Jesus is Female

Brenda Wells
10/24/10
HSPC 106

Jesus is Female, is a title that already has much weight to its meaning and sparks controversy. It is a title that most pastors and religious people of traditional religions would look at and glance back again to make sure those where the words they just had read. Claiming Jesus could have been a female is a cry that some people would find absolutely absurd or even blasphemous. Yet, in the 18th century a radical group called the Moravians did just that. The Moravians captured the attention of people on both sides of the sea with their alternative ideas. They had differing ideas when it came to the trinity, gender roles, daily life and religious rituals.

The Moravians can be compared to the modern day cults that we hear about on ABC news regarding something bizarre they had done. But the initial difference they have with the cults of today is they did not try to seclude themselves from the rest of the world. Instead, they wanted to embrace people of all religions and evangelize to them. Colonial America was the perfect setting for them to accomplish their mission of ecumenical religious order. In Europe, Moravians and many other radical groups were discriminated and persecuted against. The Lutheran, Protestant and Reformed clergy communities rarely tolerated them and largely confined radical groups to certain areas if they wanted to practice their beliefs. Thus, immigrating to America was a way for radical groups to escape the persecution from traditional religions.

When the Moravians immigrated from Germany to American during the middle of the Great Awakening, they had many goals to accomplish. One of their many goals was evangelizing to the colonists around their Moravian communities. The Moravian community in colonial America was highly organized. For this reason many colonists actually embraced them. Communities of other religions were fairly disorganized, had no leaders to coordinate activities, were charged money per sermon, no schooling for their children, and no representatives from their home churches in Europe. Many colonists knew the Moravians were a radical group, but since the Moravians provided a warm welcoming wagon for new immigrants they were tolerated.

Once communities had embraced the Moravian missionaries, others went out of their way to sabotage the message the missionaries were trying to share. Their biggest help to distort the popularity of the Moravians was exaggerating their radical practices in pamphlets or newspapers. Propaganda in these printed sources was their way of having the public reject them quickly. Officials of different religions in Europe also helped perpetuate the rejection of Moravians and other radical groups. Before Moravians had immigrated to America, traditional religions never thought they would ever be popular. But news of how much influence the group was obtaining reached them, that churches in Europe, mainly Protestant, finally decided to pay attention to the colonists in America. And indeed did they achieve in persuading the colonists of the wrongful practices of the Moravians. Many conflicts between the colonists and the radical groups started to gain intensity. Moravians were being threatened and even physically confronted.

The colonists had many issues with the Moravians. The most prominent problem they had with the group was their beliefs. As mentioned before the Moravians had different ideas about the trinity, gender roles, daily life and religious rituals. The traditional trinity during the 18th century was the God the father (creator), Jesus the Son (savior), and the Holy Spirit. The Moravians take on this was God, the father, was not the creator but rather Jesus was. God was placed in the background while Jesus played more of an active role. Jesus was also feminized and said to be either female or male. The Holy Spirit in turn became the mother of Jesus and of mankind. One of their most controversial beliefs was claiming that the stab wound Jesus obtained the day he was crucified, had become women’s genitalia. Through this hole, the Moravians stated they were able to make a strong, spiritual connection with Jesus. They referenced to this hole in many of their sermons and hymnals which also contained many sexual innuendoes.

Moravian communities and lifestyle were also put up to question by the colonists. People in the Moravian communities would be separated by age categories into groups called choir systems. The individuals in these groups would stay in them for life, they even separated children from their parents. In these groups, they would be taught about Moravians beliefs and be told how to evangelize to the outside world. Women also were able to go out into other communities to preach and be missionaries just like the men in the community. Colonists of other religions did not look upon this favorably at all. The idea of woman preaching to them was compared to worshiping the devil.

Lastly, the phenomenon colonists protested against with the Moravians was the way they viewed sex. During the 18th century, Protestant churches were trying to tell the public that sex was a sin and should only happen when one wants to procreate and nothing else. The Protestant church was trying to limit and restrict the sexuality of its congregational members. While on the other hand the Moravians thought sex between a man and women was a holy union sanctioned by God. They even practiced abstinence till they were married. But the odd part to this was, sex was an organized event that religious leaders of Moravian community coordinated. There was a room just for it, sexual partners to marry were chosen from a name being drawn, and the actual act of sex could be watched by others. Thus, one can understand why when all these practices were found out by the public, colonists wanted to be done with them.

The Moravians were a radical group that had gained much popularity in the colonial world. They allowed women to preach, believed in a feminine trinity, worshiped a genital side wound of Jesus, practiced rituals that were not of norm. Their whole mission was to create a ecumenical religious order in colonial America. Yet their mission was never accomplished, because most the colonial communities rejected them. Many efforts were made by the Protestant church to stop the popularity of this radical group. As one can see, even in early American strides were made to limit radical religions. It seems that where ever these groups go, they will always experience persecution for their alternative beliefs.