Eighteenth-century Moravians perceived themselves as a group of awakened Christians among all nations. Moravians did not identify themselves as Germans, English or Americans but primarily as children of God. Only later did national adherences begin to take precedence over their identification as Moravians (‘Herrnhuter’). For Gisela Mettele, Professor of Gender History at Jena, the Moravians are an excellent example of a transnational religious group with a global presence.

Moravians had operated as a transnational group ever since the founding of Herrnhut, their centre in eastern Saxony, in 1722. Under the charismatic leadership of Zinzendorf, who was educated in the Pietist schools at Halle and influenced by a combination of mysticism, Lutheranism and the Philadelphian idea to unite Christians from different denominations, Moravians established a network with centres in different parts of the world. Moravians did not separate from the world like other groups but they created autonomous centres from where they pursued their goal of extending the kingdom of God. Moravians constituted an alternative to the ‘world’, and their lifestyle was decidedly different from the bourgeois society surrounding them.

Central to Mettele's research is a question: ‘How can a community maintain a shared identity when scattered throughout different parts of the world?’ Even under the most adverse of circumstances Moravians were able to create and maintain a common identity that survived well into the nineteenth century. Mettele's main period of interest is the century between the death in 1760 of their founding leader Zinzendorf, and 1857 when the uniform worldwide Moravian Church was split into semi-autonomous provinces. This was also a period of rapid social change and the emergence of modern society. The author is therefore also interested in how Moravians participated in the process of modernisation.

As a historian of gender Mettele is especially interested in the role that women played within the Moravian network. Unlike women in most other Pietist groups, Moravian women played public roles as leaders, teachers and missionaries, although their relative autonomy and independence diminished during the second half of the eighteenth century.

According to Mettele Moravians were able to establish and maintain their worldwide fellowship by means of a uniform organisation, with a well-functioning communication networks, and by instituting a common cultural memory.

All Moravian settlements were organised according to similar principles. Worship took place in very similar forms, using common hymnody and liturgies. The architecture and layout of individual settlements were similar. Mettele calls this a ‘common rhythm of life’ (‘gemeinsamer Lebensrhythmus’, p. 58): the daily, weekly, monthly and annual schedules of all Moravian communities were very much the same. A highly-centralised board of administration in Germany oversaw life in all the congregations. Ministers and other leaders were called to service and moved around by the board of the Unity. Because many of the ministers served in different places in different countries, their loyalty lay primarily with the Church as a whole and not necessarily with individual congregations or regions.

Because Moravians were globally active, they relied on communication between their centres. Mettele argues that Moravians developed their identity during ‘a continuous discourse’, a term taken from the work of Peter Vogt (‘beständig ablaufender Gespräch’). Moravians took part in this discourse in different ways. Central to it was the official publication of the Church, the Gemeinnachrichten or ‘Congregational accounts’, which contained reports from congregations and mission stations, sermons and biographies of deceased members of the Church. Interestingly, the ‘Congregational accounts’ were only intended for use within the Church. In order to limit and control the distribution of this publication, they were not printed but rather copied by hand. Copies were then sent out to various Moravian centres, where additional copies were produced to serve the other communities in the respective regions. By reading the reports in each congregation, every Moravian was well informed about the work of the Church in other parts of the world. Mettele is one of the first scholars to understand the importance of this medium, hence a great part of her book focuses on the ‘Congregational accounts’.

Another significant element of the continuous discourse were the memoirs (Lebensläufe), written by individual Moravians as testimonies of their life and faith to be read during their funeral service. These memoirs served as true examples of how a person could deal with the challenges of a life lived in faith. They were therefore published in the ‘Congregational accounts’ and distributed among the Moravian communities worldwide. By listening to the testimonies of their fellow brothers and sisters, Moravians developed a common cultural memory.

Mettele argues that Moravians were successful in maintaining a shared identity despite difficult, slow and sometimes interrupted communication networks during the eighteenth century. One may even say that a shared identity was not only maintained despite difficult communications but also because of the difficult circumstances. Eighteenth-century Moravians had a strong desire to be connected. Decisive was not so much ‘the real connection but the fiction of unity’ (p. 270). As long as this idea was alive among Moravians, the worldwide fellowship functioned and existed. Surprisingly, when the infrastructure for communication generally improved during the nineteenth century, the Moravian transnational identity diminished. Mettele convincingly argues that the gradual breakdown of Moravian worldwide communication was caused by increasing involvement with their immediate surroundings. The Moravian concept of worldwide fellowship was superseded when they became less separated from the world around them. The author shows how the American Revolution forced Moravians in North Carolina and Pennsylvania to deal with their environment and how this began the process whereby American Moravians began to identify more with their American country than with the Moravian Unity. Isolated missionaries in faraway places, on the other hand, continued to be interested in a strong connection to the worldwide Moravian network.

The developing nation states of the nineteenth century called into question the global Moravian identity. New ideas of citizenship and national juridical uniformity left little room for special communities such as the Moravians. These changes resulted in a formal decentralisation of the Moravian Church. In 1857 three independent provinces were formed: a North American, a British and a European-Continental Province. Henceforth each province was responsible for its own affairs, although they remained loosely affiliated with one another. The many missionary enterprises around the world remained a common responsibility of the worldwide Church.

Mettele's study is an excellent analysis of the worldwide network of the Moravians. She finds convincing answers to her questions and she shows how the Moravian collective identity diminishes as conditions for global communication improve. Mettele's study is also an overview of a period that does not usually get much attention in Moravian historiography: the time period after the founding generation of Moravians was gone and new leaders tried to reshape the Church in order to avoid controversy. Because of her great knowledge of both American and European primary and secondary material Mettele is able to treat her subject in a truly transatlantic manner. The book is well organised, is thoroughly researched and offers good insights into many aspects of the religious life of this international Pietist group.