The Moravian Church in England 1728-1760. - Review - book review

Ecumenical Review, The, Jan, 2001 by Paul Avis

Colin J. Podmore, The Moravian Church in England 1728-1760, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998, 45.00 [pounds sterling].

In 1997-98 the Church of England and the Moravian Church in Great Britain and Ireland entered into an agreement of mutual acknowledgment as churches, coupled with mutual commitment to work together in a variety of ways towards fuller visible unity. The Fetter Lane Common Statement recalled the Fetter Lane Society which was the source of the spiritual revival which began in 1739 and where John and Charles Wesley found inspiration for a while. In 1749 the British parliament, with the full support of the bishops of the Church of England, recognized the Moravians as an ancient episcopal Protestant church, thus acknowledging, remarkably, the place of a separate episcopal jurisdiction in England. After 250 years, history has come full circle.

Dr Podmore, an Anglican, was himself involved in the conversations that led to the Fetter Lane Agreement, their resident expert on the early history of the Moravians in England. In this highly readable adaptation of his Oxford DPhil. dissertation, he gives us not so much a chronicle of Moravian origins in England as an analysis and interpretation of certain crucial aspects of their early history within a chronological framework. He charts the rise and fall of Moravian reputation and influence, from the heady days of spiritual vitality and renewal in the 1740s to being stigmatized as a fraudulent, immoral, unorthodox and dangerous sect in the 1750s. What interests Dr Podmore is the role and significance of the Moravians vis-a-vis the religious revival the Methodist movement (Whitfield as well as the Wesleys), the established church and its bishops and a range of individuals including Grimshaw, Watts, Doddridge and Cennick (as well as the bishops).

The relationship between the Moravians and the religious revival is fascinating. They helped to trigger it, yet remained apart from it. Through them fervent Lutheran pietism fertilized Anglican high-church theology and spirituality, contributing not only to the 18th-century revival but also ultimately to the Tractarian (Oxford) Movement in the 19th. The Moravians were not interested in evangelism and did not proselytize. They responded slowly and reluctantly to calls for their help. Their prime concern was the pastoral care of their own people and in this they set a standard of excellence. At the time of Zinzendorf's death in 1760, there were only twelve Moravian communities in England. But their influence was out of all proportion to their numbers or activity. The key was the commitment to building communities and pastoring them. For Zinzendorf, Christ was the Lord of mission and worked through the Holy Spirit to build the Christian community. There was no Christianity without community and no community without holy communion. The illustrations to this book reveal the structure of the Moravian settlements and the character of their worship.

The dilemma over Moravian identity is intriguing. Given that the societies consisted substantially of Anglicans, were they dissenters who therefore needed to come under the Toleration Act of 1689 or societies within the national church, but with a distinctive character? Were they descendants of the Unitas Fratrum, as their claimed episcopal succession suggested, or were they to be identified as "Old Lutherans" as Zinzendorf proposed.9 Since the Moravians were themselves divided on these questions, it is not surprising that the bishops of the established church were perplexed and confused.

Bishop Thomas Wilson (later a hero of the Tractarians) succumbed to their spiritual charm in his old age. Archbishop Potter backed them but Bishop Gibson of London became their greatest enemy and Archbishop Herring seems to have been implicated in a campaign to discredit them. Hostility to fanaticism was combined with resistance to a rival episcopal jurisdiction. On the one hand, the Moravians seemed to have sound episcopal credentials. On the other; they were tainted with the unforgiveable sin of "enthusiasm", displaying symptoms that we now associate with the Toronto blessing: fainting, groaning and howling. They attracted disreputable elements: mavericks, charlatans, self-styled prophets and prophetesses. They devalued the ordinances of the church, the means of grace, and waited for inner illumination. They alienated the Wesleys. In the end it was the merging of the erotic and the devotional -- never far apart -- in Moravian spirituality that was largely responsible for their downfall: a devotion focused on the side-wound of the crucified Christ, which sometimes took ludicrous or pathological forms; their frankness about sex in the lives of married and single people; and an intrusive pastoral oversight of newly-wedded couples that verged on the prurient.

How difficult it was (and is) to "discern the spirits"! A reputation for fanaticism, coupled with huge debts, discredited the Moravians in England. As Podmore says, they gained a place in "the demonology of enthusiasm". In 1755 Zinzendorf left England, giving up the struggle. As Podmore indicates (though without elaborating), it was not until the next decade that the Moravians began to recover their reputation through their sacrificial pioneering missionary work, especially in North America. We are indebted to Colin Podmore for these insights into an important facet of the first international Protestant church, which remains a global church to this day. In an age of coalescing Christian world communions, where does its future lie?