The Pathos of Exile

Old Lutheran Refugees in the United States and South Australia

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2107342
AutoresDavid A Gerber (0000-0002-7972-5228, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, autor de correspondencia)
Año1984
Volumen26
Número3
Páginas498-522
Fecha de publicación1984-07-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaComparative Studies in Society and History (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0010-4175 • E-ISSN: 1475-2999
EditorialCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0010417500011117
OpenAlexW2119328051
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas2
Referencias citadas25

Beginning in 1613, when the Prussian royal family converted to Calvinism while the vast majority of its subjects remained part of the state-regulated Lutheran church, the Hohenzollern kings found themselves living with an anomalous religious situation. Royal discontent with this circumstance had always existed, but efforts to bring about a change failed until, in the years after the Napoleonic Wars, Frederick William III resolved to take decisive action. A pious man and conscientious theologian, the king was deeply troubled by the continuing existence among large numbers of his subjects of rationalism and religious indifferentism, legacies of the Enlightenment. Moreover, reflecting on the defeat of Prussia by the French in 1806, he was also committed to national regeneration, which seemed blocked not only by the lack of religiosity he perceived, but by the disunity inherent in the religious gulf which separated Reformed monarch and Lutheran subject. In 1817, with the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation in mind, he proclaimed the intention to merge the Reformed and Lutheran churches of Prussia, and proceeded actively to involve himself in framing a common agenda for the doctrine of the new church. Serving God and the state in one bold stroke, the king was doubtless proud of the decision, and the large majority of his Lutheran subjects and their pastors unquestioningly accepted it

Calvinism · Enlightenment · Great Awakening · Political science · Protestantism · Refugee · State (computer science) · Theology · Australian History and Society · History · Law · Philosophy · Religious studies