A biography of the Germany nobleman who protected the Moravians from persecution in eighteenth-century Germany.

Part history, part narrative, The Lord of the Ring takes readers on a fascinating journey back to the 18th century Moravian renewal movement and 100-year prayer watch. Experience the passion of young Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf and his friends as they took a vow to serve Christ their King faithfully in whatever situation of life they found themselves. Signed by the five school friends and illustrated in a medallion made by Zinzendorf’s grandmother, the vow of the “Confessors of Christ” is as relevant today as when it first was conceived in 1716. Join Phil Anderson on an aerial road trip via his three-seater plane as he undertakes a 21st century pilgrimage from England to Germany. Anderson retraces the steps of Zinzendorf, reconnects with his legacy and seeks to apply it to life and faith in a new millennium. Learning from the past, readers will discover crucial signposts for grappling with the Church of today’s identity and calling as an authentic, relational, missional community.

Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf was without question the most influential German theologian between Luther and Schleiermacher. He was the force behind modern Protestant missions, launched efforts that eventually became the ecumenical movement, and influenced some of the most significant theological projects of the modern world from Schleiermacher's to Barth's and Bonhoeffer's. He was convinced that in important respects the Christian church of his day had lost its way both intellectually and practically. In these speeches, given to overflow crowds in Berlin, he brought to expression what he held to be the absolute and nonnegotiable center of Christian existence-the main thing. Here he laid out for public view the heart of all his activity, the guiding reality of his life. In these speeches Zinzendorf focuses on fundamental theological themes. One senses the influence upon him of the Pietist movement and of Orthodox theology. One gains an appreciation for his bold idiosyncrasy, his willingness to stand apart, and to bear witness. But above all, one gains here an insight into the very heart of Zinzendorf.

At the end of the 1740s, the Moravians, a young and rapidly expanding radical-Pietist movement, experienced a crisis soon labeled the Sifting Time. As Moravian leaders attempted to lead the church away from the abuses of the crisis, they also tried to erase the memory of this controversial and embarrassing period. Archival records were systematically destroyed, and official histories of the church only dealt with this period in general terms. It is not surprising that the Sifting Time became both a taboo and an enigma in Moravian historiography. In A Time of Sifting, Paul Peucker provides the first book-length, in-depth look at the Sifting Time and argues that it did not consist of an extreme form of blood-and-wounds devotion, as is often assumed. Rather, the Sifting Time occurred when Moravians began to believe that the union with Christ could be experienced not only during marital intercourse but during extramarital sex as well. Peucker shows how these events were the logical consequence of Moravian teachings from previous years. As the nature of the crisis became evident, church leaders urged the members to revert to their earlier devotion of the blood and wounds of Christ. By returning to this earlier phase, the Moravians lost their dynamic character and became more conservative. It was at this moment that the radical-Pietist Moravians of the first half of the eighteenth century reinvented themselves as a noncontroversial evangelical denomination.