With special attention to Lutheran Christians immigrants to America, Michael D. Gutzler, argues that Lutherans have been interacting with Muslims in North America as early as the 1730's. Paralleling the story of the Salzburger Lutherans who were exiled from their Catholic homeland with Islamic sub-Saharan Africa Muslims taken as slaves during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the two groups come together in the English colony of Georgia. With special attention to the Islamic influence in five separate sections of West Africa and the English trans-Atlantic slave trade, evidence of first-hand accounts of Lutheran-Muslims interaction was recorded in the daily journal of the Salzburger's pastors John Martin Boltzius (left) and Israel Christian Gronau. Gutzler shows the presence of Muslims in the area around the Salzburger community and evaluates these journal entries to reveal a differentiation made by the pastors between non-Muslim and Muslim African slaves....More >< Less