Upcoming Events
For events in the Bucher Meetinghouse, use “450 Campus Road, Elizabethtown, PA” in your navigation app. Although not an actual physical address, it will place you close to the entrance of the Young Center parking lot. Then use the building’s main entrance—beside the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies sign—to access the meetinghouse.
Tuesday, September 26, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
BROWN BOOK AWARD LECTURE
Herrnhut: A New Look at the Origins of the Moravian Church
From its founding in 1722, the community of Herrnhut quickly grew to become the epicenter of a transatlantic religious movement that would go on to attract thousands of Europeans, American Indians, and enslaved Africans: the Moravian Church. In his recent book, based on the analysis of thousands of documents from archives in Germany and the United States, Paul Peucker takes a fresh look at the origins of Herrnhut and demonstrates how this community was able to survive despite the existing regulations against new religious groups in early modern Germany.
Paul Peucker is archivist of the Moravian Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He holds a doctorate in history from the University of Utrecht and a degree from the State Archives School in The Hague. He worked as archivist at the Moravian Archives in Herrnhut, Germany, before becoming director at the Moravian Archives in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in 2004. Peucker is the managing editor of the Journal of Moravian History and the author of A Time of Sifting: Mystical Marriage and the Crisis of Moravian Piety in the 18th Century (2015). His most recent book on the origins of the Moravian Church, Herrnhut: The Formation of a Moravian Community, 1722–1732, was published simultaneously in English and German in 2022 and received the 2023 Dale Brown Book Award.
Thursday, October 12, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
LECTURE
Balthasar Hubmaier and Anti-Judaism in the Reformation: Reexamining Regensburg
Christian perceptions of Jews in the medieval and early modern periods were immensely varied, ranging from utter detestation to indifference to reverence. The social and theological upheavals of the Reformation further confused Jewish-Christian relations. Based upon archival research in Regensburg, this talk by Breanna J. Nickel will reconstruct the kinds of anti-Judaic sentiment that were prevalent in the city prior to the famous expulsion of the Jewish community in 1519. Including a reexamination of the role and rhetoric of Balthasar Hubmaier and other Christian leaders, the talk also explores whether Hubmaier can be considered as representative of wider Jewish-Anabaptist relations.
Breanna J. Nickel is assistant professor of Bible and religion at Goshen College in Goshen, Indiana. Her research and teaching focuses on interreligious relations, including Jewish-Christian-Muslim relations in the medieval and early modern periods as well as current interreligious dialogue and peacebuilding efforts in global society.
Thursday, November 9, 2023 • 7:00 pm • Bucher Meetinghouse
SNOWDEN LECTURE
Celebrating 100 Years of Brethren Witness in Nigeria
Ekklesiyar Yan’uwa a Nigeria (EYN), the Church of the Brethren in Nigeria, is the largest national body of the Church of the Brethren in the world. The origins of this church date to 1923 and the preaching, teaching, and medical ministry of Brethren missionaries in Garkida and surrounding areas. Philip Asura Nggada will share key developments in the history of the church, which moved from being a missionary enterprise to an independent indigenous church. Major events include national independence in 1960, the transfer of mission institutions to Nigerian control in 1972, and the growth and spread of the church since that time. The attacks from Boko Haram since 2011 produced much suffering but also sent the church into neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger, where EYN is now organizing beyond Nigeria.
Philip Asura Nggada is a reader (associate professor) in the Department of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Jos, Jos, Nigeria, where he has been a faculty member since 2014. He previously taught at Kulp Theological Seminary in Kwarhi and at the Theological College of Northern Nigeria in Bukuru. He is the author of numerous articles and two books, including The Shepherd Motif in the Old Testament (2012).
Videos of Past Events