The Moravian Church in the Aftermath of World War I: Global Connections and Internal Disjunctions

Abstract

ABSTRACT At the end of July 1919, members of the American, Continental, and British Provinces of the Moravian Church came together for the first time in five years to discuss the state of the church’s missions after the end of World War I. The preceding years had resulted in problems in terms of finances, administration, and labor as well as put into question the future of many mission fields. Nationalistic tensions ran high between members of the church, and there was a real concern that the worldwide Moravian Unity would be dissolved. That it did not was in part due to the sustained efforts of many members of the administrative bodies of the church who discussed how to resolve these tensions in various internal, international, and ecumenical settings. Through examining the reports from various missionary conferences in the aftermath of World War I, this article postulates that the structure of the Moravian Church allowed for the reconfiguration of the mission stations to fulfill external political, economic, and social expectations. The structure, however, also limited the work of the Continental Province of the church and created artificial distance between the Provinces.