Muhlenberg, Henry Melchior b. September 6, 1711; Einbeck, Electorate of Hanover d. October 7, 1787;Trappe, Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania-German Lutheran clergyman and founder of the Lutheran Church in the American colonies. Although his primary education was interrupted by the death of his father when Muhlenberg was twelve, he was able to finish school and went on to study theology at the University of Gottingen.
He graduated in 1737 and became the preceptor of the boarding school in Halle. Muhlenberg was originally selected to be a missionary in the East Indies, but instead was appointed pastor and teacher in a parish in Grosshennersdorf in Upper Lusatia. In 1741 church authorities at Halle offered to send Muhlenberg to Pennsylvania for three years to pastor to congregations in Philadelphia, New Hanover, and Providence (later renamed Trappe). After many days of internal debate, he accepted the call and sailed to North America on June 13, 1742. Muhlenberg married Anna Maria Weiser, the daughter of Conrad Weiser in 1745. They had eleven children, seven of whom reached adulthood. Two of their sons were John Peter Gabriel Muhlenberg (1748-1807), a brigadier general in the Continental Army during the Revolution, and Frederick Augustus Conrad Muhlenberg (1750-1801), the first Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.When Muhlenberg arrived in Philadelphia on November 25, 1742, his call was challenged by the self-appointed pastors who had served the churches for years. He also was challenged by the fact that many of the German Lutherans in Philadelphia were being served by the Moravian Church. Through force of personality, Muhlenberg was able to exert his control over the three congregations, as well as guide the Lutherans back to their church. In 1748 he organized the churches into the first Lutheran church synod in the colonies, officially the Ministerium of Pennsylvania. He oversaw the development of additional congregations, including the ordaining and calling of pastors.
Many of these new pastors were recent emigres from Europe.Waves of German immigrants arrived in North America during the 1750s, and Muhlenberg’s congregation (St. Michael’s Church) in Philadelphia began to grow and experience some challenges. In 1762 he applied democratic ideals to solve a dispute over whether he should remain senior pastor at the congregation in Philadelphia. Despite his earlier opposition to deciding church matters by majority vote, he called for an election in which all parishioners were asked to vote. Muhlenberg was retained as senior pastor.
The growth in the number of parishioners encouraged the Philadelphia congregation to build a larger church in 1766. Zion Church could accommodate 3,000 parishioners, making it the largest church in Philadelphia and perhaps in all of the colonies. A church this large was bound to have differences of opinion within the congregation. Muhlenberg was recalled from his rural churches in New Hanover and Trappe to settle a conflict at Zion in 1767. To solve this conflict and to ease future tensions, he drafted a constitution and had it accepted by Zion’s church council and congregation. This action was contrary to the practices Muhlenberg had learned in Germany, but was customary in Pennsylvania.
Muhlenberg tried to avoid becoming involved in political debates. In part, his avoidance of politics stemmed from the fact that King George III of England was the ruler of his adopted country and also the elector of the state of Hanover where Muhlenberg was born. When the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766, he preached a sermon of prayer and thanksgiving, one instance in which he mixed politics with religion. He published the sermon under the title Testimony to the Goodness and Solemnity of God toward His Covenant People for the Repeal of the Stamp Act, Delivered 1 August 1766.
Working largely in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, Muhlenberg was the leading figure in the organization of the Lutheran Church in North America.
His influence extended into New York, New England, Nova Scotia, and Georgia. In 1748 he wrote the liturgy used in North American Lutheran churches, drawing from the liturgies used in Lutheran churches in Germany, as well as practices already established in America. Muhlenberg also played a role in the collection and publication of the hymnbook of 1786. The hymnbook was based on hymnals from Halle and Marburg in Germany and supplemented by material collected from other Lutheran pastors in North America. Muhlenbergcontributed the preface to the new American hymnal. As an indicator of his role in developing the Lutheran Church in America, there were more than 200 German Lutheran congregations in North America by the time of Muhlenberg’s death. He also ordained twenty-five pastors.
John David Rausch Jr.
See also Muhlenberg, Frederick Augustus Conrad; Muhlenberg, John Peter Gabriel; Pennsylvania; Pietism; Weiser, Conrad
References and Further Reading
Kleiner, John W, ed. Henry Melchior Muhlenberg—The Roots of250 Years of Organized Lutheranism in North America: Essays in Memory of Helmut T. Lehmann. Lewiston, NY: E. Mellen, 1998.
Riforgiato, Leonard R. Missionary of Moderation: Henry Melchior Muhlenberg and the Lutheran Church in English America. Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University, 1980.
Wallace, Paul A. W The Muhlenbergs of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1950.