While working on a branch of the tree today I remembered that my grandmother Frieda Marie Suess was a member of the Moravian Church. I remember she used to travel a great distance to go to church out near Pasadena back in the 1950's. I've looked into the church and found that it had some very different views based on a matriarchal theology. Moravians' beliefs centered on a feminized Holy Spirit, the right of women to preach, sacralizing the sex act, and metaphorically re-gendering Jesus Christ. These teachings were perceived as threats to more mainstream Christian articles of faith. The first Moravian missionaries came to the United States in 1735, from their Herrnhut settlement in present-day Saxony, Germany. They came to minister to the scattered German immigrants and to the native Americans. They founded communities to serve as home bases for these missions. The missionary "messengers" were financially supported by the work of the "laborers" in these settlements.
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