Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf

One of the greatest missionary statesmen of all times and the indi­vidual who did the most to advance the cause of Protestant missions dur­ing the course of the  eighteenth cen­tury was a German-born  nobleman, Count Nicolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Zinzendorf had a powerful  influence on early protest christianity that in many respects equaled or excelled that of his personal acquaintances, John Wesley and George Whitefield He pioneered ecumenical evangelism, founded the Moravian church, and authored scores of hymns but above all else he launched a world-wide missionary movement that set the stage for William Carey and the "Great Century” of missions that would follow.

Zinzendorf was born in 1700 into wealth and nobility. The death of his father and the subsequent remarriage of his mother left him to be reared by his grandmother and aunt. It was their warm evangelical Pietism that turned his heart toward spiritual matters. His early teaching was reinforced by his education. At the age of ten he was sent away to study at Halle, where he sat under the inspiring teaching of the great Lutheran Pietist, August Her­mann Francke. Here Zinzendorf banded together with other dedicated youths, and out of their association came the "Order of the Grain of Mus­tard Seed," a Christian fraternity committed to loving "the whole human family" and to spreading the gospel. From Halle, Zinzendorf went on to Wittenberg to study law in prep­aration for a career in state service  the only acceptable vocation for a nobleman. But he was unhappy with his prospects for the future. He longed to enter the Christian ministry yet to break with family tradition would be unthinkable. The decision weighed heavily on his mind until 1719, when an incident during a tour of Europe changed the course of his life. While visiting an art gallery he viewed a painting (Domenico Feti's Ecce Homo) that depicted Christ enduring the crown of thorns, with an inscription that read, "All this I did for you, what are you doing for me?"² From that moment on, Zinzendorf could never be happy living of a nobleman. No matter what the cost, he would seek a life of service Savior who had suffered so much save him.

The opportunity for Zinzendorf become involved in meaningful Christian service did not come until 1722, when a group of Protestant refugees sought shelter on his estate at Berthelsdorf, later named Herrnhut, meaning “the Lord's watch." Zinzendorfs invitation to these refugees settle on the land, despite opposition from other family members, wag turning point in the development of the Moravian movement. Hermhut grew rapidly as word of the county generosity spread. Religious refugees continued to arrive, and soon the estate turned into a thriving community dotted with newly constructed houses and shops. But with the increasing numbers came problems. The diverse religious backgrounds of the residents created discord, and on more than one occasion the very existence of Hermhut was in jeopardy.

Then in 1727, five years after the first refugees arrived, the whole atmos­phere changed. A period of spiritual renewal was climaxed at a commun­ion service on August 13 with a great revival, which, according to partici­pants, marked the coming of the Holy Spirit to Hermhut. Whatever may have occurred in the spiritual realm, there is no doubt that this great night of revival brought a new passion missions, which became the chief characteristic of the Moravian movement. No longer differences a source of contention. Instead, there was a strong spirit of unity and a heightened dependence on God. A prayer vigil was begun that con­tinued around the clock, seven days a week, without interruption for more than one hundred years.

Direct involvement in foreign missions did not come until some years after the great spiritual awaken­ing. Zinzendorf was attending the coronation of Danish King Christian VI, and during the festivities he was introduced to two native Green­landers (converts of Hans Egede) and a Negro slave from the West Indies. So impressed was he with their pleas for missionaries that he invited the latter to visit Hermhut, and he himself re­turned home with a powerful sense of urgency. Within a year the first two Moravian missionaries had been commissioned to the Virgin Islands, and in the two decades that followed, the Moravians sent out more mission­aries than all Protestants (and Angli­cans) had sent out in the previous two centuries.

Although Zinzendorf is known primarily as a missionary statesman, he willingly helped in foreign mission ventures himself. In 1738, some years after the first missionaries had gone to the Caribbean, Zinzendorf accom­panied three new recruits who had been commissioned to join their col­leagues there. When they arrived they were distressed to find their col­leagues in prison, but Zinzendorf wasted no time in using his prestige and authority as a nobleman to secure their release. During his visit he con­ducted daily services for the Negroes and revamped the organizational structure and territorial assignments for the missionaries. When he was satisfied that the mission work was on a solid footing, he returned to Europe, after two years to sail again, this time to the American colonies. Here he la­bored alongside the brethren who were working among the Indians, and he visited Moravian and Lutheran congregations, seeking to unify them into one body; but in neither area was he successful. The Lutherans resisted his ecumenical endeavors, and the Indians were apparently even less im­pressed with him.

Although Zinzendorf had re­nounced his life as a nobleman, he was never able to suppress his arrogance and conceit, and he found it difficult to t lower himself to the life of a rank and file missionary. He openly despised liv­ing in the wilderness and enduring the drudgery of day-to-day missionary work. He viewed the Indians as uncivilized and crude, and he resented their invasion of his privacy. Surprisingly, his inability to relate to them or with them did not dim his enthusiasm for evangelizing them, Zinzendorf  was above all a missionary statesman, and before leaving America he appointed twenty more mission­aries to American Indian mission work.

As a missionary statesman, Zinzen­dorf spent thirty-three years as the overseer of a world-wide network of missionaries who looked to him for leadership. His methods were simple and practical and ones that endured the test of time. All of his missionaries were lay people who were trained not as theologians but as evangelists. As self-supporting laymen, they were ex­pected to work alongside their pro­spective converts, witnessing their faith by the spoken word and by their living example—always seeking to identify themselves as equals, not as superiors. Their task was solely evan­gelism, strictly avoiding any involve­ment in local political or economic af­fairs. Their message was the love of Christ a very simple gospel message with intentional disregard for doctrinal truths until after conversion; and even then, an emotional mysticism took precedence over theological teaching. Above all else, the moravian missionaries were single-minded. Their ministry came before anything else. Wives and families were abandoned for the cause of Christ.Young men were encouraged to remain single, and when marriage was allowed, the spouse was often chosen by lot.

The chief example of single-mind- edness was Zinzendorf himself, his wife and children were frequently left behind as he traveled through Europe and abroad, and his exile for more than a decade from his homeland further complicated his family life. While he was away, his business and legal affairs were handled by his very capa­ble wife, Erdmuth, but she was less adept at keeping their marriage relationship intact. It was no secret that he and Erdmuth had grown cool toward each other and that the last fifteen years of their marriage was a marriage in name only. Nevertheless, her death was a time of bitter grief for Zinzendorf. According to John Weinlick, his biographer, "...the count's i sorrow was aggravated by remorse. He  had not been fair to Erdmuth. Cynics I to the contrary, he had not been  unfaithful to her during their long I periods of separation; but he had been I extremely thoughtless. He had forgotten that she was a woman, a wife, and a mother."

After the year of mourning for Erdmuth was over, Zinzendorf  married Anna Nitchmann, a peasant I woman who, along with others, had been his traveling companion for many years. The marriage was kept secret for more than a year, partly to void a family controversy over his stooping to marry a woman so far beneath his social rank. Despite her lowly status, Anna was a dedicated

Moravian sister who had had a strong ideological influence on Zinzendorf particularly in the area of mysticism and it was this very phenomenon that brought on grave problems for the mission.

Under the count's leadership, the Moravian church had placed great emphasis on the death of Christ. As a  child he had meditated on the death and agony of lord, and his rail In  the ministry had become evident  while viewing a painting depicting  Christ’s agony. As time passed, what  once had been an emphasis turned into a gruesome obsession, and the  whole church seemed to be carried  away in a radical form of mysticism.  Both the Moravian brothers and the sisters began denigrating their own  worth as they morbidly depicted the death of Christ. In a circular letter to the churches, Anna years before she and Zinzendorf were married) wrote,  "Like a poor little worm, I desire to withdraw myself into his wounds," and Zinzendorf himself spoke of the  brethren as “little blood worms in the  sea of grace.” An "Order of Little Fools" was formed, and Zinzendorf encouraged the members to behave like little children and to think of themselves as '‘little fish swimming in the bed of blood" or "little bees who suck the wounds of Christ.” While some may view the Moravians' obsession with the physical death of Christ as merely a strange aberration of the evangelical Christian heritage, the significance lies far deeper than that in its relation to Christian missions. The more mystical and introspective the Moravians became in their personal identification with the Lord's physical suffering, the less they cared about the needs of others, particularly regarding world evangelism. They viewed their mystical, sensual experiences as evidence of ultimate spirituality and neglected the practical side of their faith. Active missionaries were actually looked down on because they had not yet reached the mystics' high plane of spirituality; and the cause of missions, therefore, suffered.

All this may have brought a quick demise to this great missionary movement, but, fortunately the count came to his senses before that occurred. Admitting that the condition of the church had “greatly degenerated' and that he himself had "probably occasioned it' Zinzendorf was able to put that "brief but fearful" period behind him and to steer his following back on course again. Certainly that factor alone adds to the stature of this great man.

Zinzendorf's contribution to missions is best seen in the lives of the men and women who accepted his challenge to forsake all for the sake of the gospel. Their sole motivation was Christ's sacrificial love for the world, and it was with that message that they went       to the ends of the earth.