Inspirationalists

The Inspired are a Christian Free Church. You acknowledge besides the Bible also according to their faith inspired by the Holy Spirit speech as a source of divine revelation.

Their movement has emerged at the turn of the 17th and 18th century from the radical Pietism. After the form and content of their religiosity they have many points of contact with the revival movements of the 17th and 18th century and with the Pentecostal movement today. The Inspired migrated in the 19th century in the United States, where some of them the Amana Colonies justified.

History of inspiration communities

Origins in France

The origins of inspiration communities date back to the persecution of the French Huguenots after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. Many Protestant religious refugees retreated to 1685 in the remote regions of the Cevennes back to where it at the beginning of the 18th century came to a so-called Camisard revolt due to the ongoing persecution. In the course of the royal troops devastated large tracts of land and destroyed the there existing Protestant church structures.

As more and more pastors were arrested or forced to flee, was a movement of theologically trained lay preachers, representing an ecstatic - visionary religiosity. The first inspired prophetess was the about 16 -year-old Isabeau Vincent, which first appeared in February 1688.

After the suppression of the uprising in 1704, many Huguenots emigrated from the Cevennes in Protestant countries neighboring France. As exiles, they found, inter alia, took refuge in England, where they were referred to as "French Prophets " and in London a separate municipality founded, since the local Huguenot congregation she could not integrate. Even the Anglican state church opposed. However, they found sympathy among the English Dissenters. Since 1709, the French prophets missionary travels took the European continent under apocalyptic sign.

The Inspired in Germany

In Germany the ideas of the Inspired at the latest in 1711 attacked over when the two fled revivalist Allut and Marion were admitted in pietistic communities in the Wetterau. There were formed in the following years, the first 10 German inspiration communities from which the new faith spread mainly in the southwest and western Germany. Tie were the " French Prophets," the ecstatic experience among radical pietists who made these since the 1690s.

Sensational were the external phenomena of ecstasy. The measures taken by the Spirit "Tools" fell first into convulsive movements. This condition was then usually followed by a cataleptic rigidity, in which the sensory perception was off. Then began the " inspired" speeches of the "tools", where even imagined God as either speech Santander, directed its embassies in the third person to present or prayers addressed to God. The content of the sermons had two main themes: the call to repentance and the announcement of an imminent reversal of the current situation in apocalyptic prophecies. The proceedings of the "prophets" were co-written and published by writers. They were to scriptures and stood by the Bible.

Soon after the onset of inspiration movement in Germany took over the leadership of the German preacher emerging communities. Since these were anxious to distance from the official state churches, the Inspired have also been called separatists. It fixed community structures were formed. After the consolidation of the inspiration phenomena declined. A " tool " after another fell silent. Only Johann Friedrich rock retained until his death in 1749 inspired gift.

In a particularly fertile ground the ideas of the French preachers were among the Pietists in Württemberg. From the Duchy of two of the most important leaders of the German Inspired emerged, the son of a pastor and isenburg - büdingische Hofsattler Johann Friedrich rock and Eberhard Ludwig Gruber, deacon in Großbottwar. Other centers of the movement in Germany were the Kummulationspunkte of radical Pietism: the County of Isenburg - Büdingen in the Wetterau, the cities of Frankfurt am Main and Hanau, and the counties of Sayn -Wittgenstein- Berleburg and Sayn -Wittgenstein- Hohenstein. 1739 is an inspiration community was founded in the religious sanctuary Neuwied.

In the first half of the 18th century, the Inspired won despite their small numbers, formative influence on the radical Pietism. In many cases, however, they were even persecuted by Protestant rulers. Also, by Halle Pietism and many radical pietists both the inspiration phenomena such as the formation of the Inspired community were rejected.

In the U.S.

Because of this refusal by the authorities, most inspiration municipalities decided until the beginning of the 19th century to emigrate. A few went to Russia, but most of them emigrated to the United States, where they founded the town of New Harmony, for example, in Indiana. In Iowa, founded the Inspired the Amana Colonies. In the vicinity of Cedar Rapids, Iowa is the Amana Church Society today a small, 450 members (as of 2006) scoring Municipality of Inspired, which goes back to German immigrants. There are points of contact to the Schwarzenau Brethren, which also date back to the Radical Pietism.

Beliefs and practices

As followers of radical Pietism were the first Inspired usually Christians who had turned away from the orthodoxy of the Lutheran or Reformed Landeskirchentums. You searched in visionary, partly mystical vision direct access to the experience of God.

You have never trained a common, coherent theological system, and its highest forms of organization were the individual communities that had a lot of freedom to confess to this mal mal to the direction of their faith. This also makes the distinction between the different groupings of inspiration communities very complicated. Unique in the field of radical Pietism is the fact that the Inspired gave out a common hymnal, the Davidic Psalter.

Common to all, however, was the focus on a very tight, sometimes literal, sometimes mystical interpretation of Scripture. Your real peculiarity to which they owe their name, is the so-called phenomenon of inspiration. In addition to the words of the Bible the Inspired many community members believe in the direct inspiration of God. This community members who are referred to as ' tools ', expressed during services in so-called ' prophetic pronunciations '.

Other similarities of the Inspired consist in the rejection of the sacraments and of military service and oaths. Herein, show overlap with Anabaptist communities. In addition a very intense community life that often took early Christian- communist forms, especially in the migrant communities. So it was in the Amana Colonies in Iowa until 1932 no private property. Also millenarian ideas are spread among the Inspired.