Response to Br. Bøytler’s Moses Lecture Patricia Garner The Rev. Patricia Garner is Coordinator of the Unity Women’s Desk of the Moravian Church. My first response to the Rev. Dr. Bøytler’s lecture was, “This should be required listening or reading for every Moravian minister, who should then communicate it to all of our American congregations!” While I felt somewhat knowledgeable about the Moravian world because I have been working internationally with the Unity Women’s Desk for the last four years, there was so much information in this article that I had not considered in a total context of the Church. To say that we have had a paradigm shift in the Moravian Church since 1960 is a huge understatement. Tragically, many of us, especially in America, are unaware of this shift and seem content to go about preserving the church as we have known it since the early twentieth century. We are mostly unprepared—especially here in the Southern Province—to accept changes within our own country, much less the changes that have taken place globally. We pay a certain amount of lip-service to the fact that the church is growing fastest in Tanzania, but we rarely take into account how that growth is changing the theology and practices of the worldwide Moravian Church. The information in this lecture would be a revelation to most of our members in the pews. In my travels, I have learned that understanding of theology and practices varies widely from region to region. I have been able to accept differences in theology and practices more easily in faraway places like Tanzania because I have seen the deep spirituality that accompanies and informs these differences. Frankly, it is harder to accept differences in the church around town! In part, this difficulty is because the changes closer to home seem to be brought about by personal preferences without the deeper spirituality and cultural context that goes with the changes in other regions. Most of my experiences have been with women’s groups. I can honestly say that the faith and faithfulness of my sisters in places like Tanzania and the Caribbean put me to shame. The complete faith of these sisters that God will provide for their daily needs, and their willingness to live in poverty without complaint but with joyful spirits, makes my own heart sing with them—makes me want to learn how they became as dependent on God as they truly are. I believe the worship services in various parts of the world would have the same effect on others who might observe them as they have had on me. THE
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