4 three-page essays she wrote on various aspects of Amana life and history. Her bibliographical information is often incomplete and difficult to locate. However, even with its flaws, Shambaugh's work has remained the chief source of information on Amana until recent years and is still in print. Francis DuVal wrote his Ph.D. dissertation in 1948 on the life and leadership qualities of Christian Metz. The study gave careful consideration to Metz but contributed little to an understanding of Amana's religion. Without a doubt, the best and most complete presentation of the Amana Colonies was made by Jonathan Andelson in "Communalism and Change in the Amana Society: 1855-1932," his Ph.D. dissertation submitted in 1974. In it Andelson studied Amana's communalism from a sociological point of view and offered plausible reasons for the society's abandoning its communal economic organization in 1932. He did an excellent job analyzing the social development of the community but did not explore the religious thought of the society or the influences the religion had on the changes the community experienced. The most recent Amana study was conducted by Diane Barthel in Amana: From Pietist Sect to American Community, which was published in 1984. She devoted most of her attention to twentieth-century developments in Amana and 5 said very little about its religious thought. She accepted the spiritual declension theory as an explanation of the social changes which occurred prior to and following the Great Change. An examination of her references shows very little use of primary resources available in the Amana museum and archives. Her presentation is little more than a compilation of what others have written about the community. Discovery of New Material Besides the fact that no one has given direct attention to the religious thought of Amana and the role it played in the development of the community, a new study of the society is warranted by the fact that new material, offering new insights, has recently been made available through a number of sources. The Amana Heritage Society has made a concentrated effort over the past several years to obtain copies of all extant writings about the Amana Society for its museum. Consequently, more material is available today than ever before. Old records and books are brought to the museum almost every time a building is renovated or a deceased member's personal effects are examined. For example, when Jonathan Andelson presented his study in 1974, minutes of the Great Council meetings (Bruderraths Beschluesse) were available only through 1900. Today copies are available through 1932. Andelson 6 only had access to the Inspirations-Historie4 through 1923.