Zoar

The Story of an Intentional Community

Kathleen M. Fernandez

• Publisher: The Kent State University Press
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781631011566
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire du monde

The fascinating history of Zoar, from the German Separatists who settled there to the present-day historical village

In 1817, a group of German religious dis­senters immigrated to Ohio. Less than two years later, in order to keep their distinctive religion and its adherents together, they formed a communal society ( eine güter gemeinschaft or "community of goods"), where all shared equally. Their bold experiment thrived and continued through three generations; the Zoar Separatists are considered one of the longest-lasting communal groups in US history.

Fernandez traces the Separatists' beginnings in Württemberg, Germany, and their disputes with authorities over religious differences, their immigration to America, and their establishment of the communal Society of Separatists of Zoar.

The community's development, particularly in terms of its business activities with the outside world, demonstrates its success and influence in the 19th century. Though the Society dissolved in 1898, today its site is a significant historical attraction. Zoar is based on ample primary source material, some never before utilized by historians, and illustrated with thirty historic photographs.

CHAPTER 1

“And Speak the Truth Freely”

Zoar Separatists in Germany

Even as the Separatists

Perceived the tyranny,

And wished to live as Christians

And speak the truth freely,

The war and battle raged

Far and wide throughout the land.

—Daniel Huber, untitled poem, 1833

In 1833, just two years after his arrival in Zoar, Daniel Ulrich Huber penned a forty-one-verse poem describing the Separatists’ travails in Germany and their emigration to America.¹ Huber (1768–1840) was a shoemaker, and, although he waited until 1831 to emigrate, he had witnessed their persecution in Germany firsthand—he was one of the ringleaders of the fledgling Separatist movement in his hometown of Rottenacker, a village in the district of Alb-Donau (on the Danube) in southeastern Württemberg. Historian Eberhard Fritz has called the Huber family “the nucleus of the Rottenacker Separatists’ movement.”² Daniel, his brother Stephan, their father Stephan, cousin Johannes, and their families broke away from the established state-run Lutheran Church as early as 1792.³ Daniel, something of a martyr, actively disobeyed the church ministers by not attending Sunday services, keeping his children from the church-run schools, and refusing to doff his cap in front of the authorities. For this, soldiers were quartered in his home, and he spent jail time in the Fortress Asperg, as did many other Separatists.⁴

Why did he rebel? Let’s let Daniel tell his story:

Verse 4

Noble freedom, noble fortune

Here in the liberated land,

Yes, when I think back now,

To the sorrowful condition

Where the countryman’s goods and blood

Belonged to the brood of tyrants.⁵

One “tyrant” referred to was Duke Friedrich II of Württemberg (who became elector in 1803 and King Friedrich I in 1805). The Peace of Augsburg treaty in 1555 allowed the rulers of the many territories now making up today’s Germany to decide how their subjects would worship. The Peace of Westphalia (1648) at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War confirmed this policy: the religion of the ruler in 1624 became that of his subjects. For the most part, the inhabitants were not allowed to choose their own religion. The country in southwest Germany ruled by the Duke of Württemberg became Lutheran, with state and church rules intermingled. Church attendance was mandatory, all children were required to be baptized, schools were run by the church, and citizens were forced to pay for a minister they could not choose.

In 1800 the French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte occupied Württemberg, causing Duke Friedrich and his wife to flee. In 1803, after annexing the west bank of the Rhine, Napoleon elevated the now-returned Friedrich to the office of elector. With the Confederation of the Rhine, Friedrich became king, allowing him to take over the lands of many smaller nearby principalities.

During this period, the uncomfortable tensions between the church and some of Württemberg’s residents became even worse. The people were suffering: men were drafted into the state’s army, battles were fought in the area, and the government was spending money on the war, not on its citizens. The state-run Lutheran Church wasn’t sufficiently responding to the spiritual needs of its congregations—it seemed to care only about its formal rituals and making sure that the people attended church and paid tithes (taxes that supported the church and clergy). It did not help that church attendance was mandatory; this suggested some congregation members were cynical unbelievers just going through the motions because they had to, while others had a sincere desire to be better Christians.

Called a “tyrant” by the Separatists, Württemberg’s King Friedrich considered the Separatists to be lawbreakers and forbade them to emigrate. He sentenced many to jail for long periods. (King Friedrich I of Württemberg, early nineteenth century, painter unknown. Private collection.)

PIETISM

As a remedy, around 1800, at the start of Napoleon’s campaign, some people turned to a reformist movement called Pietism that had energized the church more than a century before. Pietists believed in a direct, personal relationship with God. Pietist assemblies had coexisted with the state church since the 1700s, but attendance now increased. For others, however, becoming Pietist wasn’t enough. They thought the church was too corrupt, too ritualistic, and not personal enough to meet their spiritual needs. These folks became Radical Pietists, focusing on a deep, individually felt devotion to God. Eberhard Fritz observed that Separatism “has always risen in times of crisis” within the Lutheran Church.⁶ Pietism was called “the religion of the heart.” Its hallmarks were individual prayer, hymns, Bible study, and personal conversion, or Wiedergeburt (born again), in which a once-sinful life was begun anew. Because these practices largely bypassed the clergy and laws regarding church attendance, Pietism was inherently heretical. Most Pietists wished to reform from within the church; others, including those who eventually came to Zoar, wished to leave a church that could not be reformed.⁷

Seventeenth-century Pietism, originally a derisive term given to adherents by their opponents, has been called “the most significant religious movement in Protestant Christianity since the Reformation.” Whereas the Reformation begun by Luther in 1517 was a reformation of church practices, Pietism was a reformation of church life.⁸ After the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), where Germany was a battleground, everyday life was difficult, but the populace found the Lutheran Church more concerned with dogma than solace.

Pietism is said to have begun around 1675 with the publication of Pia Desideria (“Pious Desires”) by a Lutheran minister named Philip Jakob Spener (1635–1705). The book’s subtitle, “Heartfelt Longing for a God Pleasing Convalescence,” illustrates Spener’s desire for a more responsive church. He accused the church of “ceremonialism and arrogance” and wished for the laity to be more educated about the Scriptures, to be more involved in all functions of the church, and to practice their faith in their daily lives.⁹ Adherents met in “conventicles,” small prayer groups held in private homes or churches. This movement gained considerable influence within the Lutheran Church until the advent of “rationalism” in the early eighteenth century. Religious rationalism rejected symbolism and was highly logical. This new rational perspective, plus the adoption of a new hymnbook (1791) and a new liturgy (1805) in Württemberg,¹⁰ caused many congregants to “separate” from an established church they viewed as Babel.

A large part of what became the Zoar religion was based on mysticism, with the shoemaker Jakob Böhme (1575–1624) as one of the greatest visionaries. His book Aurora, (“Die Morgenröte im Aufgang” [“Rising Dawn”], 1612), was the result of a dream, or “central vision” (Zentralschau), he had in 1600. He urged man to prepare for a “new dawn” or new way of life. Böhme was pantheistic, seeing “everything in God and God in everything.”¹¹ In Aurora he described his vision of the “Heavenly Sophia,” the personification of divine wisdom, the female aspect of God. After his book was judged heretical even by his own pastor, Böhme did not put pen to paper again until 1618, when he began a flurry of writing, including Mysterium Magnum (1623) and Weg zu Christo (1624), both of which were in Zoar leader Joseph Bimeler’s library. Böhme believed in “dualism”: light/dark, good/evil, life/death. He also was a chiliast, or millennialist, believing the world would soon end with Christ’s return to reign in a “Golden Paradise” for a thousand years prior to the final judgment, a belief derived from Revelation 20:1–6, that man should be prepared for the Second Coming by living an exemplary life, to welcome his Savior at any time.¹²

All this—the philosophers, the conventicles, and the controversies of the Pietist movement—took place well over a hundred years before those who came to Zoar were even born. Why did they choose the beliefs of Radical Pietism to call their own?

The political circumstances were similar—war (the Thirty Years’ War in the case of the earlier Pietists, and the Napoleonic wars in the case of the soon-to-be Zoarites) and the havoc, destruction, and upheaval it caused drew many to the comfort of religion, but the church they turned to was not responsive, for it was too doctrinal earlier, too unfeeling in later years. To the latter group, there was nothing left to do but rebel, to refuse to attend church, to worship on their own in secret, and to refuse to send their children to church-run schools: in other words, to break the law.

Jacob Sylvan, one of the group’s leaders, described the situation in the preface of Die Wahre Separation oder die Wiedergeburt (“The True Separation or the Rebirth”), the first book of Bimeler’s Sunday Discourses, or sermons, printed after his death: “Just as the kingdom of darkness was making its cruel impact felt most intensely (through the French Revolution, terrible wars, and a highly depraved humanity with its spirit for vices and all their consequences), God prepared an instrument [Werkzeug] to counter all this,¹³ and raised a light that should shine among the peoples, and it did shine and spread its beams. In the souls of those who allowed themselves to be illuminated by this light, a bright signal star [ein heller Signalstern] arose, and seeing this very light, they could be glad and rejoice in it. This light showed them clearly and convincingly what God proposed to do at that time with humanity, and how He now intended to set up His kingdom.”¹⁴

The seven-pointed star, representing the Star of Bethlehem and the light of God in us all, was the symbol of the Separatists. In Germany, stars made of cloth were worn as badges, with wearers punished by the authorities. In America, the star became Zoar’s emblem and is shown here on the ceiling of Zoar’s Number One House. (Courtesy of the Ohio History Connection, David Barker, photographer.)

ROTTENACKER

According to extant records, Separatist activity began in Rottenacker, home to poet Daniel Ulrich Huber.

Verse 8

The officials and the priests,

Came forth in total anger.

It was decreed that [the Separatists] should be punished

Until they took off their cap and hat.

Troops would be sent to them

Until they gave [the authorities] honor.¹⁵

Although the town of Rottenacker may not be typical of the approximately thirty-six villages from which the Zoar Separatists came, we know the most about it, thanks to the research of German historian Eberhard Fritz.¹⁶ It was the home to two early Separatist leaders, Stephan Huber and Johannes Breymaier (also Breimaier), and the town had the distinction of being occupied by the king’s troops in 1804 to quell the rebellious Separatists. It was also here where a Swiss visionary, Barbara Grubermann (also Grubenmann) came to live, preach, and greatly influence their beliefs.

Rottenacker, in southern Württemberg, a Protestant enclave surrounded by Catholic villages, was originally property of the Abbey at Blaubeuren. Because of its isolation, its inhabitants intermarried and were all closely related. Unlike most villages, the highest official was not its ma...