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  • Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem
  • Jeff Bach
Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem. By Craig D. Atwood. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2004. Pp. xii, 283.)

In Community of the Cross: Moravian Piety in Colonial Bethlehem, Craig Atwood examines the connections between theology, ritual, and social organization in colonial Bethlehem by focusing on the Moravians' devotion to the crucified Jesus. The book opens by setting Bethlehem in the context of religious diversity in Pennsylvania and its transatlantic connections. Atwood turns to the christocentric theology of the Moravians' leader, Count Zinzendorf, particularly the devotion to Christ's wounds. The author examines leadership and crisis in colonial Bethlehem, ritual life, and social organization, ending with a chapter on the Litany of the Wounds. Atwood traces connections between Zinzendorf's theology of Christ's bodily suffering and the social body of colonial Bethlehem and the religious body of the Moravians there.

Atwood, who is on the faculty of Wake Forest Divinity School, has researched extensively the primary sources in their original languages. He offers a thorough interpretation of Zinzendorf's theology through his sermons, liturgical works, and correspondence. Atwood presents this complex material in a lucid manner, explaining unique Moravian vocabulary.

Atwood seeks to rescue the Litany of the Wounds from dismissal by some past historians. Atwood argues that the litany "should not be dismissed as a product of Sifting Time fanaticism" (p. 103) nor should it be blamed for the economic and social crisis of 1748-1752 in Bethlehem. He moves the litany to the center of understanding Zinzendorf's theology of Christ's incarnation and suffering. Atwood argues convincingly that the litany, whose authorship is not fully known, is central to Zinzendorf's mature theology, not just the result of metaphorical excesses from a problematic period known as the Sifting Time at the Moravian community in Herrnhaag, Germany. He explains this concept to the uninitiated and limits it to a short period of 1748-1749, unique to Herrnhaag. Atwood credits broader economic woes among the Moravians as the cause for problems at Bethlehem after 1748, rather than Moravian contemplation on Christ's wounds at the neglect of needed work. Atwood's explanations place the Litany of the Wounds in a more organic position within Moravian theology and social and ritual life at Bethlehem than has previously been thought.

In some more provocative passages, Atwood explores Christ's circumcision as a wound that "establishes the holiness of the penis" (p. 89). Yet he admits some liabilities of Zinzendorf's emphasis on the maleness of Christ. Atwood considers the side wound of Jesus as the "organ of spiritual birth in Zinzendorf's theology," resulting in a kind of "feminization of Christ" (p. 110). Thus the side wound becomes "the breast that pours forth nourishment for the believer" (p. 110). These images are reinforced by the centrality of the Eucharist for Moravians as a source of union with Christ. [End Page 448]

Atwood relates this quest for union with Christ to Zinzendorf's sometimes ambivalent constructions of gender and sexuality. While Zinzendorf esteemed marital sex as a "sacramental expression of spirituality and worship of God," (p. 185) the soul's union with Christ took priority over marriage partners. Atwood sees this theology as the reason for spouses living separate in same-sex housing in Bethlehem until after 1758.

Given the book's scholarship, one can overlook an occasional small oversight, such as locating Conrad Beissel with the Inspired in Wittgenstein rather than Wetteravia and misspelling his name (pp. 37, 187) or identifying J. G. Gichtel as a Dutch mystic (p. 120), rather than as a German living in the Netherlands.

Craig Atwood has successfully interpreted a difficult component of Moravian liturgy, shedding light on colonial Bethlehem in the process. Roman Catholic readers may well be intrigued by this Protestant group's devotions to Christ's wounds. Atwood's Community of the Cross persuasively interprets the unique conclusions that the Moravians drew from this devotion.

Jeff Bach
Bethany Theological Seminary
Richmond, Indiana
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