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Christian Life and Witness
Count Zinzendorf’s 1738 Berlin Speeches
Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf
Edited, translated, and with an introduction and notes by
Gary S. Kinkel
Christian Life and Witness
Count Zinzendorf’s 1738 Berlin Speeches
Princeton Theological Monograph Series 40
Copyright © 2010 Gary S. Kinkel. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical publications or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher. Write: Permissions, Wipf and Stock Publishers, 199 W. 8th Ave., Suite 3, Eugene, OR 97401.
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isbn 13: 978-1-60608-617-9
eisbn 13: 978-1-4982-7174-5
Cataloging-in-Publication data:
Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von, 1700–1760.
Christian life and witness : Count Zinzendorf’s 1738 Berlin speeches / Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf; edited, translated and with an introduction and notes by Gary S. Kinkel.
isbn 13: 978-1-60608-617-9
Princeton Theological Monograph Series 40
xxvi + 138 p. ; 23 cm.—Includes bibliographical references.
1. Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von, 1700–1760—Sources. 2. Zinzendorf, Nikolaus Ludwig Graf von, 1700–1760—Theology. 3. Bohemian Brethren. I. Kinkel, Gary S. II. Title. III. Series.
BX4820 Z5 2010
Manufactured in the U.S.A.
Princeton Theological Monograph Series
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Acknowledgments
I have been helped by a number of people in the preparation of these pages. I owe thanks to Dr. Patricia Caulkins, professor of German at Simpson College, Indianola, Iowa, for her patient examination of the translation. All awkward constructions are my own, of course, but this work would not be nearly as good without her input. I owe thanks, as well, to my children, Nikolas, Monika, and Madeline for pushing me with their questions, their enthusiasms, and their pure excitement about life, justice, and hope. And finally, I owe a great debt of thanks to my wife, Kay, who encouraged me, prayed for me, and loved me through thick and thin as this book moved toward completion.
Gary S. Kinkel
Indianola, Iowa
Translator’s Introduction
Nikolaus Ludwig Count von Zinzendorf came into the world on May 26, 1700, in the German city of Dresden. He died in Herrnhut on May 9, 1760. His life was filled with both controversy and paradox. He was a theologian who never formally studied theology. In an age of harsh literary and institutional battles between Lutheran Orthodoxy and Pietism, he grew up in a family intimately associated with the leading figures of Lutheran Pietism, yet earned his degree at Wittenberg University, the great fortress of Lutheran Orthodoxy. As a young man, his Christian convictions drove him to embrace pacifism, but he was employed by the government as special counsel to the king of Saxony. He was a representative of the law who conducted illegal religious meetings in his Dresden apartment and wrote and printed anonymously (on his own press) a totally illegal, critical, religious periodical under the pen name “the Dresden Socrates.” He was a member of the high nobility, a relative and friend of kings, who spent a good deal of his adult life in close association with uneducated laborers, religious dissenters, black slaves from the West Indies, and native people in America. He was a devoted follower of Luther who carried on a deep personal friendship with a Roman Catholic cardinal during the days when Lutherans and Catholics regarded each other with open hostility. He was a lover of the Lutheran confessional documents who opened his heart and even his house and lands to religious radicals and dissenters who confessed Jesus Christ but ignored the Lutheran confessions and rejected the state church structure. There were Mennonite preachers who spoke highly of him, while some of his fellow Lutherans considered him mad. A highly cultured intellectual who was engaged with, and appreciative of, much of the Enlightenment, a lover particularly of the work of the philosopher Pierre Bayle, he lived by a simple, passionate, and profound faith in Jesus, the Lamb of God. In an age when most Christians in Europe and the Americas heaped abuse and contempt upon Jews and Judaism, he befriended Jews and learned from them. Indeed, he began to use Yiddish expressions in his speech. Though accused of being a “quietist,” it is hard to imagine anyone more dynamic, engaged, and unquiet.
For all that, one might be tempted to dismiss him as a historically interesting character, but certainly not someone who might bear meaningful theological fruit in the present. Such a conclusion would be badly mistaken. Count Zinzendorf has had, and continues to have, an influence that compels further study and engagement with him. He ought to be read and considered, if for no other reason, for the significance of the people who have been profoundly shaped and influenced by him. He was without question the most influential German theologian between Luther and Schleiermacher. He was a decisive influence on both Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard. He stood behind much of the preaching of Johann Christoph Blumhardt. In the twentieth century Karl Barth came to praise him. Jürgen Moltmann dedicated one of his books to the spiritual heirs of Zinzendorf. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, too, bears the imprint of Zinzendorf. But in order to catch a glimpse of how he might relate to the present, it is necessary to