Limited first printing of 1,000 copies
Five hundred years of faith. Fifty years of collecting.
One remarkable Salzburger story, told through resplendent photography. A 278-page coffee table book documenting a 4,000-item Reformation collection, housed at the New Ebenezer Retreat Ceneter located adjacent to the oldest continuously worshiping Lutheran congregation in America.
The exhibition
Four thousand items celebrating the Reformation
The display gathers 12 original paintings of Luther, Melanchthon, and the Reformation, 8 in oil and 4 in charcoal, alongside 16 stained glass windows including one from 1546, the year of Luther's death, and 1,400 commemorative coins, among them 19 gold and 96 Meissen pieces.
Thirty-five digitized Luther films play on a 73-inch touchscreen, among them the major 1953 feature, a children's version, one about Katie, and one by Rick Steves. Seven hundred antique glass slides, some of them 150 years old, run on the same screen alongside Luther hymns sung by choirs. The Bible Room traces 16 translations, from the Vulgate through Luther's Bible to the King James.
Then the smaller things: 640 first-day issue stamps from Europe to Papua New Guinea to Namibia, 224 commemorative pins, 350 books available for loan, a Luther pipe, a Luther cookie cutter, and a Luther bobblehead.
New Ebenezer
The oldest Lutheran congregation in America
One hundred fifty Lutheran refugees expelled from Salzburg organized the town of New Ebenezer in 1734. They completed Jerusalem Lutheran Church in 1769. It is the oldest church building in Georgia and the oldest continuously worshiping Lutheran congregation in the United States.
The British severely damaged the town in 1778 during the Revolution and it never recovered, though it briefly served as the capital of Georgia in 1782. In 1974 Richard Kessler, a Salzburger descendant, led its restoration as a retreat center.
How the collection came home
Five decades of collecting, then a search for a home
Pastor Paul Arnold of West Palm Beach spent five decades collecting everything Lutheran. When he retired in 2022 he needed a permanent home for it, and the Lutheran colleges and seminaries he approached said the collection was too large.
Richard Kessler came forward to take responsibility and bring it back to his ancestral home. It took a small army to pack the museum and move it to the retreat center.
The book
278 pages of original photography
The book weaves three stories together: the collection itself, the Salzburgers who built the church that houses it, and Martin Luther's life as rendered by nineteenth-century artists and preserved in hundreds of antique glass slides.
Produced by Richard C. Kessler. Photographed and edited by William Austin Smith. Co-edited by Julia Rose Wilde and Roy T. Wise, with a foreword by Bill Trexler.
Plan a visit
View the exhibition by appointment
The exhibition is at the New Ebenezer Retreat Center, 2887 Ebenezer Road, Rincon, Georgia, 45 minutes from River Street in Savannah. Call 912-754-9242 or email retreat@newebenezer.org to make an appointment or book an event.
The setting suits confirmation classes especially well: a Luther film, the Reformation up close, and a clearer sense of the worldwide Lutheran church.
For library, seminary, congregation, and bulk orders, contact Roy T. Wise at roytwise@gmail.com.