Steven M. Nolt | Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.4

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Steven M. Nolt | Book Review | The Journal of American History, 87.4 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Serving Two Masters: Moravian Brethren in Germany and North Carolina, 1727–1801. By Elisabeth W. Sommer. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2000. xviii, 234 pp. $39.95, ISBN 0-8131-2139-6.)

Elisabeth W. Sommer's Serving Two Masters is a well-organized, clearly written study of the meaning of liberty and community among the Unity of the Brethren (Moravians) on two continents. The Moravians' desire to replicate their system of religious settlements on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean sets up this historical comparison, and their eventual inability to maintain their ideal in North Carolina suggests why and how the New World differed from the Old, even for people with strong biases toward community and continuity. 1

In both Herrnhut, Germany, and Salem, North Carolina, Unity faithful faced the lure of family loyalties, romantic marriage, and individual economic advancement. The book's central chapter—a case study of the Moravian practice of casting lots to obtain divine confirmation of human decisions—showcases the tension between community submission and individual initiative. Second-generation members challenged the use of the lot for decisions regarding marriage, forcing leaders to defend the lot in rational terms, according to Sommer, who concludes that the dynamics were largely generational and not geographical. . . .

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