Against recent moves to exoticize Moravian sexual practices, this project is an attempt to understand how sexuality and religion intersect and relate to each other in Moravian piety and theology. In the mid-18th century, Moravians practiced a deeply sensual and erotic form of bridal mysticism. Christ, the bridegroom and lover of the believer, became uniquely tangible to the Moravian in their experience of Holy Communion, as well as in sexual encounters with their spouse. This paper examines the realization of this union in the experience of Moravian women through their spiritual autobiographies (Lebenslauf) as well as the manuals for sexual intercourse in the 18th century Moravian Choir Instructions. During communion, women consumed the body of their eternal bridegroom with their own bodies, drawing close to Christ and nourished themselves through the ritualized breaking and bleeding of Jesus for their salvation. Moravians also understood marital sexual intercourse to be a blessed, liturgical act ordained by God and was it therefore an extremely ritualized act in which a husband represented Christ and a wife the Church. In encountering their husbands, Moravian women could encounter Christ. Sex was carefully directed to ensure its sacredness as well as the comfort of the couple.
(236). These art forms and the people who produced and consumed themeven if those people shared something that distant observers could call a common faith-are not the same. They cannot be lumped together in a discussion of "evangelicals and culture" without their most salient and interesting characteristics being lost. In sum, this book is not a comprehensive review of scholarly literature on the history of evangelicalism, broadly conceived. It mostly surveys the history of a tradition that hangs portraits of Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley, William Wilberforce, and Billy Graham on its walls, then spends hours looking for family resemblances among them. (These are the names with the longest entries in the index, along with David Bebbington, who is cited in nearly every chapter.) The evangelicals in this book read their Bibles, ponder the cross and the apocalypse, and try to convert other people at home and abroad. Sometimes they sing hymns or attend revival meetings. They do not, however, vote, rear children, eat, seek physical healing, migrate, or wage war. They do not abuse others or suffer abuse. The more complicated, context-bound evangelicals who do these things must be sought out in other books.
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