Originally, a movement within Lutheranism in the 17th-c and 18th-c stressing good works, Bible study, and holiness in Christian life. It was a reaction against rigid Protestant dogmatism, and influenced other groups, such as Moravians, Methodists, and Evangelicals.
Pietism was a movement within Lutheranism, lasting from the late-17th century to the mid-18th century. It proved to be very influential throughout Protestantism and Anabaptism, inspiring not only Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement, but also Alexander Mack to begin the Brethren movement. The Pietist movement combined the Lutheran emphasis on Biblical doctrine with the Reformed, and especially Puritan, emphasis on individual piety, and a vigorous Christian life.
Forerunners
As forerunners of the Pietists in the strict sense, certain voices had been heard bewailing the shortcomings of the Church and advocating a revival of practical and devout Christianity.
Pietism did not die out in the 18th Century but was alive and active in the Evangelische Kirchenverein des Westen (later German Evangelical Church and still later the Evangelical and Reformed Church) The church president from 1901 to 1914 was Dr. Jakob Pister and a pietist. A discussion of some of the earlier pietist influence in the E and R church can be found in Dunn et.al, "A History of the Evangelical and Reformed Church" Christian Education Press, Philadelphia, 1962. Some vestiges of Pietism were still present in 1957 at the time of the formation of the United Church of Christ.
The name Pietism
The name of Pietist was given to the adherents of the movement by its enemies as a term of ridicule, like that of "Methodists" somewhat later in England. The Lutheran Church continued Philipp Melanchthon's attempt to construct an intellectual backbone for the Evangelical Lutheran faith. In the Reformed Church, on the other hand, the influence of John Calvin had not only influenced doctrine, but for a particular formation of Christian life. The presbyterian constitution gave the people a share in church life which the Lutherans lacked, but it involved a dogmatic legalism which, the Lutherans believed, imperilled Christian freedom and fostered self-righteousness.
History
Founding
The direct originator of the movement was Philipp Jakob Spener.
During a stay in Tübingen, Spener read Grossgebauer's Alarm Cry, and in 1666 he entered upon his first pastoral charge at Frankfurt with a profound opinion that the Christian life within Evangelical Lutheranism was being sacrificed to zeal for rigid Lutheran orthodoxy. Pietism, as a distinct movement in the German Church, was then originated by Spener by religious meetings at his house (collegia pietatis) at which he repeated his sermons, expounded passages of the New Testament, and induced those present to join in conversation on religious questions that arose. In this publication he made six proposals as the best means of restoring the life of the Church:
the earnest and thorough study of the Bible in private meetings, ecclesiolae in ecclesia ("a church within the church"). the Christian priesthood being universal, the laity should share in the spiritual government of the Church a knowledge of Christianity must be attended by the practice of it as its indispensable sign and supplement instead of merely didactic, and often bitter, attacks on the heterodox and unbelievers, a sympathetic and kindly treatment of them a reorganization of the theological training of the universities, giving more prominence to the devotional life a different style of preaching, namely, in the place of pleasing rhetoric, the implanting of Christianity in the inner or new man, the soul of which is faith, and its effects the fruits of life.This work produced a great impression throughout Germany, and although large numbers of the orthodox Lutheran theologians and pastors were deeply offended by Spener's book, its complaints and its demands were both too well justified to admit of their being point-blank denied.
Early leaders
In 1686 Spener accepted an appointment to the court-chaplaincy at Dresden, which opened to him a wider though more difficult sphere of labor. Orthodox Lutherans rejected this viewpoint as a gross simplification, stressing the need for the church and for sound theological underpinnings. Among its greatest achievements, apart from the philanthropic institutions founded at Halle, were the revival in the Moravian Church in 1727 by Count von Zinzendorf, Spener's godson and a pupil in the Halle Orphanage, and the establishment of Protestant missions.
Spener's stress on the necessity of a new birth and on a separation of Christians from the world led to exaggeration and fanaticism among some followers. Its ecclesiolae in ecclesia also weakened the power and meaning of church organization.
Later history
As a distinct movement, Pietism had its greatest strength by the middle of the 18th century; its very individualism in fact helped to prepare the way for the Enlightenment (Aufklärung), which would take the church in an altogether different direction. It likewise gave a new emphasis on the role of the laity in the church. Dietrich Bonhoeffer of the German Confessing Church framed the same characterization in less positive terms when he called Pietism the last attempt to save Christianity as a religion: Given that for him religion was a negative term, more or less an opposite to revelation, this constitutes a rather scathing judgement.
Pietism is considered the major influence that lead to the creation of the "Evangelical Church of the Union" in Prussia in 1817. Upset by the fact that he and his wife could not take communion at each other's church, the King of Prussia ordered the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia to unite; Pietism, with its looser attitude toward confessional theology, had opened the churches to the possibility of uniting. many immigrated to the American Midwest and formed the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, and to Australia where they formed the Lutheran Church of Australia. (Many immigrants to American that agreed with the union movement formed German Evangelical congregations, later to be gathered as the Evangelical Synod of North America, which is now a part of the United Church of Christ.)
Pietism was a major influence on John Wesley and others who began the Methodist movement in 18th century Great Britain, and modern American Methodists and members of the Holiness movement continue to be influenced by Spener and also the Moravian legacy.
In the 19th century, there was a revival of confessional Lutheran doctrine, known as the neo-Lutheran movement. This movement focused on a reassertion of the identity of Lutherans as a distinct group within the broader community of Christians, with a renewed focus on the Lutheran Confessions as a key source of Lutheran doctrine.
Some writers on the history of Pietism - e.g. Heppe and Ritschl - have included under it nearly all religious tendencies amongst Protestants of the last three centuries in the direction of a more serious cultivation of personal piety than that prevalent in the various established churches. Ritschl, too, treats Pietism as a retrograde movement of Christian life towards Catholicism. Some historians also speak of a later or modern Pietism, characterizing thereby a party in the German Church which was probably at first influenced by some remains of Spener's Pietism in Westphalia, on the Rhine, in Württemberg, and at Halle and Berlin.
The party was chiefly distinguished by its opposition to an independent scientific study of theology, its principal theological leader being Hengstenberg, and its chief literary organ the Evangelische Kirchenzeitung.
Atheistic pietism
A term used in Sweden to describe a pietistic (moralistic) approach to life without religion.
Bibliography
Amongst older works on Pietism are
JG Walch, Historische und theologische Einleitung in die Religionsstreitigkeiten der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche (1730);More recent are
Heppe's Geschichte des Pietismus und der Mystik in der reformierten Kirche (1879), which is sympathetic; von Schubert, Outlines of Church History, ch.
User Comments Add a comment…