Moravians and the Love Feast

As I said in an earlier blog, I spent most of this week at a conference on the “Missional Church”. During a free afternoon, I was given a guided tour of Old Salem Village and Home Moravian Church, which is sort of the “mother church” of their denomination in the U.S.

I was impressed by the simple beauty of the church (it actually looked more like a Presbyterian church than what I had envisioned), but as I stood in that historic sanctuary, I couldn't help but think of how intertwined the Moravians and the Methodists are.

Sadly, I'm convinced that not many Methodists realize this today, nor do many of them know who or what a Moravian is. This, I think, is largely fault of the clergy who either do not know this history themselves, or have disregarded it as irrelevant. Yet the truth is, our ties to the Moravians are overwhelming. From the broad-minded way of approaching theology, to singing our doctrine in our hymns, to our commitment to diversity of opinion when it comes to the non-essentials of the faith, to the our mutual concern for “holiness of heart and life”, we are linked in more ways than most realize.

Of course, it was on a hurricane-tossed ship filled with Moravians (off the SC/GA coast) that John Wesley witnessed in them a deep and abiding faith that he realized he did not have. Later, it was at a Moravian-led Bible study at Aldersgate Street that Wesley felt his “heart strangely warmed” by the assurance of God's love and found the faith he was missing.

But of all the things we Methodists share with the Moravians, I think there is none more beautiful or meaningful than the Love Feast. If you've never attended one, it is a very different sort of worship service based on the early agape meals of New Testament and Apostolic times at which Christians would gather to share food and fellowship as they sang, prayed and bore witness to the great love of God in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, according to most authorities, the Love Feast was officially discontinued in the Western (Roman) church at the Council of Laodicea (363AD) although it continued in Eastern (Greek) churches.

In 1727, after having observed a Love Feast in one of the Eastern Orthodox churches, Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians “restored” it to the Western church. Ten years later, John Wesley attended a Moravian Love Feast in Savannah during his missionary journey to America. He was so moved by its power and beauty that he later adopted it for use in Methodist worship. He wrote in his journal, “After evening prayers, we joined with the Germans for one of their love-feasts. It was begun and ended with thanksgiving (hymns) and prayer, and celebrated in so decent and solemn a manner as a Christian of the Apostolic age would have allowed to be worthy of Christ.”

As Methodism began to sweep across Britain and America, the Love Feast became a vital part of the revival movement because it encouraged personal testimony and praise for what God was doing in a particular area. In many ways, not only was it a time to celebrate and give thanks for God's love, it was also a time to proclaim and bear witness to that love to everyone present. As a result, it became a powerful means of building up the faithful while simultaneously reaching out to the lost.

According to historian Frank Baker, the Love Feast was so poweful that “Wesley had originally introduced Love-Feasts on a monthly basis...” But as the Methodist revival movement slowly became a denominational “church” and, therefore, part of proper Establishment, the Love Feast once again began to fall into disuse because many Methodist leaders felt the kind of enthusiasm it encouraged did not lend itself to respectability! As Baker points out, although Wesley wanted Methodists to celebrate the Love Feast monthly, “...they then became quarterly features. By the mid-19th century they had become annual features and by the end of the 19th century were regarded as quaint relics of earlier days”... and since “the Love-Feast was a product of revivalism (and a mechanism for keeping such sentiments alive) – and as the 19th century developed, Methodism slipped into its comfortable middle class existence, and chapels became churches and the 'embarrassment' of revivalism put away, the spectacle of the Love Feast was rarely, if ever, seen again.”

Officially, several historically Methodist churches officially “allow” or encourage the use of the Love Feast, although rarely is it ever done.

Perhaps, though, if Methodism wants to recover some of the spiritual fire that once set Britain and America aflame, we might do well to take a fresh, new look at the Love Feast and re-re-introduce it to the church and the world.