The Hinge: International Theological Dialog for the Moravian Church
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Truman L. Dunn I want to extend my gratitude to Dr. Faull for her thoroughly researched and thoughtful lectures. I dare say that while most Moravians are familiar with the idea of the choir system, probably few are aware of how the choirs functioned. And I am certain that most Moravians would be shocked to learn that, had they been living in the 18th century, their sex life would have been subject to full examination. Dr. Faull’s study of the speakings was clearly not intended to shock or even shame the Moravian Church. She sees the speakings as a model for pastoral care of the body and soul. However, I want to suggest that Faull attempts to put the best possible face on a practice which was as much about hierarchy and control as it was about spiritual purity. Dr. Faull traces the origins of the speakings to the influence of German pietism on Zinzendorf and the Renewed Church of the 18th century. The pietistic emphasis on personal devotion and leading a pure and holy life led to the establishment of the speakings as a means of personal examination and accountability. The role of the choir helper who conducted the speakings was to “help” each choir member strive for purity in every aspect of his or her life, including the dangerous and tempting areas of sexual fantasies and unholy marital relations. While this intrusiveness might offend modern sensibilities, understood in their historical context, the speakings were intended as a means of spiritual discipline and purification. I must confess that, while I had some inkling of the examination of sexual practices in the days of Zinzendorf (the infamous blue cabinet*), I was not aware of the speakings and the extent of the examination beginning in the adolescent years. In the section she entitles “Adolescence,” Faull writes: “If today’s teenagers were living in the Moravian world of the 18th century, they might well receive a far better emotional, spiritual and sexual education than any ‘health class’ I have encountered in our present educational system!” Yet, as she describes the “moment of crisis” of young Rosina Brunner, who considered suicide in her struggle to undergo her speaking, it led me to think about the increasing number of gay children and youth today who have taken their lives in an unaccepting culture shaped by the same guilt and shame which the speakings must have brought to countless adolescent sisters and brothers. This is hardly a far better emotional, spiritual and sexual education than any health class today. Faull’s contention that the Moravian examination of the sex life in their communities reflected an understanding of the unity of body, soul and spirit is intriguing and needs more conversation than space here allows. Certainly, the view of every aspect of bodily life as holy, including sexual relations, brings the body and the spirit together and reflects the Hebraic understanding of the unity of body and spirit. Yet, the preoccupation with sex and all its dangers and temptations sounds much more like the Apostle Paul’s struggle with “the flesh,” and the Hellenistic separation of flesh and spirit. It is also difficult for me to imagine Jesus as the Bridegroom and that I am to conduct marital relations as his viceroy (in his place) as a uniting of body and spirit. * See Paul Peucker, “In the Blue Cabinet: Moravians, Marriage and Sex,” Journal of Moravian History 10 (Spring 2011). —Editors