The Community of True Inspiration, also known as the True Inspiration Congregations, Inspirationalists, and the Amana Church Society) is a Radical Pietist group of Christians descending from settlers of German, Swiss, and Austrian descent who settled in West Seneca, New York, after purchasing land from the

Seneca people The Seneca () ( see, Onödowáʼga:, "Great Hill People") are a group of Indigenous Iroquoian-speaking people who historically lived south of Lake Ontario, one of the five Great Lakes in North America. Their nation was the farthest to the west ...

s' Buffalo Creek Reservation. They were from a number of backgrounds and socioeconomic areas and later moved to Amana, Iowa, when they became dissatisfied with the congestion of Erie County and the growth of

Buffalo, New York Buffalo is the second-largest city in the U.S. state of New York (behind only New York City) and the seat of Erie County. It is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, at the head of the Niagara River, and is across the Canadian border from Sou ...

History

Inspirés

From the time of the

Edict of Nantes The Edict of Nantes () was signed in April 1598 by King Henry IV and granted the Calvinist Protestants of France, also known as Huguenots, substantial rights in the nation, which was in essence completely Catholic. In the edict, Henry aim ...

in 1598 until 1685,

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

had permitted

Calvinist Calvinism (also called the Reformed Tradition, Reformed Protestantism, Reformed Christianity, or simply Reformed) is a major branch of Protestantism that follows the theological tradition and forms of Christian practice set down by John Ca ...

Protestants Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

, known as

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Bez ...

, to practice their religion and exercise the full rights of citizens while still maintaining

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

as the state religion. However, in 1685, King

Louis XIV , house = Bourbon , father = Louis XIII , mother = Anne of Austria , birth_date = , birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France , death_date = , death_place = Palace of Ve ...

of France issued the

Edict of Fontainebleau The Edict of Fontainebleau (22 October 1685) was an edict issued by French King Louis XIV and is also known as the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The Edict of Nantes (1598) had granted Huguenots the right to practice their religion witho ...

which ordered that Huguenot church buildings and schools be closed, and sought to suppress the religion. The ("Inspired") were Huguenots in Southern France who radicalized following their suppression and begun an itinerant ministry preaching the end time was at hand with claims of prophetic inspiration. They spent the remainder of the 17th century traveling throughout the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

and

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

refugees A refugee, conventionally speaking, is a displaced person who has crossed national borders and who cannot or is unwilling to return home due to well-founded fear of persecution.

, before many of them settled in the Pietist center of Halle.

Pott brothers

The influenced three brothers surnamed Pott who lived in Halle until they were exiled and went to

Hanau Hanau () is a town in the Main-Kinzig-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. It is located 25 km east of Frankfurt am Main and is part of the Frankfurt Rhine-Main Metropolitan Region. Its station is a major railway junction and it has a port on the rive ...

and Wetteravia east of

Frankfurt Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its ...

in 1714. The Pott brothers were several of many Pietists who had come to the area to take advantage of the religious tolerance of the counts of Isenburg-Eisenberg. There, they gave what many understood as divinely-inspired ecstatic speeches in a

trance Trance is a state of semi-consciousness in which a person is not self-aware and is either altogether unresponsive to external stimuli (but nevertheless capable of pursuing and realizing an aim) or is selectively responsive in following the dir ...

-like state. They sometimes experienced uncontrollable jolting motions of their entire bodies while they were preaching, which was understood as verification that they were seized by a divine spirit. Their message was a call to repentance and awakening.

Early Inspirationalist movement

Many were drawn to the Potts, and the group that gathered around them emerged as a distinct group in the late autumn of 1714. This group is known as the Inspirationalists. Soon, others began preaching in a similar style and experienced similar convulsions. Among these other early leaders were

Eberhard Ludwig Gruber Eberhard is an old Germanic name meaning the strength or courage of a wild boar. People First name * Eberhard of Friuli (815–866), Duke and key figure in the Carolingian Empire *Eberhard of Béthune (died 1212), Flemish grammarian * Eberhard I, ...

, Johann Friedrich Rock, and

Ursula Meyer Ursula Meyer (1915–2003) was a German-born American artist and a professor of sculpture. Biography Ursula Meyer was born in Hanover, Germany in 1915. She studied ceramics at the Reggia Scuola in Faenza, Italy. Meyer became a professor of sculp ...

of Thun. Everywhere the Inspirés and Inspirationalists went, communities gathered around them. However, political freedom was very limited in this era, and the Inspirationalists were routinely banished and were unable to find a place in Europe they could permanently settle. Their religious practices, including avoidance of military service and refusal to take an oath, kept them in conflict with German authorities. Many of these communities were short-lived, and all the leaders continued to travel and were frequently banished by political rulers. Major centers of the Inspirationalists were successively at Himbach near

until 1740, the castle of Gelnhausen until 1753, Lieblos, and then Herrnhaag until the 1820s. The second generation of leaders in the 18th century were Wilhelm Ludwig Kampf and Paul Giesebert Nagel. Gruber stayed for a time with the community of Brethren in Schwarzenau. However, the Inspirationalists found Brethren to be legalistic, sectarian, and sterile in contrast to their own charismatic and prophetic missionary zeal. Ursula Meyer twice prophesied that Brethren leader Alexander Mack was to meet an early death so that he would not continue to burden his co-religionists. She similarly disapproved of

Anabaptist Anabaptism (from Neo-Latin , from the Greek : 're-' and 'baptism', german: Täufer, earlier also )Since the middle of the 20th century, the German-speaking world no longer uses the term (translation: "Re-baptizers"), considering it biased. ...

Andreas Boni Andreas ( el, Ἀνδρέας) is a name usually given to males in Austria, Greece, Cyprus, Denmark, Armenia, Estonia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Finland, Flanders, Germany, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Romania, the Netherlands, and Indonesia. The name ...

. The groups ended up competing, and poor relations likely spurred the Brethren to leave Schwarzenau for the Netherlands in 1720.

Decline and renewal

Their religion continued to grow until Gruber and Rock's deaths, but subsequently declined until a reawakening sparked by Michael Krausert, who preached for a revival and had much support.Shambaugh, Bertha. ''Amana That Was and Amana That Is''. Iowa City: The State Historical Society of Iowa, 1932.

Migration to North America

In the 1840s, renewed religious restrictions and requirements from political rulers prompted the Inspirationalists to migrate as a group to North America. Their first settlements were near Buffalo on both sides of the

Niagara River The Niagara River () is a river that flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the province of Ontario in Canada (on the west) and the state of New York in the United States (on the east). There are diffe ...

. Sites included West Seneca and the Town of Elma. They immediately began practicing community of goods, working in textiles and agriculture. This settlement became known as the Ebenezer Colonies They were soon dismayed to find the area crowded, with the urban presence of growing Buffalo too close and conflicts with the Seneca Indians arising. In 1854, many of the Inspirationists moved to the Iowa River Valley to found the Amana Colonies. Official membership was 1,534 in 1925, and was more than a thousand as late as the 1980s.Thearda.com
– Data from the National Council of Churches' Historic Archive.

Legacy

The Community of True Inspiration Residence was listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

in 2013.

Notable members

* Conrad Beissel, who joined in 1715 in the German

Palatinate Palatinate or county palatine may refer to: *the territory or jurisdiction of a count palatine United Kingdom and Ireland *County palatine in England and Ireland * Palatinate (award), student sporting award of Durham University *Palatinate (col ...

, and later founded the Ephrata Cloister * Barbara Heinemann Landmann * Christian Metz

References

Sources

* * * *
Statistical Profile of Amana at ARDA

External links

Amana Church: The Community of True Inspiration
(official website)
Catechism in GermanCatechism in EnglishHymnal in German
Amana Colonies History of Lutheranism History of Buffalo, New York Christian new religious movements Radical Pietism