...it makes it all the more interesting noting our forefathers were right in the midst of history that we only read about in school. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 9:37 PM Subject: Re: [PACENTRE] Pennsylvania Dutch Karl I have enjoyed this discussion. Everyone should recognize their heritage and study others just as well. Discussions like this will help everyone to understand America much better. History is not as boring as some would like you to belive. Tom ----- Original Message ----- From: "Karl Moyer" <[email protected]> To: "Center Co List" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, January 08, 2007 9:23 PM Subject: Re: [PACENTRE] what counties considered to be Pennsylvania Dutch I think -- hope -- this discussion is of sufficient interest and potential enlightenment to many who read Centre Co. - L to once again reply to the list. Please forgive me anyone thinks I'm taking this too far. >> These are separate groups: >> Lutherans (all based on what some of us call the "Muhlenberg" tradition, >> recognizing that Muhlenberg was NOT the earliest of these immigrants), >> who >> taught principally from Luther's Large (for pastors) and Small (for >> family >> use) Cathecisms, the Augsburg Confession, etc. > > I'd be interested to know more about the "Muhlenberg" tradition. Is this > a > primary distinction from, say, the Zinzendorf tradition or the John Casper > Stoever tradition? (I know those two were often at loggerheads, as was > Pastor Stoever generally, it appears!) This phrase "Muhlenberg-tradition" Lutheran churches is only a sort of homespun phrase for some of us. It refers to 17th and 18th-century Lutherans who arrived in the Colonies and gradually spread westward. This group at long last established a theological seminary at Gettysburg in 1826, but that was perhaps 100 years after these folks were already quite numerous in certain places. John Casper Stöver, Jr., founded many such congregations in Pennsylvania. His father was pastor of Hebron Lutheran out in the country near Madison VA, a congregation older than almost ANY Lutheran congregation in PA. The two were ordained by a Rev. Schultz, who came from the Fatherland for that purpose and who then went back home to the Fatherland. "Junior" Stöver was on occasion a problematic figure, perhaps typical of frontier American attitudes that a well-schooled Churchman like Muhlenberg did not find amusing. Muhlenberg brought some degree of order out of relative chaos among Lutherans in the colonies. Perhaps the Paul A. W. Wallace book on Muhlenberg is still one of the more reputable records of Muhlenberg's work, and his is accorded the title "Patriarch of Lutherans in America" or such like. This Lutheran group is to be kept separate from two other primary European Lutheran immigrations in to America in the 19th century: 1. the Saxons and Prussians who were greatly offended by the Kaiser's 1817 (1818?) edict that Lutheran and Reformed were to united into one national "Evangelische Kirche." That was more than stern orthodox Lutherans could stand, and eventually five ships of them came to America. One went down in the ocean, but the others found their way to New Orleans, and these folks made their way up the Mississippi River to the area now called Missouri and became some of the basis of today's Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. The other 19th-century Lutheran immigration consisted various Scandinavian Lutheran groups -- Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Finns -- some relatively orthodox but many relatively pietistic. Many settled in cold northern areas of USA, esp. Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, North and South Dakota, etc. Many of these joined with descendants of the "Muhlenberg tradition" Lutherans to form the current ELCA (Evan. Luth Ch. in America), whereas the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod remains separate and, faithful to one of the issues that drove them from the Vaterland, very opposed to "unionist" faith and order issues. Passing added comment: the 19th century Saxon and Prussian immigration had certain relationships to the failed 1848 democracy attempt --O.K., Justin, HOW do we label this one? !! -- in (now) Germany, and German Reformed folks ALSO came to New Orleans and up the river to the Missouri, founding what became known as the Evangelical synod of North America. "Evangelical" here does NOT mean Albrighters or other uses of that word; it means German-background "protestant," though now-a-days the word often implies "Lutheran" in Germany. (This terminology is really mixed up!!) This was the group who established Eden Theological Seminary and a printing press in St. Louis, and Elmhurst College near Chicago, among others. This latter group was the "Evangelical" part of the merger with the former German Reformed denomination that became the "Evangelical and Reformed" denomination which many of us can remember. I assume that all of the former E&R churches in Centre Co came from the German Reformed and NOT from the Evangelical Synod of North America. The various permutations of this group all taught from the Heidelberg Catechism, and many congregations descended from them still do. They operated Franklin & Marshall College (men) (Lancaster), Heidelberg College (Tiffin OH), Hood College (women), Frederick MD, Cedar Crest College (also women), Allentown, in PA or vicinity, plus others elsewhere. Most are now co-ed. Their theological seminary has been in Lancaster since 1899, across college Avenue from Franklin & Marshall College. > The Evangelical Association "Albrights" had a strong foothold in the > German > valleys -- Penns Valley and Brush Valley in particular.. My family genealogist Henry Meyer, whose 1890 work I hope in part to update some day in print, made the big jump from German Reformed to Evangelical. He and his family are buried at the (now) United Methodist church cemetery in Rebersburg, which I'll assume was an Evangelical church. Yes, Justin? The earlier of that family --and some later generations also -- were buried in the Lutheran and Reformed Cemetery in Rebersburg instead, given their Reformed background. > Centre County was heavily impacted by the Esher-Dubbs split (1894-1922), > with > most of the congregations here following Bishop Dubbs and adhering to the > United Evangelical Church. This resulted in a near-doubling of > congregations, > as they lost title to the buildings, The court cases on this make really interesting reading!! I assume these cases were as frequent and ugly in Centre Co. as in Lancaster County. Justin, do I have it right: the ecclesial body that became known as the Evangelical Association was the legal inheritor to the former Albright group, and that the United Evangelical Church had to build anew? > After the reunification in 1922, most of the congregations ended up in the > Dubbs buildings, often across the street from the old buildings, some of > which > are in use as houses today. Most of the two parts of the separated denomination went back together, but the East Penna. Conference of one of these - I forget which!! -- would not agree to the merger and formed the Evangelical Congregational Church, which remains a separate ecclesial entity to this day, with particular strength around Allentown but with her theological seminary (since 1952) in the same buildings in Myerstown that once held a predecessor to Albright college. (!!!) Justin, are there any E.C. congregations in Centre Co." I would doubt it. > I do not know whether Millheim had a union church. Yes, and during the 1950's or early 1960's, The Rev. Theodore Schneider over-saw a process of merging a number of small Lutheran congregations into one, the current St. John Lutheran in Millheim. One or two of those former congregations shared buildings with Reformed congregations, but I cannot document which ones. Schneider went to Lancaster in 1964, then to Silver Spring MD in 1986 or 1987, and is now bishop of Metropolitan Washington, D.C. Synod of the ELCA. Some readers of this list likely knew him in his Centre Co. days. For years his organist at St. Johns, Millheim, was Dr. Helen Wise, former of the Penn State faculty and sometime national president of National Education Association. >> What writing exists regarding the relationship of the Scotts-Irish >> (thus, often Presbyterians, as at Center Hill, not far north of Potters >> Mill >> at the corner where the road goes to Tusseyville) and the Germans. There >> would have been at least a bit closer theological concordance, if not >> cultural bearing, between the German Reformed and the Presbyterians, both >> being of the overall "reformed" background, but it is important how the >> cultural similarities brought Lutherans and German Reformed together in >> "union churches" despite sharp differences in certain areas of >> theological >> disputation. > > Yes, the early English-speaking recorders often > called the German Reformed people "Calvinist > Presbyterian" or some such terminology in their > records. Or sometimes German Calvinists, which was a misnomer, given their Zwinglian, not Calvinist, background and with the Heidelberg Catechism (Zwinglian) instead of the Westminster Confession (Presbyterian). > I've not done a lot of research in the area of cultural interaction -- > that > would be very interesting. Is there any writing on this topic? Is this perhaps somebody's Ph.D. dissertation topic some day? Again, I'm sure I write in behalf of man in gratitude to Justin for this list and the opportunity to learn from each other here. Dr. Karl E. Moyer Lancaster PA ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to [email protected] with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ________________________________________________________________________ Check out the new AOL. Most comprehensive set of free safety and security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from across the web, free AOL Mail and more.