Moravian Missions, Believers, and the Halle-Herrnhut Controversy, 1727–1737

Abstract

This article examines the Halle-Herrnhut controversy from 1727 to 1737 by foregrounding the role of the Moravian mission program and the spiritual agency of lay believers in shaping ecclesiastical politics. Moving beyond the conventional focus on theological disputes and personal animosities between the Franckes and Count Zinzendorf, the analysis will examine how Moravian missionaries and common believers were represented and rhetorically mobilized within a transatlantic correspondence network as symbols of ecclesiastical disruption and spiritual populism. Drawing on unpublished German-language letters exchanged among Halle Pietists and their allies, the article reveals how concerns about denominational proximity, spiritual authority, and institutional control were rhetorically projected onto Moravian expansionary initiatives. The controversy, which unfolded across Europe, British North America, and as far east as India, was less about doctrinal precision than about reputational anxieties and competing visions of Protestant community. Moravian believers, who were often lay artisans, refugees, and itinerant missionaries, emerged as symbolic figures whose perceived spiritual agency threatened the coherence of Halle’s program of reform. By tracing how elite actors invoked these believers in polemical discourse, the article offers a new categorical lens for understanding the politics of mission, conversion, and ecclesiology in the eighteenth-century Protestant Atlantic world.

I. Introduction

On June 26, 1736, Gotthilf August Francke sat down at his desk in the German city of Halle to compose one final letter to his former friend and colleague Count Nicolas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Nine years had passed since the death of his father August Hermann Francke, a beloved founder of the German Pietism movement. Nine years had also passed since the renewal of the Moravian Church on Zinzendorf’s estate in eastern Saxony in 1727. With a seemingly heavy heart, the younger Francke explained to Zinzendorf how he had received reports from abroad about a “cabal formed against you and the congregation in Herrnhut,” a small village located eighty kilometers east of Dresden, whose purpose was to “persecute and profane you.” ¹ These disingenuous words, however, would only fall on deaf ears. For as he wrote, both he and Zinzendorf knew that the younger Francke himself was indeed a member, perhaps even the instigating leader, of this burgeoning epistolary campaign to discredit the Moravians. ²

Zinzendorf had become an infamous figure in secular and ecclesiastical circles in central Europe because of a perceived inclination toward confessional nonconformity, a reputation for fraternizing with local peasants and encouraging them to disobey the feudal nobility (including the Habsburg Emperor Charles VI), the suspicious circumstances surrounding his consecration as a Moravian bishop, and especially the implementation of his mission program. ³ By the early 1730s, as Moravian missionaries spread around the Atlantic world, their sphere of influence became too large to ignore, particularly in light of Zinzendorf’s patronage by the Danish King Christian VI, whose interest in Pietist missions threatened a prominent funding source for the expansion of the Halle mission program. ⁴ Reflecting on the long-standing dispute that had arisen between Halle and Herrnhut since the early 1720s, Francke asked Zinzendorf, with polite condescension, to “judge for yourself or ask other neutral people to judge, whether…we have cause to complain about the unjustified accusations and blasphemies against each other?” ⁵ In reality, of course, both men adamantly believed they did have cause. While Zinzendorf’s reputation for separatism would contribute to the controversy, it was his mission program, and the believers who carried it, that posed the more immediate threat. ⁶ The fear was not simply that Zinzendorf was creating a breakaway movement, but that his missionaries were actively winning hearts and minds across Europe and the Atlantic world, thereby disrupting existing allegiances and reshaping Protestant networks. The Halle–Herrnhut controversy may thus be seen as a defining episode in the early history of Protestant missions. Its reverberations, though not always acknowledged in historical scholarship, extended beyond European ecclesiastical circles and touched the evolving religious landscape of British North America, particularly during the formative years of the Great Awakening.

The younger Francke’s use of the term “cabal” to describe the opposition to the Moravians in Herrnhut aptly captures the coded aura that shrouded this controversy. The split between Halle and Herrnhut and the incessant portrayal of the Moravians as religious radicals who lacked respect for proper authority, ecclesiastical or civil, has typically been portrayed as the result of personal animosities and theological differences between members of the Halle Pietist leadership, especially the Franckes, in Germany, Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg in Pennsylvania, and Zinzendorf. ⁷ As Hans Schneider notes, “theological contrasts” between Halle and Herrnhut “are usually in the foreground of the previous descriptions” of this controversy. ⁸ Although doctrinal tensions have received particular emphasis, scholarship by Gerhard Reichel and Udo Sträter suggests that institutional and political concerns were equally, if not more, decisive. Otto Tiegeler’s research on the young Zinzendorf develops this narrative by showing how his early theological formation in Halle shaped, and later clashed with, the expectations of the Pietist establishment. ⁹ Central to those expectations were the teachings of August Herman Francke and Halle Pietists, including his son Gotthilf, who emphasized a distinctively experiential spiritual transformation characterized by the Bußkampf (“penitential struggle”) in the process of conversion. In similar fashion to the Lutheran and Reformed churches, both in Continental Europe and British North America, believers would engage in spiritual confrontation and reflection for an undetermined period of time before coming to a profound realization that they possessed an inherently sinful nature. Achieving this new awareness led to justifying faith, which impelled converts to “act in accordance with the religious confessions.” ¹⁰ Zinzendorf, by contrast, believed that conversion could happen very quickly, even instantaneously for some believers. The period of contemplation and struggle was not a dogmatic component of true conversion in Moravian religious culture. As a result, Zinzendorf criticized the Hallensian notion of Bußkampf because a penitential struggle seemed to imply a reliance upon unnecessary “learning” and pious living in order to obtain and retain salvation (that is justification through works), whereas Moravians believed one needed only God’s grace to be saved, no matter its form or how quickly it was received. ¹¹

Gotthilf Francke inadvertently revealed a significant feature of this dispute when he referred to the cabal against “the congregation in Herrnhut,” namely the pervasive assumptions about the potential for disobedience caused by the wavering loyalties of the “lower orders of society,” the ordinary believers. ¹² As the years passed, that fear transformed and became intimately associated with the expansion of the Moravian mission and the growing influence of lay missionaries who spread out from Herrnhut and threatened to overtake the missionary accomplishments and, with them, the larger program of Protestant reform pursued by the Halle Pietists. As Moravian missionaries gained traction across Europe and the Atlantic world, Halle Pietists feared a loss of spiritual authority and influence, particularly in regions where their own reform efforts were underway. In this context, the dispute coalesced around competing visions of religious authority and community influence, with missions serving as a primary vehicle for shaping Protestant allegiance and expanding spiritual reach. Both Halle Pietists and Moravians emphasized lay religious experience, which played a formative role in the broader emergence of transnational evangelicalism, as W. R. Ward has shown. ¹³ But the Moravian model’s distinctive appeal, and especially its emphasis on experiential piety in mission contexts, offered a particularly mobile and ecumenical framework that helped shape the evangelical networks of the eighteenth century.

Despite the centrality of lay religious experiences in the Pietism movement, the rhetorical construction and strategic deployment of “common believers” in ecclesiastical controversies has received little focused attention. Jonathan Strom has shown that conversion narratives and spiritual agency among lay believers were central to Pietist identity, though often mediated through elite theological frameworks. ¹⁴ Douglas Shantz and Peter Yoder demonstrate that while Pietism preserved formal distinctions between clergy and laity, its emphasis on experiential piety, particularly in devotional and sacramental contexts, expanded lay religious participation and subtly challenged traditional ecclesiastical structures. ¹⁵ Building on this literature, historians have characterized the Moravian movement itself as a community or “fellowship of true believers,” notable for its Philadelphian and early-ecumenical spirit that sought unity among diverse Protestant traditions. ¹⁶ Paul Peucker notes that “Zinzendorf and the other [Moravian] leaders were intent on establishing a community of the true children of God, regardless of their denominational background.” ¹⁷ Zinzendorf’s Philadelphian vision of a transconfessional fellowship of true believers, while spiritually inclusive, posed a direct challenge to the established confessional order in Germany by destabilizing traditional ecclesiological boundaries. In this article, the term “common believer” refers primarily to lay individuals, including religious refugees, tradespeople, or itinerant missionaries, whose spiritual agency was invoked by elite actors in polemical correspondence. At times, the term assumes a broader meaning that includes leaders and educated ministers like August Gottlieb Spangenberg, not in their official capacities but as individual believers themselves. This becomes most apparent when they are rhetorically absorbed into the “Zinzendorfian spirit” of Moravian piety and, in Spangenberg’s case, come to symbolize the perceived threat of Moravian influence. The broader usage reflects the ways in which spiritual experience and religious identity could transcend formal hierarchies, allowing even prominent figures to be rhetorically positioned as representatives of a shared, experiential piety. Lay figures, to be clear, do not appear as authors in the polemical correspondence surrounding the Halle-Herrnhut controversy, but their actions, particularly in the context of Moravian missions, and spiritual agency were central to the debates. The analysis will show how elite actors rhetorically positioned these lay believers as symbolic touchstones in disputes over ecclesiastical authority, doctrinal legitimacy, and the boundaries of Protestant community. The usage of “common believer” thus reflects both the rhetorical function of the term in Halle-Herrnhut discourse and the broader ecclesiastical anxieties about spiritual populism and clerical authority.

Heeding Schneider’s call to consult the “yet unpublished correspondence” between and about Halle and Herrnhut from 1727 to 1737, this article undertakes close readings of that material, sometimes even against the intended grain, to show that the controversy extended beyond hostility toward Zinzendorf’s perceived eccentricities and theological innovations. Schneider briefly noted the importance of pragmatic ecclesiastical concerns (what he called “church-political constellations and interests”) and this study situates those concerns within the context of the Moravian mission program, where they became deeply entangled with questions of loyalty, spiritual welfare, and institutional control. ¹⁸ These concerns, whether real or imagined, centered on the missions’ perceived ability to disrupt the loyalty and spiritual welfare of other Protestant believers and became a crucial wedge issue lurking just beneath the surface of the polemical discourse. ¹⁹

Building on Schneider’s contention that the Moravians became a threat when they “penetrated the districts of Halle” and were subsequently seen as “‘proselytizing’ and unwanted competition,” this article argues that the threat extended far beyond Zinzendorf and the confines of Halle. It encompassed all Moravian believers and missionaries and reached across the Atlantic to British North America. ²⁰ So menacing was the Moravian transatlantic expansion that powerful members of the Halle leadership even communicated its dangers to Pietist missionaries working as far away as the Indian subcontinent. By examining the rhetorical and argumentative strategies employed by the active participants in this dispute, this study highlights the cultural value German Pietists of various stripes ascribed to both missions and common believers, adding a new categorical dimension to our understanding of the politics that shaped Protestant ecclesiastical boundaries in mid-eighteenth-century Germany.

II. Moravian and Halle Pietist Missions

The mission programs of Halle and Herrnhut emerged from the turbulent legacy of the Reformation and the spiritual renewal sparked by German Pietism, yet they reflected fundamentally different visions of Christian outreach. Drawing on Pietist ideals, the Moravians expanded the German concept of Gemeinde to encompass more than the immediate members of their congregations or even the Brüdergemeine as a whole. For them, Gemeinde connoted a “mystical, invisible communion between saints in heaven and on earth,” Moravian or otherwise. Zinzendorf believed that those who sincerely embraced the Christian faith and strove to live accordingly constituted a community ‘“already living in a heaven on earth through the ministry of the Holy Spirit,” anticipating Christ’s triumphant return. ²¹ Moravian missionaries worked to realize this eschatological vision by cultivating a global Gemeinde rooted in devotion and hope. This section traces the development of Halle and Moravian mission programs, highlighting how their divergent visions of Christian community, conversion, and the purpose of mission laid the groundwork for the Halle-Herrnhut Controversy.

Central to the Moravian mission was Zinzendorf’s notion of the “first fruits,” a soteriological principle rooted in Lutheran and Reformed traditions that extended salvation through faith beyond the original elect. ²² This emphasis on experiential piety and inclusive redemption developed early in Zinzendorf’s life through exposure to his grandmother Henriette Katharina von Gersdorf’s extra-denominational Philadelphian convictions during his youth in Großhennersdorf. His theological development deepened during his education in Halle under August Hermann Francke, where he encountered the Danish-Halle Mission and its Pietist missionaries, including Bartholomäus Ziegenbalg and Heinrich Plütschau, who were sent to India beginning in 1705. ²³ Listening firsthand to their experiences and having regular access to the Halle Reports – written accounts composed by the Halle missionaries that were printed at the Waisenhaus beginning in 1710 – left a lasting impression on Zinzendorf and became formative influences he later cited when establishing the Moravian mission program. ²⁴ The arrival of Czech refugees on his estate in 1722, and his admiration for their simple Protestant piety, further fortified Zinzendorf’s lifelong commitment to Christian activism and would come to define the Moravian Church’s identity as both religious outsiders and a scattered community of believers.

For the Moravians as much as for Hallensian Pietists, missions operated as an institutional vehicle for transforming the “inner persons” of non-Christians and nominal believers and thereby spreading the Christian faith. Conversion at the behest of Christ as the head of the Church, the Bible as the ultimate source of knowable truth, and the tenacious pursuit of an ethical Christian life stood as the central foundations of faith that the missionaries worked to foment. ²⁵ Despite this shared foundation, the Moravians and the Halle Pietists diverged sharply in their approaches to mission work. While the Halle missions formed just one part of a broader reform agenda – including initiatives in poor relief, expanded access to healthcare, and improvements in childhood education – the Moravians placed missions at the heart of their movement. Pietists in Halle initially focused on converting other Germans and Europeans before taking the remarkable step of establishing a mission in Tranquebar, India at the behest of the Danish King Frederick IV. The Herrnhut mission, though also a product of contact with the Danish royal court, consisted of a “diasporic ministry” in England, Scandinavia, the Baltic territories, and various places in and beyond Continental Europe, especially Germany, the Netherlands, France, Switzerland, Poland, and Russia. From the very beginning, however, the Moravians also spread outside the borders of Europe, first westward to the New World and then, following the Halle Pietsts, to the east. Beginning in 1732 with David Nitschman and Leonard Dober’s early sojourn to the Danish Caribbean island of St. Thomas and then subsequently to St. Croix and St. John, Moravian missions would eventually extend to Jamaica, Greenland, North America, Suriname, Labrador, and as far as Algeria, Egypt, and Ceylon. ²⁶

By the 1760s, a mere thirty years after its inception, the astonishing geographic reach of the Moravian mission program was matched only by their remarkable innovations in mission strategies that deviated considerably from the Halle model. Missionaries sent out from Halle generally consisted of university-trained members of the formal Lutheran ministry who had been traditionally educated in Christian theology and church history. The Moravians constituted a movement of lay people and modeled their mission program after the achievements of Paul of Tarsus and his pioneering travels through the Mediterranean and Asia Minor to preach the “cross of Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:17) to all who would listen. While a few Moravian missionaries possessed some clerical education, most were lay artisans and tradesmen who felt a special call from the Holy Spirit to spread the good news of the gospels, just as Paul had received (despite his theological sophistication) on the road to Damascus in the Book of Acts. The Moravian penchant for dispatching missionaries who did not possess a traditional education in Christian theology threatened the authority of the confessional ministry, including the churchly Pietists in Halle, and its ability to convey God’s message to believers properly. In addition, Halle missionaries in Tranquebar and elsewhere implemented the Hallensian ministerial program in microcosm by relying on preaching and catechisms to communicate the Christian faith, a methodology that reflected Franke’s understanding of Philip Jakob Spener’s “einfältig, aber gewaltig” – Anweisung zum erbaulichen Predigen (1676) and his Gottseligkeit durch den rechten Gebrauch des Katechismus (1677). Zinzendorf, on the other hand, preferred pedagogies that oriented believers away from the things of the world and emphasized personal experiences with Jesus and the Holy Spirit, a method he also applied to teaching children and described in his “aus gehorsam alles thun”: Kurzer Aufsatz von Christlicher Erziehung der Kinder (1739). ²⁷

Diverging approaches pursued by the Moravians and Halle Pietists bespoke contrasting goals and conceptions of mission. Exhibiting his sustained commitment to reforming the Lutheran Orthodoxy from within, August Hermann Francke built a missionary training program in Glaucha that attained an international reputation. “No sensible person will be able to judge otherwise,” Francke wrote in his Pflanzgarten der Weltverbesserung (1701), “than that an excellent, yes, the very best means for a thorough improvement in all classes would be…planted and cared for so diligently, carefully, and wistfully under Divine blessing that well-developed plants and trees [that is missionaries] were always…[taken] to all parts of the world, and transferred among nations.” ²⁸ Upon arriving in Pennsylvania, Heinrich Melchior Mühlenberg, a Lutheran Pietist pastor sent overseas by the elder Francke, found the region’s religious diversity deeply troubling, particularly the open toleration of Zinzendorf and his followers. Mühlenberg believed that Zinzendorf’s conception of church government and theological perspective would not lead to true world transformation. He expressed this concern in a letter recounting a now-famous conversation with Zinzendorf, titled Bericht über eine Begegnung mit Zinzendorf in Philadelphia (1743). In response, Zinzendorf rearticulated his alternative vision of mission and Protestant community three years later in Ein philadelphisch geprägtes Missionskonzept (1746). Cautioning against the ambition for mass conversions exhibited by the Halle Pietists, Methodists, and other Christian mission groups, Zinzendorf warned that “[w]e should not be hasty in making churches among the heathen” because that was a feat only Jesus alone could accomplish. “Jesus did not baptize himself,” he explained, “his disciples did.” And herein lay “a great maxim, to be as scarce as possible with baptism, even more so with the other sacraments” lest the integrity of the faith on earth be diminished by mere mortals attempting to perform work reserved for the divine. ²⁹ God’s people existed in all Christian confessions, denominations, and walks of life. If their faith had not been awakened yet, it would be in due time. Zinzendorf’s Philadelphian vision promoted an expansive, extra-institutional community of true believers, rejecting traditional Protestant confessional and ecclesial structures. This approach gave Moravian missionaries and lay believers unusually broad ecclesiastical authority, which directly challenged the integrity of the Hallensian reform program.

III. Controversy in the Old World

Zinzendorf fomented a cloud of suspicion around him in multiple regions of German society from the time he left Halle in 1717 to his subsequent high-profile public disputes with the royal court in Dresden in the early 1720s. Until 1727, the German political and ecclesiastical authorities considered Zinzendorf’s adversarial and headstrong (or perhaps “heartstrong”) demeanor and personality a mere nuisance because of his noble status as a count. His extensive correspondence with European dignitaries enabled state authorities to monitor him closely, viewing him as an ecclesiastical miscreant. Religious authorities in Halle kept an especially close eye on Zinzendorf because of his widely known association with the Pietism movement there. Those who operated within Zinzendorf’s social orbit, no matter how well known or unknown, eventually became suspect.

The suspicion surrounding Zinzendorf was not only theological. It was rooted in deeper anxieties about the reach and influence of Moravian missions and the believers who carried them. Gerhard Reichel and Udo Sträter have long argued that the Halle–Herrnhut controversy unfolded within a dense network of faculty politics at German universities as well as personal and generational rivalries. Reichel’s work, including his biography of August Gottlieb Spangenberg and his analysis of anti-Zinzendorf factions in Halle and Wernigerode, traces how elite actors and institutional interests, particularly among theological faculty and regional authorities, shaped the reception of Herrnhut’s innovations. ³⁰ Sträter further shows that Spangenberg’s dismissal from Halle in 1733 was not merely a reaction to theological irregularities but part of a broader effort by the theological faculty to defend its monopoly on religious education and to contain the perceived threat posed by Herrnhut’s communal structures. These tensions, rooted in generational turnover, competing pietist visions, and the politicization of academic appointments, culminated in Spangenberg’s expulsion, which came to symbolize the institutional rupture between Halle and Herrnhut. ³¹ While these studies illuminate the confessional politics and academic rivalries at play, they do not account for the broader ecclesiastical anxieties surrounding Moravian missions or the rhetorical deployment of lay believers. As Herrnhut’s reach expanded, so too did suspicions that its missionary networks were reshaping the religious landscape in ways that threatened established ecclesiastical authority. These fears were grounded in concrete developments, such as the arrival of Bohemian Protestant refugees on Zinzendorf’s estate. In a 1727 letter, David Korte, a missionary printer in Copenhagen, warned Halle-affiliated pastors: “You might know of this Count, in part, from Halle, who has already received on his estate in Upper Lusatia over 300 of the Bohemian Brothers from Moravia and given them farmland…To what end, I do not know.” ³² Korte’s language vaguely linked Zinzendorf to the relocation of these religious outsiders and implied a growing threat to the Lutheran Orthodoxy. The refugees’ association with Herrnhut came to represent broader anxieties about Moravian lay believers and their destabilizing potential. But these concerns were not only abstract. Halle Pietists feared that Moravian missionaries and lay leaders were gaining traction among populations traditionally aligned with Halle, offering alternative models of piety and community that resonated with ordinary believers. As a result, Herrnhut’s expansion was perceived as a direct challenge to Halle’s ability to maintain its spiritual constituency.

Korte’s report did more than convey numbers. It gestured toward a sense of alarm. The Bohemian Brethren he referenced were part of an underground Protestant tradition that traced its spiritual lineage to the Czech reformer Jan Hus and the Hussite Reformation. Known in Moravian circles as the “Hidden Seed,” these refugees were regarded as guardians of pre-Lutheran reformist ideals during the religious wars of the seventeenth century. ³³ Their migration to Herrnhut and acceptance of farmland from Zinzendorf aligned them (at least rhetorically) with the Moravian movement and its perceived challenge to ecclesiastical authority. Though not formally Pietists or Lutherans, their presence intensified fears that Herrnhut was becoming a haven for disorderly religious outsiders. ³⁴ Korte’s decision to alert prominent missionaries in Tranquebar and Madras about the situation underscores the perceived danger, especially since the Moravians seemed to be expanding their reach and attracting attention well beyond Saxony “for reasons unknown.”

Not all reports from Pietist centers outside Halle portrayed the Moravians or the arrival of the Czech Brethren in a uniformly negative light. As Moravians spread further afield from Herrnhut, Pietist ministers and their allies across Europe began sending updates to Halle about Moravian activity in their respective regions. By the early 1730s, opinions had become increasingly divided. In September 1731, Gotthilf August Francke received a letter from a Pietist pastor in Switzerland named Christoph Balber who reported that “the dear and honorable friend Christian David, the carpenter from Herrnhut,” who originally led the Czech refugees to Zinzendorf’s estate, had recently been in Schwarzenbach, near the Swiss city of Zurich. He had “heard and read many good [things] about the person and institutions of the Count von Zinzendorf” during David’s stay. ³⁵ Balber’s opinion of the Moravians, however, became more mixed, if never impolite, over time. In another letter to Johannes Mischke, a Pietist minister in Saxony who had been appointed inspector of German schools in Halle in 1730, Balber reported that “2 Moravian Brothers have been in Zurich several times for the edification of many hearts, and through their own narrative of godliness, have left behind much wonder and amusement in [people’s] minds about Count von Zinzendorf and [his son] Christel [Christian Renatus von Zinzendorf].” ³⁶ These two unnamed Moravian preachers had “edified many hearts” through “narratives of godliness,” which caused “wonder and amusement,” words that sound eminently positive. However, his vague-yet-polite language also operated as an encoded critique and warning to Mischke about the influence these Moravian preachers had been able to exert on the minds of otherwise loyal Pietist congregants in Zurich. The wonder and amazement, after all, came as a result of the Moravians spreading “their own” narratives of godliness, not those necessarily favored by the Halle Pietists.

Wariness about the dispersion of Moravian preachers and their ability to capture the imaginations of believers only compounded after the sudden loss of one particularly important young Pietist disciple that caused great consternation in Halle. August Gottlieb Spangenberg would become a potent symbol for the nefarious power of Moravian influence. Educated in Jena, a major Pietist center and ally of Halle in the German region of Thuringia, Spangenberg taught at the Waisenhaus in Halle before being personally appointed as an assistant professor in the Faculty of Theology by Gotthilf August Francke. In the early 1730s, university faculty and clergy in Halle began to suspect Spangenberg of disloyalty to the Pietist cause, citing his public criticism of Halle’s program as too “worldly,” his broader resistance to the Protestant concept of ‘doctrine,’ and a perceived tendency to advocate separation from the Lutheran Church. Spangenberg’s participation in clandestine communion services in Halle, in subtle protest of the worship services held by Halle Pietist ministers, and his developing relationship with Zinzendorf only confirmed these suspicions. Gerhard Reichel’s account of the formation of a group hostile to Zinzendorf in Halle helps explain why Spangenberg’s alignment with Herrnhut was perceived not just as theological dissent but as a betrayal of institutional loyalty. ³⁷ The Faculty of Theology eventually issued Spangenberg an ultimatum. He could either renounce these actions and sever ties with Zinzendorf or allow the regional German king to decide whether or not he could remain in his position at the university. Opting for the latter, the king terminated Spangenberg and expelled him from Halle in April 1733. ³⁸ Following his dismissal, Spangenberg joined Zinzendorf and the Moravians and became a leader of the Moravian mission program in British North America in addition to being ordained as a Moravian bishop in 1744.

Responding to the Spangenberg matter in January 1733 (before his expulsion), Heinrich Schubert, a Halle-educated Pietist preacher at the Holy Spirit Church in Potsdam on the outskirts of Berlin, wrote to Gotthilf Francke that the “Zinzendorfian spirit is a tough, defiant, inflexible, and proud spirit.” ³⁹ The Halle Pietist’s conception of the “Zinzendorfian spirit,” which fueled the expansion of the Moravian mission program, lay at the heart of the controversy and carried multiple meanings that each reflected distinct yet interconnected ecclesiastical agendas. Spangenberg, for his part, had been labeled a “Zinzendorfian” since his days as a student in Jena, where he founded a collegium pastorale practicum to support the poor and sick. Authorities in Jena shut down this initiative, denouncing it as a “Zinzendorfian institution” that had become too controversial and did not conform to local Pietist sensibilities. Schubert, however, focused his criticism on what he understood as the negative dimension of this particular Pietist spirit. In qualifying his statement, he called attention to the “impolite” spirit cultivated by Zinzendorf that appeared to stand in opposition to the more traditional and gracious Pietist spirit championed by figures like Spener and the elder Francke. According to Schubert, this impolite spirit belonged exclusively to Zinzendorf and his followers, who were therefore subject to condemnation as “tough, defiant, inflexible, and proud.” These descriptors evoked a sense of imperviousness and resistance to the traditional Pietist ethos, which could not be tolerated if the Halle Pietists wanted to maintain the purity of their status as a group within the established Lutheran Orthodoxy. Though Zinzendorf possessed a Pietist spirit, he had strayed beyond acceptable boundaries through his unconventional disposition and open critiques of the Halle Pietist system. To the Hallensians, Zinzendorf’s spirit represented a confused and potentially dangerous distortion of their own.

Zinzendorf himself, however, was not the only problem. The transformation of his name into the into the adjectival “Zinzendorfische” (“Zinzendorfian”) implicated ordinary Moravian believers as complicit agitators. While the literal emphasis remained on Zinzendorf as the most visible perpetrator of spiritual confusion, his growing circle of followers symbolized the broader appeal of his message among common believers. They represented the possibility that more individuals, like Spangenberg, might be drawn away from the Halle Pietist fold. Expansionary fears thus informed Schubert’s notion of the “Zinzendorfian spirit,” casting Zinzendorf and the Moravians as subversive radicals intent on undermining Halle Pietist principles from the outside. Spangenberg, having succumbed to this insurgent spirit, came to symbolize the volatility of common believers, despite his credentials as an academic and preacher in Halle. As if speaking with a fellow pastor about a wayward congregant, Schubert urged Francke to “look into how Mr. Spangenberg is doing with it [the Zinzendorfian spirit], and if he is affected negatively, then we have to do something about it.” ⁴⁰

Pietist letter writers like Schubert often remained vague about the precise reasoning that guided their thinking about Zinzendorf and the Moravians. Ambiguity operated as a rhetorical strategy used by members of the anti-Moravian network to malign the Moravians without actually assuming responsibility for overtly critical positions, all while adhering to the conventions of polite society in public speech. The semi-public nature of their correspondence meant that their words often carried layered and deliberately ambiguous meanings, allowing them to satisfy competing interests. For his part, Schubert (like others) wished that Spangenberg and the Moravian faithful had resisted the Zinzendorfian spirit. Yet Spangenberg’s example as a defector became a cause célèbre among Halle Pietists, underscoring the urgency of suppressing this evil spirit before it spread beyond their control. ⁴¹ As a symbol of the common believer, Spangenberg represented an unambiguous sense of loss but also the more equivocal and menacing possibility of ecclesiastical threat, especially to the credibility of sacred Lutheran doctrines like the Augsburg Confession. If a committed and revered Pietist like Spangenberg could be lured away and turned against Halle by the spirit of Zinzendorf and his followers, how much further could their influence extend? ⁴²

IV. Controversy in the New World

By 1735, suspicion of the Moravians among the Pietist leadership in Halle and their extensive network of epistolary correspondents had reached a boiling point. Reports began to pour in describing the activities and movements of Moravian missionaries in the New World and rumors began to spread that Zinzendorf was making plans to go there himself. Among the flurry of responses to these developments, Gotthilf August Francke sent reports to his ministers working in the Pietist mission in Madras stating that “the Lord Count Zinzendorf together with Mr. Spangenberg and some Moravians have decided to go to the West Indies. The latter [“some Moravians”] are already on the way and Mr. Spangenberg has already arrived in England. The Count will follow soon after.” ⁴³ The decision to inform Pietist missionaries in India about the movements and motivations of Moravian missionaries traveling in the opposite direction across the Atlantic to British North America and the Caribbean underscores both the level of integration that facilitated the Pietist mission program and the perceived threat posed by the Moravian mission program. Francke knew, however, that his report about Moravian movements in this letter would find its way into the hands of other distinguished members of the Pietist network in Europe. Johann Ernst Geister, one of the addressees, was a known informant of Christian Ernst von Stolberg-Wernigerode, a politician and Count of the House of Stolberg who ruled the county (Grafschaft) of Wernigerode in Brandenburg-Prussia. ⁴⁴ Stolberg was also an important privy councilor and advisor to his cousin, the reigning Danish King Christian VI. By sending this message to India via Geister and Stolberg, Francke was able to simultaneously alert multiple nodes of the Halle Pietist correspondence network about Moravian activities, a pattern of information sharing that appears repeatedly in the letters exchanged in this network.

A month later in February 1735, Francke raised the alarm about new Moravian missionary incursions into the New World. He sent a letter to Johann Martin Boltzius and Israel Christian Gronau, the leaders of the Pietist mission in Georgia, commanding them to minister to the German immigrants who had recently arrived in Savannah from the Austrian region of Salzburg. This directive was not simply pastoral, it was strategic. The Salzburgers represented a critical opportunity for Halle to solidify its influence in British North America at a time when Moravian expansion threatened to undermine Pietist authority abroad.

The Salzburgers’ journey to the New World in 1733–1734 was shaped by ecclesiastical and political tensions that made them ideal candidates for Halle’s overseas mission. ⁴⁵ The roughly 300 emigrants who crossed the Atlantic were small tenant farmers of Lutheran faith living in a predominantly Catholic region of Salzburg. Although the Habsburg emperors had generally avoided persecuting Protestants to maintain imperial stability, invoking the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia to prohibit expulsions, this fragile balance collapsed when Count Leopold Anton Eleutherius von Firmian issued an Edict of Expulsion (Emigrations-patent) on October 31, 1731, which forced all Protestants to leave the territory. ⁴⁶

The forced migration of the Salzburgers quickly drew the attention of Protestant leaders across Europe. Among the most active was Samuel Urlsperger, rector of St. Anne’s Church in Augsburg, a protégé of August Hermann Francke and a founding member of the Frankesche Stiftungen (Francke Foundations). Drawing on his connections to Halle and the Society for the Propagation of Christian Knowledge in London, Urlsperger secured critical material support for the Salzburgers’ transatlantic journey. His efforts facilitated the group’s survival and eventual settlement in Georgia, a development that marked a turning point in Halle’s strategy to establish a sustained missionary presence in British North America through transatlantic networks of support. Upon arriving in Charles Town harbor, the Salzburgers traveled inland and down the Savannah River to Ebenezer, the village designated for them by Governor James Ogelthorpe. ⁴⁷ The success of the migration, coordinated in part by Urlsperger, represented not only a humanitarian achievement but also a calculated effort to strengthen Halle’s position amid intensifying competition from Moravian missionaries in the southern colonies. From Halle’s perspective, the Salzburgers were more than refugees. They embodied Pietist ideals and served as a strategic asset in the contest for religious influence in the Atlantic world.

While Halle was establishing its foothold in Georgia through the Salzburgers, Moravian efforts to secure a presence in the colony were unfolding along a separate trajectory. The catalyst was the 1733 expulsion of the Schwenkfelders from Saxony by the royal court in Dresden. A group of Schwenkfelders living in the village of Berthelsdorf, just north of Herrnhut, appealed to Zinzendorf for assistance in relocating to Georgia after learning that Oglethorpe was recruiting religious refugees from continental Europe to populate the region. Although the Schwenkfelders ultimately diverted to Pennsylvania, surviving on provisions supplied by the Moravians, their petition opened a channel of communication with colonial authorities. As a result, the land originally designated for the Schwenkfelders was reassigned to Zinzendorf’s followers. The first group of ten Moravian migrants arrived in Savannah on April 6, 1735, and spent the next year cultivating the land and building shelters in anticipation of the arrival of a second group of twenty five. ⁴⁸ From the Moravian perspective, Georgia offered not only a refuge for religious minorities, but also a strategic staging ground for expanding their missionary program, one that increasingly overlapped with Halle’s ambitions and intensified the Pietist’s concerns about losing influence in the region.

With both Halle Pietists and Moravians interested in the same region of Georgia, disputes over issues related to denominational proximity between these two groups took on new urgency. What had once been a matter of doctrinal distinction now became a contest over geographic territory that was ripe for mission work. Halle’s resistance to the Moravian presence in Georgia, however, began before the Moravians even left Europe. In early 1734, Gotthilf August Francke learned that a ship bound for Carolina, carrying letters and parcels of goods for his missionaries Boltzius and Gronau, also happened to be carrying August Gottlieb Spangenberg among its passengers. “Spangenberg and some Moravians,” he wrote, were currently en route to the Carolina coast. Alarmed by what he saw as a deliberate attempt to encroach upon a region already populated by Halle-aligned Pietists, Francke told Boltzius and Gronau that he could “no longer hide that I am worried and distressed because these incorrigible people will be near you.” He cautioned “that some confusion may be brought about by them in your area.” Zinzendorf’s own declaration of intent to travel to America only heightened these concerns. ⁴⁹ Francke interpreted Zinzendorf’s decision to send Spangenberg as a calculated affront to Halle’s authority and summarily rejected Zinzendorf’s plea to end the opposition against him and his followers. ⁵⁰ For Francke, the danger of Moravians sowing the seeds of “heresy” among the Pietist flock had now manifested on the other side of the Atlantic. And these transatlantic developments did not occur in isolation. They unfolded alongside the early stirrings of the Great Awakening, revealing that the tensions between Halle and Herrnhut were part of a larger struggle to define Protestant identity in the Atlantic world.

Boltzius and Gronau relayed these accusations about the Moravians’ disruptive influence back across the Atlantic in an April 1735 letter to Friedrich Ziegenhagen, the court preacher at St. James Chapel in London, where Germans worshipped during the Hanoverian dynasty. Writing from Georgia, they reported on the activities of Spangenberg and the Moravians in Ebenezer, describing his presence as a source of confusion among settlers and a threat to the Pietist mission. Francke, aware of this transatlantic correspondence, replied later that year, noting that he had “seen, among other things, how Mr. Spangenberg has visited Ebenezer and was testifying there.” Encouraged by Bolzius’s reaction, Francke wrote that “the most worthy Mr. Boltzius…has been more troubled than pleased by the coming of the Moravians in that region.” ⁵¹ For Francke and his allies, Spangenberg’s presence was not merely an inconvenience. It was emblematic of the growing threat posed by the Moravian mission. Boltzius now described Spangenberg as being “fully Zinzendorfian” (völlig zinzendorfisch), actively defending Zinzendorf’s views and spreading them among the settlers in the region. Any lingering hope that Spangenberg would learn the error of his ways and return to the Halle Pietist fold had vanished. The main concern in this letter, however, was not theological deviation, but the shifting religious loyalties of ordinary believers, a fear intensified by the Moravian’s transatlantic ambitions and their capacity to foment spiritual confusion from Georgia to Pennsylvania and then the Caribbean. ⁵²

Compounding these unsettling developments for Boltzius and Gronau was the news that the Faculty of Theology in Tübingen had recently affirmed the Lutheran orthodoxy of Zinzendorf and his theology, despite the discrepancies they had personally observed in Moravian beliefs and practices in British North America. In their letter to Halle, Boltzius and Gronau cataloged a series of alleged biblical distortions they claimed to have witnessed among Moravian believers. One particularly troubling example was the Moravians’ characterization of the bleeding woman healed by Jesus in Matthew 9:21 as a “fanatic.” ⁵³ For Boltzius and Gronau, this was not a minor interpretive disagreement or linguistic mischaracterization but a serious deviation from scripture. Propagating such errors, they argued, should have disqualified Zinzendorf from any legitimate claim to Lutheran orthodoxy. Their letter conveyed a forceful warning that Zinzendorf and the Moravians were capable of presenting themselves as doctrinally sound in public while secretly promoting “heretical” beliefs. These “incorrigible people,” they claimed, sought to spread their errors among Pietists, Salzburgers, and other vulnerable groups. What made this threat especially acute was not only the content of Moravian theology, but the missionary zeal with which it was disseminated. The persuasive power of Moravian missionaries and their growing influence among both confessional elites and ordinary believers made the Moravian Church a clear and present danger to the Pietist spiritual enterprise and its fragile relationship with the wider Lutheran Church. ⁵⁴

Reports about Spangenberg and other Moravians preaching and testifying in and around Ebenezer intensified these concerns, especially in light of new rumors that Philipp von Reck, another key architect of the Salzburger emigration to Georgia, had succumbed to the Moravian’s influence and joined their ranks. “I am increasingly concerned,” Francke confessed to Boltzius, “that Mr. von Reck is secretly attached to the Zinzendorfian party because others think he is not free of them.” ⁵⁵ Even though he had visited Halle several times and accompanied the Salzburgers across the Atlantic on at least two occasions, Reck spent some time in Herrnhut in 1734 and reportedly discussed the possibility of helping Zinzendorf transport more Moravians to British North America. ⁵⁶ Regardless of his true sympathies, Reck was not as outspoken a critic of Zinzendorf and Moravian religious culture as were figures like Boltzius and Gronau. Consorting with the Moravians tarnished his reputation and transformed him into yet another symbol of the Moravian mission’s overreach. To Francke, Reck was just the latest example of the Moravians sowing discord and confusion among otherwise faithful Pietists and Lutherans.

As Moravians extended their sphere of influence, their increasing mobility and disregard for traditional clerical structures deepened existing anxieties among Pietists in Halle. In a March 1736 report on the condition of the Salzburger emigrants in Ebenezer, Samuel Urlsperger confirmed suspicions about Johann Reck’s sympathies. Reck had informed Urlsperger that Spangenberg had recently traveled to Pennsylvania and the Moravian David Nitschmann had left for the Danish Caribbean island of St. Thomas. Reck’s knowledge of these movements seemed to signal his alignment with the Moravian mission. Urlsperger also reported that Reck “sent us word…that he wanted to visit us once more in Ebenezer. However, he [Reck] hesitated because he could probably notice that we disapprove verbis et factis [in words and deeds] of his and his Herrnhut Brethren’s…downright contempt of the ministerial office, and that we can well do without such people.” ⁵⁷ The charge of contempt for the ministerial office vividly illustrates a deeper unease with the Moravians’ ecclesiological model, especially their unapologetic embrace of lay leadership. For Halle, this was not simply a matter of style or structure. It signaled a fundamental challenge to the norms of clerical authority that underpinned Protestant religious life.

At the heart of this challenge was the Moravian conception of ministry, which diverged sharply from confessional Protestant standards in the early modern period. For Zinzendorf, the primary qualification for ministry and pastoral leadership was not academic training or a university degree in Christian theology and church history. It was a person’s living faith. While many Moravian congregations in German territories remained formally tied to European state church parishes until the 1750s, lay leaders were empowered early on to interpret scripture and bear witness to their faith within the Moravian fellowship. Zinzendorf’s defense of lay pastoral leadership, especially in the context of the Choir system and the overseas mission program, reflected a radical application of the Pietist doctrine of the “priesthood of all believers.” Though this ideal was not unique to the Moravians at this time, their implementation of it was unusually expansive and controversial. Unlike Lutheran and Reformed ministers, Moravian preachers were not called “Pfarrer” (Pastor). Instead, most were called “Gemeinhelfer” (congregation/community helper) or “Heidenbote” (missionary), signaling a functional rather than institutional understanding of ministry. While some Moravians did possess university educations, most, including the many women consecrated by the Moravian Church, did not. ⁵⁸ Their authority stemmed from spiritual vitality, not academic pedigree. This approach, while essential for the Moravian’s flexibility and reach, was precisely what made their ministerial office suspect to both the Protestant establishment and Halle Pietists in Europe and America. Their rejection of traditional hierarchies was not merely theological. It was evangelistic. ⁵⁹

In addressing these concerns, Urlsperger voiced a familiar criticism that the Moravians encouraged a spirit of reckless individualism and rejected legitimate religious authority. This accusation echoed longstanding Lutheran anxieties about Pietism dating back to the late seventeenth century, when “heart religion” was often mischaracterized as a rejection of traditional Protestant clerical hierarchies. However, churchly Pietists in Halle understood heart religion not as a repudiation of ministerial or sacramental authority, but as a corrective to the rigid, legalistic faith statements of the Lutheran Orthodoxy. From their perspective, the Moravians had crossed a line and abandoned the ecclesiastical structures that safeguarded church order and God’s ultimate authority as revealed in Scripture and the sacraments. His report continued:

“These [Moravians] openly despise the ministry, the preaching of the Divine Word (i.e. the Holy Scripture in the Bible), the use of the Holy Sacraments and especially of the Holy Communion, which they distribute among themselves; and they have probably been trying to stir up animosity in others against us ministers in Ebenezer and our office. We will leave it to others to judge whether one can believe these people without sinning against his conscience and the truth, or whether he might not rather clearly recognize a crude hypocrisy in such unfounded claims. Meanwhile we let them go their way, since they do not respect our office. We have already told Mr. Spangenberg that which was most urgent.” ⁶⁰

Urlsperger’s report, marked by frequent use of plural personal and demonstrative pronouns, underscores the palpable influence of lay Moravian believers as a collective presence unsettling to established clerical norms. His words also served a strategic purpose. They deflected accusations of anti-clericalism away from the Pietists by casting the Moravians in an even more radical light, not merely as dissenters but as people whose actions called their very Christianity into question. After issuing these sweeping charges in no uncertain terms, Urlsperger attempted to occupy the moral high ground by leaving it “to others to judge” whether the Moravians could be believed, a rhetorical move that reads less like humility and more like strategic distancing.

Behind the epistolary chest thumping over the legitimacy of clerical offices was a latent fear that Protestants were witnessing a betrayal of the doctrine of the priesthood of all believers, a cherished core principle of the Reformation. The Halle Pietists rooted their understanding of this doctrine in Philip Jakob Spener’s Pia Desideria, which advocated for a model “where believers encourage one another in living a holy life.” Spener also “encouraged laypeople to read the New Testament” and to discuss their readings at “‘apostolic gatherings’ [conventicles]…where people meet at certain times of the week, outside church services, for mutual instruction and edification.” ⁶¹ In essence, believers were to actively participate in religious life, but final authority, especially in matters of doctrine and biblical interpretation, should remain with a corporate, educated ministry. This framework echoed the broader Protestant critique of Catholicism, which held that divine access did not require the mediation of a privileged class of ordained clergy. Yet the increasingly visible Moravian mission appeared to push this doctrine to its extreme. Halle Pietists perceived the Moravians as introducing a hyper-literal interpretation that effectively eliminating the need for clergy altogether. Accusations of disrespect for clerical office stemmed from this, ultimately mistaken, conclusion.

Reports of troubling encounters between Moravians and German immigrants began to surface with increasing frequency in the late 1730s. In February 1737, Urlsperger reported that a German immigrant in Ebenezer, Johann Helfenstein from the Rhineland, “sent his son to Savannah so that he might learn the cobbler’s trade with the Herrnhuters.” Helfenstein quickly became disappointed when he realized, according to Urlsperger, that “the cobbler there does not know his trade.” More troubling, however, was the fact that his son would be in close proximity with Moravians on a daily basis. Urlsperger speculated that, “the Herrnhuters would have caused much disgust and repulsion in the boy with their slanderous remarks regarding the [Pietist/Lutheran] preachers at Ebenezer, whom, as I understand, they call any number of vile names.” ⁶²

Urlsperger recounted that the Helfensteins had shared “much of what their son has told [his parents] regarding the different and peculiar arrangement of [the Moravians’] worship,” though he cautioned that “one cannot believe everything [the Helfensteins] say.” He did not accuse the Helfensteins of fabricating the boy’s story, but questioned their credibility, especially since, despite firsthand exposure to Moravian practices, “Mrs. Helfenstein has now agreed with (the Herrnhuters) to place her son as an apprentice with their cobbler for three years” anyway. Urlsperger found this decision deeply worrisome, noting that she had also become “very familiar with the Herrnhuters in London.” Ultimately, he dismissed the entire affair, declaring that “Her boy is not worth much, and he has bad habits and manners” and criticizing Anna Helfenstein as “much too lenient with him, and I have had much occasion to remonstrate with her on this point.” ⁶³ For Urlsperger, the message was clear: proximity to the Moravians was dangerous, and willfully associating with them both invited suspicion and warranted ostracism.

Urlsperger’s disdain for the Moravians was so strong that he reframed this otherwise mundane case of vocational training into a cautionary tale, projecting onto it the controversial hearsay circulating through the anti-Moravian correspondence network. Real-world examples of ordinary Pietist believers being led astray, including humble cobblers, made the threat posed by Moravian missions feel more immediate and tangible to Pietist authorities in Europe. The mission’s reach into everyday life, and its ability to attract even the most unassuming individuals, reinforced the perception that the Moravians were not just theologically deviant but socially subversive.

V. Concluding Grievances

By the late 1730s, Moravian missionary outreach efforts had fractured the bond between Halle and Herrnhut. Gotthilf August Francke started feigning ignorance about Moravian activities in his letters, despite receiving regular reports, and denied that he had treated Zinzendorf and the Moravians unfairly. He even claimed that he “wanted to enter into a closer connection” with them despite his reservations, but that it was actually “the Count [who] terminated” this possibility. In fact, “the Count also accused me [G.A. Francke] of writing letters and persecuting him and his followers. But I answered according to the truth that I knew myself innocent therein.” ⁶⁴ Characteristically vague, Francke avoided specifying the actual charges Zinzendorf had allegedly made against him. Regardless, it was Zinzendorf who had “been very much deplored in the letters which have been communicated to me [Francke] from various places.” ⁶⁵ This kind of ambiguous language, used here and in earlier correspondence, gave Francke the rhetorical flexibility to defame the Moravians for unacceptable behavior while simultaneously pleading ignorance. It allowed him to maintain the appearance of statesmanlike prudence while continuing to fuel the whisper campaign against the Moravians and their mission program.

Zinzendorf, for his part, responded to Francke’s letter with substance. He listed “a dozen circumstances” in which he and the Halle Pietists maligned the Moravians in their writings “of which I [Zinzendorf] do not recognize a single one as true.” This list stands among the most detailed and scathing indictments of Halle Pietist activities against the Moravians in the early modern period, charging Francke and the Pietist epistolary network with being disingenuous and manipulative. In the strident tone that made him famous, and ultimately led to his removal from the Dresden court, Zinzendorf cleared the air by bringing the campaign against him, orchestrated by Francke and the Halle Pietist network, into semi-public view. He declared that the Pietists had lied about having no qualms with him or the Moravians. While many of the charges and denials appear, on the surface, to concern only Zinzendorf and his behavior, the perceived threat posed by the Moravian laity as a whole looms behind virtually all of them. The second charge, for example, warns of “so many [Moravian] people” exerting influence, suggesting that ordinary believers, not just leaders, were spreading the disruptive ideas. Charges four, five, six, ten, and twelve focus on the Moravians’ associations with various Lutheran groups, implying that lay-level relationships were undermining ecclesiastical cohesion and reputations. Charges seven and eleven single out Halle Pietist intolerance, but in doing so, they also reflect anxiety over the Moravian’s ability to attract sympathy and support from outside the established Pietist fold. Even charges three and nine, which accuse the Halle Pietists of spreading false rumors about Zinzendorf’s involvement in their cabal, point to the broader concern that Moravian believers were being mobilized as part of a coordinated effort to challenge Pietist authority. Finally, charge eight, which claims that Halle would never have hindered the Moravian cause in Herrnhut, extends the controversy beyond Zinzendorf’s personal conduct and behavior, revealing the deeper fear that Moravian lay communities posed a subversive threat to the Pietist project as a whole. ⁶⁶

A stream of denials from Gotthilf August Francke to other Halle Pietists and their allies – including Georg Petermann, Samuel Urlsperger, Johann Boltzius, Christian Gronau, and Friedrich Ziegenhagen – in the years surrounding Zinzendorf’s letter confirms that tensions had long simmered in Halle Pietist circles and that the controversy reached beyond Zinzendorf himself, reshaping Halle-affiliated individuals and networks across the Atlantic world. Scholarship on this episode that focuses narrowly on theological differences between Halle Pietists and Moravians often overstate Zinzendorf’s role as the sole catalyst. Dietrich Meyer observed that the Pietists feared for the doctrinal purity of their movement because Zinzendorf embodied a “less dogmatically correct expression of the inner conviction of the heart.” ⁶⁷ While Zinzendorf’s influence was significant, focusing exclusively on him obscures the larger ecclesiastical impact of the Moravian mission. Outside of university politics and formal examinations, such as those conducted by the faculty in Tübingen, the epistolary record rarely raises theology as the primary reason for resisting the Moravians. In fact, Tübingen’s decision was distressing not merely because of doctrinal differences, but because it seemed to legitimize the Moravians’ theological proximity to Lutheran and Pietist norms, an appeal that made their presence all the more provocative. Even Spangenberg, despite his theological differences with Halle Pietism, appears in correspondence more as a symbol of grassroots loss than as a doctrinal opponent. Associations with radical groups like the Moravians, especially in the eyes of the Lutheran Orthodoxy, and competition for converts in the increasingly contested mission fields, fueled this controversy at least as much as personal opposition to Zinzendorf. Many references to Zinzendorf as the leader of the Moravian movement emphasize his success at attracting followers rather than his theological eccentricities, underscoring that the Moravian mission itself, not just its figurehead, was central to the conflict.

To conclude, theological considerations did loom large in the background of this controversy, but Halle’s deeper anxiety centered on the threat of losing, or failing to gain, followers. The activities of Moravian missionaries and believers became a focal point of this fear. Through its extensive correspondence network in the 1720s and 1730s, Halle cultivated apprehension that Moravian practices were undermining the model of religion promoted by trained clergy and administrative leaders. The rumors, whisper campaigns, formal accusations, and counter-accusations leveled against both sides reveal a complex and calculated struggle for strategic influence across transatlantic regions and Protestant networks. While Halle Pietists sought to preserve their ecclesiastical authority, the Moravians were equally committed to expanding their spiritual reach. Both groups emphasized the role of common believers, not only to assert legitimacy but also to shape the contours of Protestant allegiance and religious authority. For Halle Pietists, the fear of losing followers was not simply a reaction to separatist tendencies. It became a rhetorical weapon used to discredit Moravian missionary success. Moravian believers came to symbolize disruption that seemed to expose the frailty of Halle’s spiritual authority and the limits of its appeal. Focusing on institutional and structural social issues, Craig Atwood has argued that the Moravian movement posed a transatlantic threat to the Old World establishment by unsettling confessional boundaries, racial hierarchies, and ecclesiastical authority structures. ⁶⁸ While Zinzendorf’s vision catalyzed this disruption, it was the perceived spiritual agency of Moravian believers – ordinary, mobile, and closely tied to the mission program – that amplified the threat, compelling Halle leaders to confront the porous boundaries of Protestant allegiance and the enduring power of belief that resisted containment within Halle’s spiritual imagination.

Reading this dispute in the context of the Great Awakening highlights how struggles over mission strategy and the rhetorical deployment of lay believers’ spiritual agency shaped transatlantic evangelicalism. Moravian missions, built on itinerant lay preachers and the immediacy of grace, offered a flexible, affective approach that resonated with the experiential ethos later championed by revival leaders in British North America. Their emphasis on embodied piety paralleled the Awakening’s hallmark of vivid, transformative encounters with God, while their mobility and embrace of alternative religious hierarchies foreshadowed the populist impulses that unsettled established churches during the revivals. By foregrounding missions and common believers as symbolic actors in these polemical discourses, this episode adds another dimension to our understanding of the Great Awakening as part of a wider contest over authority, discipline, and experiential piety that reached across the Protestant Atlantic. ⁶⁹