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The Burden of Love: M oravian Conversions and Emotions in Eighteenth‐Century Labrador
Author(s) -
Van Gent Jacqueline
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
journal of religious history
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.117
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 1467-9809
pISSN - 0022-4227
DOI - 10.1111/1467-9809.12272
Subject(s) - indigenous , power (physics) , meaning (existential) , protestantism , identity (music) , colonialism , reading (process) , style (visual arts) , sociology , gender studies , religious studies , history , aesthetics , art , philosophy , literature , archaeology , epistemology , ecology , physics , quantum mechanics , biology , linguistics
The M oravian C hurch was a highly successful Protestant mission society which developed very specific emotional registers to create an imagined community across very diverse cultures. This article discusses the social regulation of emotions and the indigenous responses to a M oravian emotional style as part of the conversion process on M oravian missions in the eighteenth century. One of the core elements of M oravian spiritual conversion and identity was the love of C hrist and his spiritual sufferings which was expected to be displayed in specific ways by converts. M oravian understandings of C hrist's love and conversion included a strong somatic component, spiritual states were expressed in attributes and states of the heart, such as a “warm” or a “cold” heart. Tears, which were believed to flow from the heart, are another indicator of spiritual condition and linked to conversion. The historical meaning of this Moravian love was, however, far from being non‐ambiguous. A closer reading of the expressions of indigenous converts suggest that emotions associated with conversions, such as love, constituted a complex set of social meanings which reflected the colonial hierarchies, violence, and social power differences in which M oravian conversions took place.