Pennsylvania religion = atheism

Would you have guessed that an 18th century phrase “Pennsylvania religion” was a synonym for atheism. It was and here is why.

Pennsylvania gave a home to a diversity of churches. This was viewed by most denominations as impiety. Church officials of various denominations proclaimed that Pennsylvania was the most irreligious colony in America. This view did not help the Moravian cause centered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Julius Sachse, in his book, The German Sectarians in Pennsylvania (1708-1742) wrote the following:

“All shades or sectarians exist here down to open infidelity. Besides the English, Swedish and German Lutherans, and the Scotch, Dutch and German Reformed, there were Arminians, Baptists, Mennonites, Arians, Socinians, Schwenckfelders, German Old Tuckers, New Tuckers, New Lights, Inspired, Sabbatarians or Seventh-Day Baptists, Hermits, Independents and Free Thinkers.” 

This represented a disorganized spiritual life in colonial Pennsylvania. It stood in stark contrast with life in a German parish, with its clear lines of authority, intimacy and order.

Image: T. Bagge Community Store - Salem

Photo Credit: Digital Forsyth

The Community Store opened in 1775. The store was named for its proprietor, Traugott Bagge. Bagge served as Salem’s spokesman during the Revolutionary War, when the Moravians remained neutral despite pressure from both sides. 

From Bagge’s death in 1800 the building continued to function as a store and residence. Today it is both a store and museum run by Old Salem, Inc., 

Christmas Post: Christmas Candles

Photo Credit: Unity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem

Bishop Johann Michael Graff was the first resident Moravian bishop in North Carolina. He introduced a Christmas custom that children and adults of the Wachovia would cherish - to this day. 

At the love feast on Christmas Eve Bishop Graff gave each child a lighted candle. This is a custom that began in Marienborn in Germany in 1747. It gradually spread to Moravian congregations throughout the world. 

In the Wachovia of North Carolina the first of these candle distributions was held 1762. 

The Symbolism of the Candle

The candles distributed to Moravians in America were made from beeswax. Beeswax, considered the purest of all waxes suggested the purity of Christ. 

The candle, giving its life as it burned, suggested the sacrifice of the sinless Christ for sinful humanity. The light also signified Christ - as the light of the world. 

The red trim brings to mind the blood of Jesus - shed for the salvation of those who turn to Him in faith. 

Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in them. John 6:53-56.

The Bethlehem Diary

The town diary has a full account, a free translation of which is:

At eight o’clock the children assembled for their Vigils service in the congregation chapel. After the choir sang the old Christmas hymn, “Today we celebrate the birth,” Brother Peter Boehler talked about the birth of the Savior, using as illustration the Christmas Eve painting which was illuminated and surrounded with the Daily Texts from the past two days. The children took part with Christmas verses, singing them with spirit and tenderness. Then each received a gift as a reminder of the greatest and most wonderful gift when the Savior gave himself to us.

And, at last, each was given a wax candle, lighted while hymns were being sung, and before one was aware of it, more than 250 candles were ablaze, producing a charming effect and a very agreeable odor, especially as they sang the concluding hymn.

Brother Peter dismissed them with the wish that their hearts would burn as brightly toward the Child Jesus, as the candles were burning. Then they went happily homeward with the still-burning candles in their hands.

Christmas Post: Home Moravian Church - Christmas past

Photo Credit: Digital Forsyth

Home Moravian Church at Christmas past

On Christmas Day at dawn the birth of Jesus was announced with trombones or French horns as was the case in 1780. A diarist confirms this with this statement, “The French horns played early in the morning.” 

At 9 AM there was a liturgical worship for communicant members of the church. It was accompanied with a sermon. Another worship service began at 10 AM and featured a sermon in both English and German. The churches would have been decorated with greenery as photographed above.

The Salem Diary for 1771 reported: "On December 25th at 10 AM, there was preaching on the Gospel for the day: that God became man, taking part in our flesh and blood, was powerfully set forth as a truth from God.”

Christmas Post: The spread of Moravian Christmas traditions

Non-Moravian neighbors after making contact with Moravians seemed pleased to borrow from the Christmas Moravian traditions.

The warm hearted, Christ centered Moravians founded schools for the Cherokee. When the tribe was relocated to Oklahoma in the 1830’s memories of the traditions of the Moravian schools traveled with them. This is but one example of how Moravian Christmas traditions spread. 

Not only have Moravian Christmas traditions spread but they have endured.  There is a reason for this. In the 1700’s most Americans celebrated the holiday with more secular and adult activities such as shooting matches, cockfights, and balls and parties. As time went on Americans sought to be more family friendly at Christmas and found fitting Moravian traditions - tried and true. Where there are Moravian churches, even to this day, participation in the seasonal traditions continue unabated. 

Christmas Post: Moravian children and Christmas

Photo Credit: Unity Moravian Church, Winston-Salem

An integral part of the Moravian Christmas celebration meant that children were included in the preparations. The effect of which was to pass on the Moravian traditions to the next generation. 

Children did their part in Christmas preparations by going into the woods to collect greenery, moss, and small trees. These were used in the decorating of the church.  

Additionally children helped in the dipping of candles, the baking of Christmas cakes, the gathering of apples, the chopping of wood, the preparation of meals, and the butchering of hogs. 

They committed to memory Bible verses and music relating to Christ's birth and delighted in the Putz - which is to say the Nativity scene. 

All of these activities and more gave young people and children sensory points of reference to strengthen their faith.

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Christmas Post: Simplicity

The Moravians, years back, were intentionally simple people. This is not to be confused with being simple-minded. As regarding Christmas Moravians of old would not understand our extravagance in Christmas gift giving. 

Records and diaries of the period seldom describe the gift given although they were mentioned. One Peter Wolle in 1816 references small gifts like “sugar-things” for his godchildren. He also mentioned receiving “a wax-candle with three wicks and 2 apples.” 

In a paper given to the Alumnae Society of the Moravian Girls Boarding School in Salem, on June 3, 1890, Miranda Miller Scarborough talked about the period of 1831-1834. She said:

“I still remember how happy we were on every Christmas morning when we entered our study rooms to see on each of our table drawers a profusion of candy, cakes, nuts, etc. and also two wax candles for each girl, which were burning emblematic of the ‘light which was coming into the world,’ and made everything look so pretty. We enjoyed it all…”

Christmas Post: The Moravian Advent/Christmas Star

The many-pointed Star, sometimes call the Advent Star or the Moravian Star, was introduced IN Salem, NC, in the early 1900’s. It had been developed as a geometry project in several German boys’ schools about 1850. 

In Germany they appear in colors of red, yellow and white. In American they are usually white. Some are made of plastic, others paper, and still others metal. 

The traditional star has 26 points but some have more or less, up to 110. Some are lighted and others not. 

Christmas Post: The Moravian Christmas Pyramid

The early Moravians brought rich Christmas traditions to the English colony of Pennsylvania and the Wachovia of North Carolina. One of their traditions was the Christmas pyramid. These four-sided, pyramid-shaped frame structures had a long history in northern and eastern Germany.

The pyramids were placed on tables and hung with cookies, candies and fruit - and featured a nativity scene or Putz. At least as early as 1748, the Christmas pyramid was in use in Bethlehem. On Dec. 25 of that year, the Bethlehem Diary recorded the following:

"Quite early, the little children enjoyed a delightful festal occasion. Their brethren had decorated various pyramids with candles, apples and hymn stanzas and, also, drawn a picture in which the children were represented as presenting their Ave to the Christ-Child …"

The Christmas pyramid is a combination of whimsy and piety. The middle shelf is traditionally where the Nativity Scene or Putz was placed. The image above is my 2017 Christmas Pyramid. 

Christmas Post: The key to a Moravian Christmas & Moravian Christmas cakes

“The Moravians know how to keep Christmas,” but “the simple secret” of such a Christmas is “that the Lord Jesus Christ must have first place in it.” —The Wachovia Moravian, December 1895

Moravian Christmas Cakes

Sharing baked goods at Christmas was a popular Moravian tradition. Consider this diary entry dated December 21, 1834:

“On this day a great many people bake their Christmas cakes. There being but a few patterns in town, they are borrowed in every house and consequently only a few can bake at a time.”

The next year he wrote on December 21: “A disagreeable day. But Christmas cakes were to be baked tomorrow and so I started off to get some molasses…”

An unknown diarist wrote: “Of all Christmas odors — lingering whiff of cedar, spice of burning pine — there is none as redolent as the smell of baking Christmas cakes…”

The thin, spicy, ginger cookies sold today have evolved out of this centuries old Christmas tradition of Germans in North Carolina (Wachovia), Pennsylvania (Bethlehem) and Europe.