Templers (religious believers)

The Temple Society (German: Tempelgesellschaft) was a German Protestant sect with roots in the Pietist movement of the Lutheran Church. Members referred to themselves as Templers.

The Templers were expelled from the Lutheran Church in 1858 because of their millennial beliefs. Their aim was to realize the apocalyptic visions of the prophets of Israel in the Holy Land.

The word Templer is derived from the concept of the Christian Community as described in the New Testament, see 1 Corinthians and 1 Peter , where every person and the community are seen as temples in which God's spirit dwells. Thus. the name is not connected with the Medieval Knights Templar.

Christoph Hoffmann and Georg David Hardegg (1812–1879) founded the Temple Society at Kirschenhardthof near Ludwigsburg in 1861. This religious society has its roots in the Pietist movement within the Lutheran Evangelical State Church in Württemberg. Called "Deutscher Tempel" by its founders, their aim was to promote spiritual cooperation to advance the rebuilding of the Temple in the Holy Land, Palestine, in the belief that this foundation will promote the second coming of Christ.

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