Poor Children and Enlightened Citizens: Lutheran Education in America, 1748-1800

Elizabeth Lewis Pardoe

The pietist Lutheran clergy in eighteenth-century America attempted to maintain confessional uniformity by educating children and training pastors in sectarian schools. Without the support mechanisms of a European confessional state, the effort floundered. After the Revolution, a new generation of Lutheran pastors designed educational institutions to serve the new nation. These pastors created a new identity for their parishioners as ecumenical German speakers but disagreed about whether English had a role in their parishes. The leading advocate of German envisioned a federated system of self-governing, ethnic-religious communities. Ironically, American Lutherans accepted their right to community autonomy but rejected German-speaking pastors. [WP# 98028]