Jesus Is Female: Moravians and Radical Religion in Early America

Jesus is Female by George Perez

In Jesus is Female, author Aaron Spencer Fogleman explains the history behind the treatment of the Moravians, a radical Christian sect from Germany, in North America during the middle of the Great Awakening. The author also explores how they were received by the existing religious groups such as the Lutherans and the Calvinists in North America. She explores the reasons behind why they rejected the Moravians’ radical feministic views and practices.

During the Great Awakening, a radical religious group called the Moravians came from Germany to North America on a quest to spread their message to the existing colonists there. The Monrovians were a radical Christian group from Germany who gave women more religious freedoms than most other Christian religious groups of that time. For example, they let women preach, allowed more female power in marriage, sex, and the family life. They even believed that Jesus could be female.

The Moravians were not well tolerated by existing colonist groups such as the Lutherans and the Calvinists. Their feministic beliefs were radically different from the patriarchal belief systems of these groups. Both German and Swedish colonial communities did not tolerate the Moravians, mostly due to their radical views and practices with gender roles. They were appalled by the amount of power women received in Monrovian culture and believed that this practice was dangerous and could interrupt and destroy social order.

The repression and un-acceptance of the Moravians may illustrate an example of the limits of how far radical religions could go in North America colonial culture. Even though America was a place to escape religious persecution, radicals like the Moravians could not escape religious persecution by North American colonists.

One of the memorable stories that I read in the book was about Jean Francois Reyneir, a man who lived with the Moravians for several years. He wrote about their marital and sexual practices and rituals. His own personal Moravian marriage was one of the stories he wrote about. He said that on his wedding day, instead of consummating the marriage in a special chamber on top of a bench, he opted to talk to his bride so that they could get to know each other better. But another couple who had been monitoring them through a cracked door intervened and insisted they complete the ritual. After they were done, the couple educated them on the importance of the ritual, how it is a way to receive a blessing. He also describes the “blue chamber,” a place where couples would line up to use. The blue chamber would be occupied by one couple at a time who would have a 15 minute sexual session while others observed through a window. One by one, each couple would go in there to receive their “blessing.”

Another memorable story that I read in the book was about “The Mother Eva Society,” a society formed around the noblewoman Eva Margaretha von Buttlar. It was a group with one of the most extreme beliefs and practices that were very horrendous. The Mother Eva Society believed in practices and rituals that were initiations for men and women. One of the most shocking rituals was one that was for women and how they had to be circumcised. It began with a woman who would be led into a room and laid on a bed. While Eva recited the “Song of Solomon,” Justus Gottfried Winter, and his associate Sebastian Ichtershausen, who would calm the woman down and assure her that there was nothing to fear. Then Justus would reach into the woman’s uterus beginning with one finger, than two, and then with his entire hand. After reaching inside he would attempt to crush her ovaries, which did not always work, and the woman lost consciousness. After she awoke she had extreme pain and lay in bed bleeding for weeks. A mother who experienced this ritual said that she would have rather gone through ten more childbirths than have gone through the entire ritual again. This practice victimized woman, which was odd because this group also promoted a certain female empowerment that urged women to preach and be more active in church at a time when females were only allowed to attend church.

I learned many things from reading this book, in particular, I had never even known that a group like the Moravians existed. I especially didn’t think that they could exist amongst the Puritans and other highly conservative groups. I didn’t know that any Christian group could have at one point believed that Jesus could be female either. The radical sexual and marital customs of the Moravians were also a shock, I didn’t know that this happened in American history, even Christian history. Their belief in a female soul and a female Trinity was also new to me. Surprisingly, I learned a lot about other religious groups such as the Quakers. I didn’t know that they Quakers were the biggest practitioners of female preaching. I also learned about the views on sex from the Lutheran and Calvinistic perspective, that it was a sin but a forgivable one that was to be practiced within marriage and in a specific way to reduce its sinfulness. Overall, I enjoyed the book although it was difficult to read because of how much specific it can be, it seemed to be a book that might require for the reader to be somewhat familiar with this group and colonial times before they read it because of how much the book thoroughly explores this culture.