Alexander Mack

Alexander Mack ( born July 27, 1679 Schriesheim, † January 19, 1735 in German Town, Pennsylvania, United States) is the founder of Schwarzenau Brethren and attributed to the radical Pietism.

Life

Alexander Mack was born into a wealthy family of millers. His father Johann Philipp Mack (1636-1706) belonged to the Schriesheimer Council and was a member of the presbytery of the local Reformed church. Alexander Mack learned the miller's trade and married on January 18, 1701 Anna Margaretha Kling, whose father was also a member of Schriesheimer Council and the Reformed Presbytery. Mack The couple had two sons, of whom Alexander Mack Jr.. after the death of his father in 1735 the line of the later Church of the Brethren took over. 1702 Alexander Mack was sen. together with his brother Hans Jacob Mack passed the parental mill operation.

The sale of his inheritance in 1706 marked a decisive turning point in the life of Alexander Mack. In the same year the radical Pietist itinerant preacher Ernst Christoph high man of Hochenau visited the Palatinate and Schriesheim developed in a very short time into a center of radical Pietism. Alexander Mack introduced the radical pietists for their conventicles his mill available, which he, however, soon came into conflict with the local authorities. Mack eventually left Schriesheim, to escape imprisonment by the secular authorities and fled together with high man of Hochenau whose companion Christian Erb and other comrades after Zuzenhausen to a resident Baptist. When she later came to Mannheim, they were arrested and deported after questioning. The radical Pietist movement in the Palatinate grew despite the persecution continues.

Mack sold further parts of his property and found refuge in the county of Sayn -Wittgenstein -Hohenstein, one of the most important sanctuaries of radical pietists. He belonged to a circle of intense debate over the legality of the Church's practice of baptism. Through two "brothers" they were encouraged in the view to be baptized by triple immersion in a flowing waters. Probably between 1 and August 11, 1708 was the baptism of the first people to take out of this circle. The lot shall the first Baptist, who baptized Alexander Mack by triple immersion in the name of the triune God in the Eder. Alexander Mack then baptized the other seven candidates for baptism. The thus performed baptism in the Eder is still regarded as the founding moment of the now designated as Tunker Anabaptist- Pietist movement.

Through these community education, there was an intense debate within the radical Pietist movement about the necessity of baptism. However, the more likely influenced by mystical spiritualism forms of radical Pietism rejected the path of Schwarzenauer Neutäufer from a majority.

1711 attacked the neutäuferische movement via the Wetterau. The left Neutäufer 1715 Wetterau and were admitted in Krefeld, where Mennonites have been tolerated long periods of time. However, due to their strong missionary occurrence they came into conflict with the authorities. So hiked 20 families from Krefeld congregation in 1719 to Pennsylvania and settled in the previously founded by German immigrants originating from Krefeld German settlement Town.

The mother church in Schwarzenau came under increasing pressure from 1719. And so left 40 families in the community, the country and Wittgenstein initially migrated from after Surhuisterveen in the Dutch province of Friesland. 1729 emigrated, most under the leadership of Alexander Mack to North America. More Neutäufer followed in the 1730s. After 1740, the track of the remaining Neutäufer in Germany loses. They seem to have joined either the Mennonites or continue to have lived as a religious separatists.

Works of Alexander Mack

  • Kurtze and silly idea / of the external / but sacred rights and regulations concerning the house of God / Christ as commanded / and leave the true Hauss - Vatter JEsus schrifftlich in his will. Presented in a conversation / under father and son by Ask and answer. o.o. 1715.
  • Eberhard Ludwig Gruber basic researchers questions which were insonderheit submitted answer to those new Anabaptists in Witgensteinischen, , together with: beygefügten short and simple-minded answers to the same, previously given out in writing by an upright member of the community to Witgenstein, and now on much desire for public conveyed pressure. German Town 1774th
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