Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Gambling with God: The Use of the Lot by the Moravian Brethren in the Eighteenth CenturyElisabeth SommerThe use of the lot in decision-making marks the Moravian Brethren as peculiar in eighteenth-century Europe. Their belief that the lot represented the true will of Christ stands at odds with a century which had inherited a changing world view in which a strong confidence in the power of human reason gradually replaced the assumption of God’s providential power. 1 Historian Andrew Fix has traced this intellectual shift as it affected the seventeenth-century Dutch Collegiants, who moved from a spiritualist to a rationalist approach to religious questions. The Moravian Brethren, known in Europe as the Renewed Unity of the Brethren, resisted the triumph of reason over revelation into the late eighteenth century. In this they reflected the general hostility toward the emphasis on science and reason to which George Becker has pointed as a hallmark of the Halle Pietists. 2 This similarity is not surprising given the fact that the Brethren were very much a part of the later Pietist movement and had strong ties with Halle during the formative years of the Unity. Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf, the dominant influence in the development of the new Unity, attended the Pädegogium at Halle from 1710 to 1716 and modeled his initial projects on his estate after similar ones in Halle. 3Halle preceded the Brethren in a struggle over the role of reason in spiritual life. In the 1740s the philosophy of Christian Wolff (and hence also of Leibniz) [End Page 267] became popular among many at Halle, despite his having been removed from the faculty in 1722. Although the Halle Pietists did not reject science and reason out of hand, some among the faculty had perceived a distinct threat to faith from Wolff’s particular focus. 4 Through his view of reason as the divine source of human knowledge, Wolff shifted the ultimate test of religious insight from revelation to reason. 5 This same decade saw the Brethren’s piety reach a height of intensely emotional, even sensual, expression. This may have prevented Wolffian ideas from extending their influence into the Unity at that time. By the 1790s, however, it became clear that, at least among many of the lay members of the Unity, the Enlightenment stress on the primacy of reason was winning. Just as the Collegiants had come to view “free prophecy” as a function of human reason, several of the Brethren ultimately saw the lot as something open to human manipulation and objected to its use, arguing that decisions were best left simply to “brotherly reason.” 6Although the emphasis on reason invaded the Unity later than it entered Halle, they shared traits that made them vulnerable. In both cases piety was linked to behavior and a certain level of indoctrination. The tendency to drill young people in proper belief and conduct created a climate in which rival ideas could prove quite seductive. 7 A study of the Unity’s use of the lot and its place within their spiritual life over the course of the century reveals this process. It also reveals something of the nature of authority within the Unity since the change was driven by the laity, while the leadership struggled, largely in vain, to maintain the old order. Most importantly, the debate over the use of the lot shows the dynamics of changing ideas outside of the realm of the university and seminary. This allows a view of the impact of practical concerns and individual desires on intellectual change and illuminates the relationship between abstract ideas and social reality.The Unity of the Brethren began as a gathering of Protestant exiles who settled on the Saxon estate of Count von Zinzendorf in 1722. There they founded the village of Herrnhut, and in 1727, under Zinzendorf’s watchful eye, they drew up a set of village statutes in which they sought to preserve its character as a community “built by the living God and a work of his almighty hand.” 8 Their vision of a godly community resulted in a fusion of spiritual authority with economic and domestic authority...