ABSTRACT
In the first half of the eighteenth century, the Moravian Brethren were regarded as a radical sect, which was trying to dissolve social norms and structures. The particular reason for this popular opposition was not only the Herrnhuters’ emphasis on the piety of the individual as the true conversion, their evocative theology focused on the blood and wounds of Jesus, and the organisation of the community into groups according to sex, age, and marital status, but also their disastrous effects on local economies. Indeed, the economic practices of the Herrnhuter, their entrepreneurial spirit and their cultivation and use of global networks to their economic advantage were the main reason for the political acceptance of their presence despite their controversial theological activity. This chapter argues that the role of gender in individualisation and formation of humanity corresponded to new ideas of identity rather than old ideas of estate, and that the ideology of this small religious fraternity was part of the changes that would in time build the civil society and its distinction between public and private.
