Christian Metz
Christian Metz was a significant religious leader and the founder of the Amana Society in Iowa. Born in Prussia, he was deeply rooted in the Inspirationist faith, a religious movement that emerged in the early 18th century, emphasizing direct communication with God and community living. After experiencing decline in his European community, Metz was inspired by a prophecy to seek freedom and a new beginning in America. In 1842, he and fellow members migrated to New York, where they founded the village of Ebenezer on land previously occupied by the Seneca tribe.
Under Metz’s leadership, the community developed a system that emphasized shared resources and a simple lifestyle, while maintaining strict religious practices. In 1859, the Amana Society was formally incorporated, and it grew to encompass eight villages, fostering a unique blend of communal living and modern agricultural practices. Though the society has evolved over time, it remains one of the longest-lived communal societies in America, retaining much of its original spirit. Christian Metz's extensive writings are preserved in Amana's archives, offering insights into the beliefs and practices of the Inspirationist community he led.
Subject Terms
Christian Metz
- Christian Metz
- Born: December 30, 1794
- Died: July 27, 1867
Leader of the Community of True Inspiration and founder of the Amana Society of Iowa, was born at Neuwied, Prussia, the son of Jakob Metz, who moved his family in 1802 to Ronneburg in Hesse, a center of Inspirationist faith and worship. Christian Metz was the grandson of Johann Georg Metz, who was banished from his native Alsace in 1716 for his refusal to conform with the established church and who became one of the principal members of the Inspirationist group organized by Eber-hard Ludwig Gruber and Johann Friedrich Rock in 1714.
The Inspirationists traced their origin to the seventeenth-century German mystics, who taught that people could communicate directly with God through an “inward light” perceived through silent worship, and to the Pietists, who were dissatisfied with the cold formalism and doctrinairism of the established Lutheran clergy. They took their name from the ability of their leaders to foretell the future under the inspiration of prayer, in the manner of the Old Testament prophets and the New Testament apostles. Full temporal and spiritual authority among the Inspirationists devolved upon Christian Metz in 1823, when the group was undergoing a revival after a period of decline.
Metz combined executive skill with spiritual powers. He leased adjoining estates in Switzerland as a refuge and economic base for the faithful, but poor agricultural and economic conditions threatened the group, and the civic authorities were intolerant of their opposition to war and other beliefs. In 1841 Metz was inspired with a prophecy that “all would be taken from the land of bondage to a land of freedom, equality, and fraternity.”
Like the leaders of other oppressed religious groups, Metz looked to America for a future. In 1842 he and three associates sailed for New York City, arriving in October. In 1843 they arranged to purchase a tract of 5,000 acres near Buffalo, New York, on the site of a Seneca reservation. After the land was vacated by the Seneca, whose claim to it was rejected in 1844 by a state court, it was occupied by the Inspirationist immigrants, who named their village Ebenezer. In 1845 a constitution for the more than 800 members of the Ebenezer Community was approved by the state.
Practical considerations such as inequalities of wealth, age, and skill among the members made survival of the community precarious. Though the Inspirationists were not communistic, Metz became convinced that “the Lord had gradually announced more and more clearly that it was His . . . most holy will that everything should be and remain in common.” The community prospered under this system, and ten years later, finding that it needed more land and more seclusion for its youth, the Ebenezer Community purchased 18,000 acres in Iowa County, Iowa. Beginning in 1855 members journeyed west to settle the new holdings. More land was added in subsequent years. In 1859 the Amana Society was incorporated, and by 1883 nearly 2,000 members were living in eight clustered villages amounting to 26,000 acres. The name Amana was derived from emunah, the Hebrew word for “faith.” Christian Metz died at the age of seventy-two at Amana and was buried there.
Practices of honest living imported from Germany and defined at Ebenezer were maintained among community members at Amana. Dress was simple; education was fostered; there was no censorship, restriction on travel, or prohibition against the moderate use of tobacco and alcohol. Segregation of the sexes was stipulated, but marriage was permitted, though the newly married fell back in religious standing for some time. Detailed and strict religious rules, administered by an unquestioned hierarchy, governed spiritual and most temporal affairs. New members were not sought or often admitted. Worship was simple and subdued, except for festivals at Easter and Holy Week and occasionally at Christmas. An annual examination of the spiritual condition of community members, called Unter-suchung, censured sinners.
Reorganized in 1932, Amana remains the most long-lived American communal society. Though members have modernized their agricultural and light manufacturing industries and their life-styles as well, giving up a part of their community to a burgeoning tourist trade, much of the spirit of the original members persists. Amana’s ability to prosper and still cohere, to avoid change but yield to it when necessary, helped the society become the most durable communal example of the reform impulse.
Christian Metz’s writings are largely in the German language, and they are voluminous. They are available in the archives at Amana. Among selected works are .4 Revelation of Jesus Christ Through the True Inspiration to the President of the United States (1860) and Historische Beschreibungen der Wahren Inspirations-Gemeinschaft (1863). W. R. Perkins and B. L. Wick, History of the Amana Society (1891; reprinted 1975), is a good brief history. B. M. H. Shambaugh, Amana That Was and Amana That Is (1932; reprinted 1971), brings the story to 1932. Sketches of Amana appear in C. Nordhoff, Communistic Societies of the United States (1875); W. Hinds, American Communities (1902); and M. Holloway, Heavens on Earth (1951). A brief biographical account of Metz appears in the Dictionary of American Biography (1931).