Pietism (), also known as Pietistic Lutheranism, is a movement within Lutheranism that combines its emphasis on biblical doctrine with an emphasis on individual piety and living a holy Christian life.
Although the movement is aligned with Lutheranism, it has had a tremendous impact on Protestantism worldwide, particularly in North America and Europe. Pietism originated in modern-day Germany in the late 17th century with the work of Philipp Spener, a Lutheran theologian whose emphasis on personal transformation through spiritual rebirth and renewal, individual devotion, and piety laid the foundations for the movement. Although Spener did not directly advocate the quietistic, legalistic, and semi-separatist practices of Pietism, it was more or less involved in the positions that he assumed or the practices that he encouraged.
Pietism spread from Germany to Switzerland, the rest of German-speaking Europe, and Scandinavia and the Baltics, where it was heavily influential and left a permanent mark on the region's dominant Lutheranism, with figures such as Hans Nielsen Hauge in Norway, Peter Spaak and Carl Olof Rosenius in Sweden, Katarina Asplund in Finland, and Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen in the Batak Lands region of Indonesia, Barbara von Krüdener in the Baltic states, and to the rest of Europe. It was taken further to North America, primarily by German and Scandinavian immigrants. There, it influenced Protestants of other ethnic and other (non-Lutheran) denominational backgrounds and contributed to the 18th-century foundation of evangelicalism, an interdenominational movement within Protestantism that has some 300 million followers today.
In the mid-19th century, Lars Levi Laestadius spearheaded a Pietist revival in Scandinavia that upheld what came to be known as Laestadian Lutheran theology, which is adhered to today by the Laestadian Lutheran churches as well as by several congregations within other mainstream Lutheran churches, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. The Eielsen Synod and Association of Free Lutheran Congregations are Pietist Lutheran bodies that emerged in the Pietist Lutheran movement in Norway, which was spearheaded by Hans Nielsen Hauge. In 1900, the Church of the Lutheran Brethren was founded and it adheres to Pietist Lutheran theology, emphasizing a personal conversion experience. The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus, a Lutheran denomination with a largely Pietistic following with some Presbyterian and Pentecostal influence and primarily based in Ethiopia and among the Ethiopian diaspora, is the largest individual member Lutheran denomination within the Lutheran World Federation.
Whereas Pietistic Lutherans stayed within the Lutheran tradition, adherents of a related movement known as Radical Pietism believed in separating from the established Lutheran Churches. Some of the theological tenets of Pietism also influenced other traditions of Protestantism, inspiring the Anglican priest John Wesley to begin the Methodist movement and Alexander Mack to begin the Anabaptist Schwarzenau Brethren movement.
The word pietism (in lowercase spelling) is also used to refer to an "emphasis on devotional experience and practices" or an "affectation of devotion", "pious sentiment, especially of an exaggerated or affected nature", not necessarily connected with Lutheranism or even Christianity.
Beliefs Pietistic Lutherans meet together in conventicles, "apart from Divine Service in order to mutually encourage piety." They believe "that any true Christian could point back in his or her life to an inner struggle with sin that culminated in a crisis and ultimately a decision to start a new, Christ-centered life." Pietistic Lutherans emphasize following "biblical divine commands of believers to live a holy life and to strive for holy living, or sanctification."
By country Germany
Pietism did not die out in the 18th century, but was alive and active in the American (German Evangelical Church Society of the West, based in Gravois, Missouri, later German Evangelical Synod of North America and still later the Evangelical and Reformed Church, a precursor of the United Church of Christ.) The church president from 1901 to 1914 was a pietist named Jakob Pister.A discussion of some of the earlier pietist influence in the Evangelical and Reformed church can be found in Dunn et al., "A History of the Evangelical and Reformed Church" Christian Education Press, Philadelphia, 1962. Further commentary can be found by Carl Viehe under Pietism, Illinois Trails, Washington County. Some vestiges of Pietism were still present in 1957 at the time of the formation of the United Church of Christ. In the 21st century Pietism is still alive in groups inside the Evangelical Church in Germany. These groups are called and emerged in the second half of the 19th century in the so-called .
The 19th century saw 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. Associated with these changes was a renewed focus on traditional doctrine and liturgy, which paralleled the growth of Anglo-Catholicism in England. This is an extract from Scherer's 1968 Ph.D. thesis, "Mission and Unity in Lutheranism." Scherer was Professor of World Mission and Church History at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago until his retirement.
Indonesia The Batak Christian Protestant Church is an Evangelical Lutheran church among the Batak ethnic group, generally the Toba Batak people of Indonesia. This church uses an ecumenical worship style that is influenced by the Dutch Reformed Church because of the influence of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia, as well as the legacy of Pietism left by the Rhenish Missionary Society when the church was founded.
Scandinavia
In Denmark, Pietistic Lutheranism became popular in 1703. There, the faithful were organized into conventicles, which "met for prayer and Bible reading."
Pietistic Lutheranism entered Sweden in the 1600s after the writings of Johann Arndt, Philipp Jakob Spener, and August Hermann Francke became popular. Pietistic Lutheranism gained patronage under Archbishop Erik Benzelius, who encouraged the Pietistic Lutheran practices.
Laestadian Lutheranism, a form of Pietistic Lutheranism, continues to flourish in Scandinavia, where Church of Sweden priest Lars Levi Laestadius spearheaded the revival in the 19th century.
History Forerunners As the 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. Among them were the Christian mystic Jakob Böhme (Behmen); Johann Arndt, whose work, True Christianity, became widely known and appreciated; Heinrich Müller, who described the font, the pulpit, the confessional, and the altar as "the four dumb idols of the Lutheran Church;" the theologian Johann Valentin Andrea, court chaplain of the Landgrave of Hesse; Schuppius, who sought to restore the Bible to its place in the pulpit; and Theophilus Grossgebauer (d. 1661) of Rostock, who from his pulpit and by his writings raised what he called "the alarm cry of a watchman in Sion."
Founding
The direct originator of the movement was Philipp Spener. Born at Rappoltsweiler in Alsace, now in France, on 13 January 1635 and trained by a devout godmother, who used books of devotion like Arndt's True Christianity, Spener was convinced of the necessity of a moral and religious reformation within German Lutheranism. He studied theology at Strasbourg, where the professors at the time (and especially Sebastian Schmidt) were more inclined to "practical" Christianity than to theological disputation. He afterwards spent a year in Geneva and was powerfully influenced by the strict moral life and rigid ecclesiastical discipline prevalent there and also by the preaching and the piety of the Waldensian professor Antoine Leger and the converted Jesuit preacher Jean de Labadie.
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, began with religious meetings at Spener's house (collegia pietatis), where he repeated his sermons, expounded passages of the New Testament, and induced those present to join in conversation on religious questions. In 1675, Spener published his Pia desideria or Earnest Desire for a Reform of the True Evangelical Church, the title giving rise to the term "Pietists." It was originally a pejorative term given to the adherents of the movement by its enemies as a form of ridicule, like that of "Methodists" somewhat later in England.
In Pia desideria, Spener 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 ("little churches 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
The work produced a great impression throughout Germany. While large numbers of orthodox Lutheran theologians and pastors were deeply offended by Spener's book, many other pastors immediately adopted Spener's proposals.
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. In Leipzig, a society of young theologians was formed under his influence for the learned study and devout application of the Bible. Three magistrates belonging to that society, one of whom was August Hermann Francke, subsequently the founder of the famous orphanage at Halle (1695), commenced courses of expository lectures on the Scriptures of a practical and devotional character, and in the German language, which were zealously frequented by both students and townsmen. The lectures aroused the ill will of the other theologians and pastors of Leipzig, and Francke and his friends left the city and, with the aid of Christian Thomasius and Spener, founded the new University of Halle. The theological chairs in the new university were filled in complete conformity with Spener's proposals. The main difference between the new Pietistic Lutheran school and the orthodox Lutherans arose from the Pietists' conception of Christianity as chiefly consisting in a change of heart and consequent holiness of life. Orthodox Lutherans rejected that viewpoint as a gross simplification and stressed the need for the church and for sound theological underpinnings.