Discussing Peace and Violence at the Moravian Archives

I had a wonderful time at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem (PA) last night. I had the opportunity to give a lecture on how eighteenth-century Moravians dealt with questions of violence, war, and participation in civil affairs. The archives, which has recently set up a partnership with the Moravian Historical Society in Nazareth (PA), has a fantastic collection of treasures and manuscript sources related not just to the Moravians, but to many facets of life and faith in early America. Paul Peucker, Lanie Graf, and the rest of the staff are always helpful and I have been the beneficiary of their good work many times. My talk attempted to probe the tensions and complexities with respect to Moravians and violence and I argued that a normative position is difficult to come by. Moravians certainly promoted peace and often refused to participate in military service. But pacifism was not an official tenet of the church and a diversity of convictions could be found among them, even among the church’s leaders. You can listen to my lecture here, or wait for an upcoming issue of the Journal of Moravian History to read the full article in print.