Page 5276 – Christianity Today (2024)

A License To Share

In an age of sterling silver “Try God” lapel pins and helium balloons displaying Bible verses, never has the future looked brighter for the creative evangelism industry.

“We’ve a slogan to tell to the nations,” said Ernest A. Peale, president of Catchy Ways to Catch a Soul, Inc. He’s most excited about the group’s new drive: Gospel License Plates.

Most “vanity” plates have such esoteric communiques as B MY BABE or ED N SUE, but Gospel Plates allow you to evangelize every car you pass. Peale reports some of the best of the Christian licenses are: SAVED R U, BORN 2X, and 4 GIVEN (already sported on some California cars). Fundamentalists love TRN OR BRN.

The possibilities are limitless. Imagine the impact if Baptists started sporting IMMRSED plates. Of course, Presbyterians could counter with ALLWET. You could even teach Trinitarian doctrine with HE IS 3 N 1.

As if all these are not advantages enough, Ernest expects a revival—among the prison inmates who make the plates.

EUTYCHUS

Interpreting Feminism

Perfectly predictable: a man identifying with godliness and “beginning from above” [“Does God Really Want to Be Called ‘Father’?” by James Edwards, Feb. 21]. Such a view overlooks a whole dimension of God.

It is perfectly legitimate in the midst of a struggle for justice for theological reflection to take place. Men really have a hard time interpreting feminism, but try we must! It is more important to try to hear what feminists are saying than to try to explain it away. Edwards does not help us understand much of the feminist view.

HAROLD CHRISTENSEN

Sioux Falls, S.D.

Sleepless Nights?

Kenneth Kantzer’s “Do You Believe in Hell?” [Feb. 21] is right on target. We often carelessly use the phrase “believe in” when what we really mean is, “believe to exist.” More significantly, he points us again to the massive scriptural testimony to hell’s reality.

Someone once said to one of my seminary professors: “If you really believed in hell you wouldn’t be able to sleep nights.” I do sleep nights, but sometimes I wonder why. If I knew that in the house next door even one person were undergoing unutterable torture, that would weigh upon my mind with relentless pressure. Yet hell for my unsaved, deceased neighbor is only concealed from my present view. Why should I not be depressed?

REV. BURRELL PENNINGS

First Reformed Church

Alexander, Iowa

I applaud Kantzer’s stand on the reality of hell over against modern theology that would explain away God’s wrath as mere metaphor or anthropomorphism. After all, if all are destined for eventual salvation, what did Christ die to save them from? However, have you ever considered the scriptural (not to mention philosophical) support for the position that the destruction of the wicked is terminal?

I believe the problem is caused in part by certain metaphorical expressions in Scripture. Writers in any language often use figures of speech that are not meant to be taken literally. To be specific, the Hebrew and Greek words for “forever,” “eternal,” and “everlasting” do not always imply, as in English, something that never ends.

TIM CROSBY

Ellijay, Ga.

Good Taste In Worship

As a highbrow Episcopalian, I nevertheless share a certain sympathy with Franklin Pyles’s warm espousal of evangelical worship practices [“What’s Right with Evangelical Worship,” Feb. 21]. The whole subject of good taste in worship is a difficult one. Obviously, some form of artistic expression occurs in every Christian’s worship, no matter what tradition he belongs to. In my experience it is the high church Christian who is often put on the spiritual defensive here—his musical tastes are seen as cultural intrusions into the “pure spirituality” of New Testament worship, while less formal artistic expressions are somehow considered to be more inherently spiritual. Therefore, since I do not begrudge my Baptist friends their musical gratification in the tune “Wonderful Grace of Jesus,” I expect a similar indulgence when I experience ecstasies over Bach’s Mass in B Minor.

Pyles also focuses on the sermon as that which makes the incarnate Christ most immediately accessible. Without denying the powerful spiritual effect of great preaching, I would nevertheless point out that when one hears a sermon, one necessarily receives biblical truth indirectly—that is, as perceived and interpreted by a fallible human being(however godly he may be).

JOHN HARUTUNIAN

Newton, Mass.

A Scary Cover

The cover of your February 21 issue was downright scary. I saw that guy’s picture during WW II and he wasn’t a Christian evangelist (looks like Tojo). McGavran’s photo would have been better on the cover than the ugly thing given two exposures too many.

REV. DONALD R. JAFVERT

The Chapel By the Sea

Ft. Myers Beach, Fla.

Your caricature of Donald McGavran looks like the Devil; your photo of Donahue looks like an angel. Where’s your perspective?

E. Q. PROCTOR

Farmington Hills, Mich.

Economic Realities And Day Care

I was disappointed with “Breaking the Tie that Binds” [Feb. 21], because the author reinforces a misconception about two-income families. I do not, nor want to, live in a $2,500–3,500 per month neighborhood, drive a Mercedes, or have a live-in nanny. My husband and I are both well educated, work for Christian companies, and do not have entry-level positions. But neither salary is enough to live on alone, even extremely frugally.

Does the author think we should wait longer [for children] until my husband’s company pays him more? (We have also been married for over eight years.) Outside child care will be our option, and we will pray that this care will meet our children’s needs while we are unable to be with them.

I find the author’s lack of sensitivity for the economic realities of working couples disturbing. Couples like us may be turned away from the church because of this insensitivity and judgmental attitude.

CAROL LARUE

Wheaton, Ill.

Seminaries And Chinese Youth

I found the article “Can Seminaries Adapt to the Students of the ’80s?” [Feb. 7] enlightening and encouraging. However, in one section I believe the information is incorrect. Hubbard states that “Chinese evangelical churches are losing about 90 percent of their young people. Such a statement is not true of Chinese churches in the New York City area, nor in any other area of North American Chinese church ministry of which I am aware. Could he have meant that Chinese churches reach only about 10 percent of the whole Chinese youth population in North America?

In general, the Chinese churches of which I have personal knowledge are full of young people. Is there room for improvement? Yes! But losing 90 percent of their youth? Not by a long shot!

LEE HEARN

Chinese Evangel Mission

New York, N.Y.

I feel the men missed the point. The problem is epitomized by George Fuller’s statement in reference to age differences: “We can hardly tell the men from the boys.” Maybe he meant nothing by this, but it is this superior attitude that will destroy the seminaries’ effectiveness if it is not caught and dealt with. Many of today’s students have had far more experience in life than teachers who have closeted themselves behind their podiums, books, and office doors.

FRANK NOELL

Raleigh, N.C.

Stretched Roots

In the interview [“Can Conservatives Find a Home in the National Council of Churches?” Feb. 7], Arie Brouwer apparently denies the inerrancy and historicity of the Scriptures, impugns the pious but vibrant Calvinism of C. Hodge and B. B. Warfield, balks at condemning (Eastern) religions that deny Christ’s divinity, reduces the central gospel message to socio-political renewal, and boasts of freedom from any “pattern of theology.” Surely, then, he is not earnest in describing himself as being “classically Reformed.” Brouwer acknowledges stretching his roots “a long, long way”; perhaps he should admit to breaking with them altogether.

JAMES LANTING

South Holland, Ill.

The real question here seems to be, “Can a wolf in sheep’s clothing be given a platform in CHRISTIANITY TODAY?” Of course he can! Without fear of contradiction!

NONDY R. LLEWELLYN

Baywood Park, Calif.

I almost fell off my chair in hysterical laughter when I read Brouwer’s statement that “members of the NCC come together on a Trinitarian confession of Christ.” I would say that at least one NCC member denomination—the United Church of Christ—has all but become Unitarian in its theology and its own confession of faith. John M. Morris wrote in The Unitarian Register: “Although we properly distrust such ‘creeds’ on principle, liberals will find the new statement more Unitarian than any theological pronouncement yet to come from an ‘orthodox’ denomination.… The trinity is not mentioned, Jesus is not called God or Savior, but he is called Lord. God is an Infinite Spirit who is Jesus’ father, but he is also the father of all men. Jesus is called a man. The Bible is not mentioned. In short, aside from the Madison Avenue language of the thing, there is nothing to roil the liberal Christians and much to annoy the conservative Christians in the United Church. It might, in fact, have been adopted by any Unitarian church of a century ago.…”

DAVID A. WILLIAMS

Arlington, Va.

God Is Worthy To Be Feared

William Eisenhower’s article “Fearing God” (Feb. 7) was interesting. However, he seems to fall into a common misunderstanding regarding the fear of God. He tries to forge a middle ground somewhere between Jonathan Edwards and Terry Cole-Whittaker—which is admirable. Yet Eisenhower still comes across as thinking there is a separation between the love for God and illustration in Scripture that unifies the two. When Jesus said we could relate to God as “Abba” Father, that was all we ever needed to hear and know about how we should fear and love him. The Father’s love for us, with its boundless and rich inheritance, cannot be divorced from his disciplining hand; they are one in the same.

Yet society and much of the church have produced such poor examples of fathers that it is difficult for many to understand, let alone relate to, God as Father. Hence, many have either lost the love for him, or the fear of him.

TED OKADA

World Relief

Washington, D.C.

C. S. Lewis knew our only hope lies in facing the awful truth. And that is no doubt why Christians still find comfort in Psalm 90.

MIRIAM WEISS

New York, N.Y.

“The Fear of God, who is impassible, is free to disquietude. For it is not God that one dreads, but the falling away from God. He who dreads this, dreads falling into what is evil, and dreads what is evil. And he that fears a fall wishes himself to be immortal and passionless” (The Ante-Nicene Fathers, W. B. Eerdmans, 1983).

TITUS FLAVIUS CLEMENS

Alexandria, Egypt

Doing Business With South Africa

I was upset to see no consideration for the South African government’s reason for its laws [“Churches Take Action Against Firms Doing Business with South Africa,” Feb. 7]. This one-sided attack unjustly makes the government appear as a terrible villain. I feel many of its actions are justified and do not deserve such adverse criticisms and punishments.

The treatment blacks are receiving in South Africa is sad, and in no way right. But this process cannot be rushed or it will lead to disaster. I don’t agree with many South African policies, but I do have sympathy for a people who fear they will lose everything they have. Americans have no room to speak, considering their history; individuals should be a little more sympathetic before condemning.

ROBERT WAYNE PITTMAN

Collegedale, Tenn.

I deplore the horrible system of apartheid, but I find it repulsive that so many “rich” churches are feeling so righteous about their divestment in South Africa. Do they not realize that having nearly 10 billion dollars to divest is a condemnation of themselves?

REV. MARK M. GOODWIN

Trinity Church of the Nazarene

St. Louis, Mo.

Inhibiting Response

The recent article, “Genetic Engineering: Promise and Threat” [Feb. 7], was a serious effort to improve our understanding of an important issue. Yet the situation was misinterpreted at significant points, and the general tone of fear and hopelessness may inhibit the needed response.

Current applications of recombinant DNA methods do not include changing the DNA code in every cell or passing the trait on to succeeding generations. Early attempts at human gene therapy will involve removing cells from the patient’s bone marrow, treating them outside the body, and reintroducing the changed cells into the patient.

The suggestion that genetic engineering could be used “to create a human being in any desired image” is terribly misleading and can seriously limit the credibility of a Christian witness. Most of the fanciful speculations would simply fail to survive embrvological development. Superior intelligence and resistance to disease involve many different genes, which are poorly understood, and which would have to be modified simultaneously. The conditions currently under study are serious single-gene defects resulting from the lack of an essential enzyme.

Finally, to say “the genetic engineering debate may well be irreconcilable” overshadows the author’s comments about Christian response. There are plenty of opportunities for fruitful discussion with those actually engaged in biotechnology. In many of the research programs and companies there are Christians and others with a deep concern for ethical issues.

V. ELVING ANDERSON

University of Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minn.

Man is said to be made up of soul, spirit, and body. The soul is immaterial and immortal, but subject to genetic cloning. The spirit, an activity of mind, is expressed in man’s freedom of choice. Cloning a more perfect body with increased intellectual capability may result in a super race of mortals, but will include super-citizens and super-criminals, which should afford an ample field of endeavor for super-apostles of Christ.

Don’t panic; God reigns.

JOSEPH G. S. ROBINSON

Worcester, Mass.

The article was flawed by two aspects of what is said about the relationship between genetic engineering and race. Genetic screening has, indeed, been used in “what amounts to high-tech racism.” However, genetic screening does not fit most definitions of genetic engineering. More substantially, it is race, but this does not mean “we could copy nature and create a horrible genocide.” It merely means members of a particular race group are descended from an ancestral stock that had, by chance or because of selection, a higher frequency of the genes for that genetic disease than the ancestors of other racial groups.

MARTIN LABAR

Liberty, S.C.

Taking A Stand Against p*rnography

Sincere thanks to Kenneth Kantzer for his editoral “The Power of p*rn” [Feb. 7]. Just prior to that issue there appeared in a local newspaper a letter denouncing a pastor who had been identified in a story as taking a stand against p*rnography and its sale. I also wrote to the editor of that newspaper, and the information in your editorial was especially helpful.

EUGENE R. MILLER

Zionsville, Penn.

When it is suggested that we boycott those places that promote p*rnography, how far do we take it? Kantzer’s editorial: “According to N.F.D. Journal, the following important companies or their subsidiaries are among those with a sizeable interest in p*rnographic material: CBS, RCA, Coca-Cola, 7-Eleven stores, and Time Inc.” Do we boycott only co*ke or 7-Eleven? Do we not buy Time or RCA recordings or watch the CBS “Evening News”?

REV. LINDA SUTTER

Praise Gathering of Believers

Sister Bay, Wis.

J. Edgar Hoover righly discerned a correlation between p*rnography and sex crimes. Certainly if books can educate, enlighten, and inspire, they also can corrupt by glamorizing and encouraging harmful ideas and behavior. Ideas do have consequences.

HAVEN BRADFORD GOW

Arlington Heights, Ill.

Who Needs The Protection?

Dennis Kinlaw’s friend in “God Becomes Vulnerable” [Feb. 7] missed the whole point of the “safety equipment.” It is used to protect the AIDS patient, who is the vulnerable one—extremely so—entirely without resistance to infection.

REV. BOB MAYS

Olympic View Community Church

Seattle, Wash.

To give the printers and the post office time to do their work, the articles in this issue were edited around the end of January—right about the time the “Fridge” took half the Patriots’ defensive line into the end zone in the 46–10 romp that was Super Bowl XX.

All of which was unfortunate timing for associate editor (and rabid Bears fan) Rodney Clapp. After all, he had vicariously led the Monsters of the Midway to a 15–1 season (not to mention two consecutive shutouts in the playoffs). Yet, in the midst of all this, he found himself in charge of two sports essays taking an often-critical look at our Sunday through Saturday obsession.

Whatever dissonance Rod may have felt in handling this assignment only mirrored what most of us feel about our competitive nature. (Including CT executive editor George Brushaber who, after recommending the work of sports theorist Shirl Hoffman featured in the article on page 17 [“The Sanctification of Sport”], admitted to liking “a few good hits” when watching a football game.)

“Dog-eat-dog,” “reckless abandon,” and the quintessential “killer instinct” may earn our disapproving scowls outside the arena, but inside that sanctuary of sports these same qualities form the essential building blocks for that consummate sports virtue—winning.

That is not exactly a metaphor of the gospel or the Christian walk. Or is it? An increasing number of Christians in professional sports say it can be—and on this point both Hoffman of the University of North Carolina and Robert Roberts of Wheaton College focus their respective pieces.

A postscript: For the diehard fan who feels no tension exists between compassion and competition, Hoffman offers the following conundrum: “Former Los Angeles Ram Rich Saul once warned his Christian opponents: ‘I’m going to hit you guys with all the love I have in me.’”

Now there’s a new twist on tough love.

HAROLD SMITH, Managing Editor

Last fall, we sent a brief survey to our subscriber list asking for an evaluation of the various elements in this magazine. The percentage who completed and returned the questionnaire was unusually high and you should know that your input is taken most seriously and is invaluable to us.

An example of our intent to be responsive to your interests is this present issue. Over the past year we received many letters urging us to devote an issue to an examination of the Pietistic movement. This advice came from an amazing diversity of sources, including professors, pastors, and laity representing a wide diversity of denominational backgrounds.

We happily discovered that the acknowledged dean of Pietist studies in America, Dr. Ernest Stoeffler, professor emeritus at Temple University lived only a few miles from our office. He graciously provided guidance in the planning of this issue and contributed a major article.

We offer this issue as a small contribution to a long overdue and much needed reassessment of Pietism. Its streams of influence within contemporary Christianity are deep, diverse, and often unrecognized. Its contributions to the Body of Christ deserve new understanding and reappraisal. Its deviations and excesses also have much to teach us.

Harold O.J. Brown included a 33-page treatment of Pietism in his book Heresies published by Doubleday. Although the title of his book might at first seem misleading, his treatment is helpful and, we think, fair. He concludes with this statement: “Without Pietism, Protestantism might never have survived the eighteenth century, but with Pietism, it may ultimately cease to be Protestantism.” Give that some further thought after reading this issue.

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

To offset the decline in moral and spiritual values, Pietists sought to establish new standards of conduct and Christian discipline. Often these standards appeared to be perfectionistic and Pietists were criticized for this tendency. However, as this selection from A.H. Francke shows, Pietists also recognized human imperfections and thus strove for their ideals, fully aware that frailty and ignorance are a part of man’s struggle.

Originally written in 1690, the text is translated by Peter Erb from Gustav Kramer, August Herman Francke: Ein Lebensbild, 1880, and is found in Pietists: Selected Writings, 1983. Used with permission of Paulist Press.

1. We are justified only by faith in the Lord Jesus without merit or the addition of work in that the Heavenly Father because of the perfect satisfaction and the precious merit of his Son judges us free and liberated from all our sins.

2. Through this justification, which occurs through faith, the justified person becomes completely and totally perfect: indeed, it is seen as the justification of God himself, as St. Paul writes: God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the justification of God [2 Cor. 5:21]. Just as God looks upon the Lord Christ as sin (because our sins were reckoned to him), so he sees the sinner as just and completely perfect because he gives to the sinner as the sinner’s own the innocence and righteousness of Christ.

3. He who does not have this perfection cannot become holy. Perfection is nothing other than faith in the Lord Jesus and is not in us or ours but in Christ or of Christ for whose sake we are considered perfect before God and thus his perfection is ours by ascription.

4. However, if a person is justified he can be completely certain of his blessedness. Nevertheless he immediately discovers the weakness of the flesh and inherited sinful behavior. He desires in the depth of his heart nothing other than God and eternal life and he looks upon everything which is in the world as the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life as dirt and harm. Nevertheless, he discovers that original sin stirs in his flesh and causes in him all kinds of doubts and evil thoughts, at times evil inclinations of the will. Likewise he discovers that because of the great and long habit of sinning he often hastens into this or that external activity with words or deeds.

5. Such remaining disorderly patterns and activities, however, are not reckoned to the justified man. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, namely, those who do not walk according to the flesh although the flesh attracts them but according to the spirit. Thus as soon as the newborn man recognizes his error which does not proceed out of his own intentions, he turns in true faith to the grace of Jesus Christ and is in his heart an enemy of sin.

6. If the newborn Christian acknowledges such sins of the flesh, he strives with all earnestness against the evil which arises in his flesh. And he does so not through his own power and strength, but he destroys the works of the flesh through the spirit and he depends on the power of Jesus Christ which is made sanctification for him from God and conquers the evil in him.

7. In such sinful habits and crimes the justified man remains, however, never standing in one position, but through the grace of God he sets aside ever more and more the evil, and day to day grows in faith and in love just as in one’s physical life one is first a child then a youth then finally a man.

8. In such growth however a person can never get as far as he wishes. He is never completely perfect but he can grow and increase in good works as long as he lives. One who prides himself in an understanding of perfection deceives himself and others.

9. Nevertheless it cannot be denied that in the understanding, in a certain way, a perfection is attributed to man according to the Holy Scripture, namely, I can call someone a master in an art even if he has not completely learned that art and has other masters over him. Thus the Scripture does not wish to teach that a person can be completely perfect in his life, that he can be without sin or the attraction to sin, but that a person can come to a human strength in Christianity so as to kill the old habits in himself and to conquer his flesh and blood, and that one person is always more perfect than the other. Thus the epistle to the Hebrews [5:12–14] says that for the perfect there is strong food and it describes the perfect as those who have, because of practice, a practiced sense of distinguishing good and evil, but they are not those who are no longer inclined to evil through sinful lust.

10. From this it follows that both the following statements are true in a certain sense: We are perfect, and we are not perfect. Namely, we are perfect through Christ and in Christ through our justification and according to the righteousness of Jesus Christ ascribed to us. However, we are not and will not be completely perfect in the sense that we will nevermore be able to grow, to set aside evil and to take on good toward sanctification.

11. The one who does not wish to err in this matter must distinguish well the article concerning justification and that concerning renovation or sanctification. Otherwise, he will increasingly become entangled in controversy.

12. From this it follows that a justified man has no sin, namely, after justification, and he has sin after renovation, for that which still clings to a man is not reckoned to him because of Christ’s sake.

13. If the person who is justified prays or goes to confession, he prays that for Christ’s sake God will forgive the sins which are still in him and not ascribe them to him. He knows and is assured that as one who is in Christ Jesus there is no damnation for him.

14. As a result the justified man eats the sacrament for the strengthening of his faith and for the improvement of his life.

15. In all this, however, one has to be careful that his repentance is not hypocritical, but that he works out his salvation with fear and trembling. Otherwise the consolation from the grace of Christ can easily become willful and the person who has love for the world will speak as if the love of God is in him. Such an act is a deception and makes Hell rejoice.

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

It is customary to speak of the material principle and the formal principle of the Protestant Reformation. The material principle answers the question, “How are sinful human beings saved or justified before a holy God?” The answer: on the basis of Christ’s death alone, made possible by grace alone and received by distraught sinners by faith alone. This is the content of the gospel, the “material” of Christian life and thought as preached by Luther and Calvin.

The formal principle has to do with authority. On what basis can one know that God is gracious, that He freely wants to have mercy on people? The answer: on the basis of scripture alone.

Sweeping changes took place in the church following such theological reformations. There was no need for indulgences and purgatory. The teaching authority of the Pope was replaced by the authority of scripture alone. The mass was shorn of any notion of a redeeming sacrifice. It was now celebrated as a thanksgiving for a redeeming sacrifice completed. The words of institution, “This is my body… This is my blood” were more proclamation than consecration. The list could go on. The material of the faith and the formal character of authority underwent identical changes. They were simplified and made single: one redemption, namely by grace alone; one authority, namely scripture alone.

The twin principles of the Reformation figured highly in Pietism but not without change and development. The language of salvation changed from its forensic, legal character to a more biological and organic type of expression. No Pietist would deny or disregard the gospel of the justification of a sinner by the free grace of God. But a Pietist would express reservation as to the sufficiency of the language of justification to encompass the scope of God’s saving activity.

For one thing, it has a more formal than relational character to it. For another, it is more external than internal as regards its effects on people. It is the formal and external character that Johann Arndt, the “grandfather” of Pietism, came to recognize as a potential threat to the religious life. Arndt had noted that Luther’s preaching of the free grace of God, founded on Jesus’ complete sacrifice for sin and received in faith, had released people from fear. People had feared that their good works were not sufficient or done in the proper spirit leaving God displeased with them. People also feared long stints in purgatory and the power of the church over them and their eternal destiny.

In Arndt’s True Christianity, he lamented the opposite situation in his day. There was no fear of God at all. The people of the Lutheran lands had been baptized. catechized and communed. In all of this, the formal and external word of justification had freed them from the bondage of sin. What had happened was that the religious and the personal, experiential dimensions of justification by grace through faith were missing. What was missing was awe before a holy God —the God before whom Luther fell down as dead, and at the same time, a profound and mysterious gratitude for a grace that freely reached out to the alienated and to the wicked offering justification before God, self, and others. What Arndt saw as the perversion of justification we would call presumption. When the grace and mercy of a person are taken for granted, they are insulted and made fools of, or so it seems. Bonhoeffer called it “cheap grace.” The Pietists wanted to restore the religious and the personal/experiential dimensions to the relation between God and persons. If this could be done they reasoned, then a delicate, not a distressing fear would return to religious life. This fear is the fear of presuming on God’s grace or of taking God for granted. If that happens the link between grace and gratitude is severed.

So how did the Pietists speak of the material principle? Shifting from legal to biological language, from an external to an internal work of God, the Pietists such as Spener began to stress the “new birth,” or the work of God within the person, recreating the person from the inside out (John 3:1–15 and 1 Peter 1). Physical birth is a radically passive act. So is spiritual birth. Just as in physical birth, one being born again (spiritually) neither conceives nor births himself/herself. The chief actor is God. Three stages encompass this work: 1) faith is kindled and issues in new birth, but new birth does not create faith, thus perserving the radical character of God’s initiative; 2) such persons are justified and adopted into God’s family; 3) the “new person” is made complete in the process of sanctification by means of which one’s entire life is brought more and more into the likeness or imitation of Christ.

This summary of Spener’s thought can be virtually duplicated in Reformed Pietism. D. Coornhert (1522–1590), a precursor of Reformed Pietism, had written of the new birth as the mortification of evil in persons and the vivification of God’s good life in repentent people. Willem Teellinck (1579–1629) continued the theme of regeneration, speaking of Christ as the “new maker.” In 1693 J.H. Reitz published his History of the Re-Born, a book of sketches of those who had been remade by God’s regenerative power. Among the Lutheran and Reformed Pietists, a newer way of formulating God’s work was emerging. God was not only good enough to justify persons, he was also powerful enough to change them. Note the language: “new-maker,” vivification or resurrection power, regeneration and recreation. Francke brought this to a succinct expression in a 1697 sermon on rebirth: “This (i.e., the doctrine of rebirth) is the very ground upon which Christianity stands.” This understanding of the work of God made it possible for Pietists to speak, not only of growth in knowledge but also growth in grace. Clearly, the growth language opens the way to speak, not only of a progressive sanctification but of a perfecting of the saints. The material principle had now acquired a decidedly human as well as a divine dimension. It now even became customary to raise the issue of the righteousness of Christ being imparted to believers and not just imputed to them. People were not only justified, they were changed.

But what of the formal principle, that of the authority of scripture among the Pietists? Following the Reformation, formal questions about the nature of the Bible were raised. What gave it its authority? Increasingly, the doctrine of verbal inspiration became the primary way of establishing the Bible’s authority. The words of the authors of scripture, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, coincided with the words of God. What scripture said, God said. The scripture then became more closely related to the theological system, serving as proof-texts for statements of doctrine.

During the period of orthodoxy, around 1580, the relation between scripture and system became even more tightly formed because of the theological conflicts among Protestant groups, each trying to demonstrate that it was the true church. The scriptures became the instrument of strife as Lutheran and Reformed people each tried to show the more scriptural alignment of their confessions. Unwittingly and unintentionally the scriptures became more serviceable to polemics than to serving the spiritual needs of the people in the pew. The people starved.

The Pietists could and did speak of verbal inspiration. But what they did was to reopen the question of the purpose of scripture: was the result of scripture a proof-text, or a provision of spiritual food able to strengthen and serve the growth of faith, hope, and love in and among believers? Of course, the distinction I have made is too neat. But it serves to show that when Pietists opened again the issue of the function of scripture, they took a road other than that of scripture as proof-text.

The word of God was something to be done as well as taught and believed. For Pietists, in addition to lexicons, dictionaries, and commentaries, obedience to the Word was part of the way one brought a text to understanding.

When Francke spoke of the inspiration of scripture he took account of the affections and reason, of intuition and intellect. The Holy Spirit “kindled sacred affections” in the writers, making it “absurd to suppose that, in penning the Scriptures, they viewed themselves as machines; or that they wrote without any feelings or perception, what we read with so great a degree of both.” Thus the same Holy Spirit who inspires the affections and reason must also illumine those who read. Why? In order to understand what the apostles wrote, one must not only love what they loved but as they loved. The affections participate in the achievement of clear understanding. Interestingly enough, Spener cited Luther to this same effect: one needs to invest oneself with the apostle’s mind in order to understand him. What this comes to is the Pietistic contention that in order to understand the scripture from the inside out, one must be reborn. Such an understanding required new affections and a renewed mind.

Since one’s affection and intuition lead one on to do the will of God, to experiment with ways to fulfill God’s will, the Pietists spoke of obedience as a way to make God’s word clear. Three questions were asked of a text in Bible study groups: 1) What does it teach? 2) What does it command? 3) What promise or hope is given? Note how those questions empower and enlighted the virtues of faith, love, and hope. This very notion of “doing the word” was informed by the metaphor of metabolism. When food is eaten, the digestive chemicals break down the food so that it can be distributed to and absorbed by, the body tissues. The tissues are built up and kept at full strength. Building on the metabolic process, Francke says, “Remember that you may know no truth in Scripture for which you will not have to give an account (1 Timothy 6:14), of whether you have transformed it into life as one transforms food and drink into flesh and blood.”

If in Orthodoxy doctrine was tested by scripture, in Pietism life was tested. The formal authority of the Reformation was brought into direct relation to one’s behavior, thought, and affection. For this reason, it is often said that the Pietists wanted to complete the Reformation. What started as a reformation of doctrine needed to be completed in a reformation of life.

How then was theology to be practiced? For a focus of this practice, Spener set his eyes on the church. He lamented an essentially negative Christianity. By that he meant that there was an outward conformity to standards ecclesiastical and political. Initiatives of love were missing. Example: class distinctions fostered the custom of changing the water between the baptism of the children of the peasants and the nobility. Conforming to custom was a compromise of the sacrament, yet the service was orthodox and no law or custom was upset. As for the polemics among Christians, who had the courage to ask if doctrine was the only concern when looking for true Christianity? He further lamented a view of the sacraments meets that placed one’s trust in the sheer fact of one’s baptism without raising the question as to whether one had truly remained in the convenantal relation of baptism. Then there were the persistent problems of drunkenness, of lawsuits, and of pastors who gave no care to their people but who only functioned in formal and ritualized ways.

The material principle gave Spener a clue as to possible ways for renewal. As justification and new birth had served as models for understanding the redemption of persons, a model was needed for the renewal and regeneration of the church. When the Pietists made the “new birth” the operative model for God’s redeeming work, they derived from it the notion of renewal from the inside out. What starts small, develops. Applying this model to the church situation, Spener sought a way to renew the church from the inside out. In his thinking, one could begin in a small way and with a few people and watch the “practice of theology” bear fruit.

What emerged was the conventicle, a small group of people who met to discuss the Sunday sermon and to make application to their lives. There was an opportunity to discuss scripture, using the three questions mentioned previously. Naturally, such a gathering was not complete without prayer. This gathering acquired the technical name of ecclesiola in ecclesia, the little church in the big church. What Spener counted on was that this gathering of the reborn ones could engender new life in the entire parish. In this view he differed from the Anabaptists who tended to think that the only true church was the little band of the faithful (the ecclesiola). For Spener, the little church had instrumental value. It was the material principle, the work of redemption, at work in the congregation.

What of the formal principle, the principle of authority to embark on such an active pattern of renewal? Spener’s favorite phrase was that God had promised “better times for the church.”

The Pietists believed that the promises were to be acted upon, not just waited upon. God’s promise was organically related to the church and to the church’s obedience to His word and will. Luther had spoken of faith as a “busy, active, mighty thing.” Together with Luther, the Pietists put Galatians 5:6 into operative terms: “…faith that is active in love.” Francke spoke of “risk-taking faith,” not just believing faith. Hence Spener, if ever so modestly, gave faith an operative mode, acting on God’s promise for better times for the church. What were the occasions Spener proposed through which faith could experiment, bringing God’s promise and the human situation into organic relation?

First, a greater use should be made of the Bible than just the pericope texts assigned to the Sundays of the Church Year. The conventicle provided an additional setting for increased awareness of the Bible. In the context of the conventicle, Spener averred that pastors have a singular opportunity to both learn to know and be known by their parishoners. The setting was ideal. All were under the authority of the same Word of God and under the illumination of the same Holy Spirit. He spoke of this as “bonding.” Take a moment to reflect on the revolutionary character of this proposal in a highly stratified society. No doubt this very setting made possible the change in address to the clergy from “Herr Pastor” to just “Pastor” or the even more familial “brother” and “sister.”

The concern for knowledge of scripture made itself evident in other ways. Pietists were leaders in the science of textual criticism, with Johann Bengel of Wuerttemberg sometimes being called its “father.” In the Preface to his Gnomon (i.e. Pointer), a commentary on the New Testament, he recorded his scientific principles of textual study. During his time (1687–1752) he is credited with having established the finest Greek text of the New Testament available. Bengel’s concern for the printed text was matched by Francke. At the University of Halle one could study the biblical languages for a four to six year period. It is little wonder that this linguistic training proved its worth in the work of missionaries which Halle sent out, for they were expert in making the scripture available in the language of the people they served. On the homefront, a more extensive use of the scripture was facilitated by the printing efforts carried on at Halle. Between 1717 and 1723 over a half million writings were distributed throughout Germany, including 100,000 New Testaments and 80,000 complete Bibles. Publications had reached Siberia and became part of a revival among Swedish prisoners of war captured by Peter the Great. Upon repatriation, these Swedes brought new life to the Swedish religious scene.

Second, Spener proposed a more extensive use of the spiritual priesthood. By their baptism all Christians had been consecrated kings and priests. What was missing was the exercise of this office. Spener’s treatment of this subject is interesting. In an exposition of Luther’s catechism, one of the places he treated this doctrine was in a peculiar spot, namely in relation to the fifth commandment, “Thou shalt not kill.” My interpretation of this arrangement is this. Priestly work is a life-giving work. One kills by failing to nourish hope, by killing incentive when one remains impersonal and detached, or by conducting oneself in an intimidating manner. The exercise of the spiritual priesthood is carried out faithfully when one speaks encouraging or admonitory words to another. A priest breaks a guilty silence. A priest waits in silence with another when it is appropriate. In this way they are Christ to each other and speak God’s word.

There are other spinoffs from this doctrine. In the conventicle, women and men could speak, a source of no little criticism for Spener. Where this prevailed, baptism, the source of the priesthood of all believers, was given its proper authority. Since all were priests of God, something needed to be done to help people develop their gifts. The Pietists pioneered in vocational education and moved toward classroom instruction in the German language, not Latin. In this way the Pietists sought to help Christians develop their sense of vocation as a calling from God. If all Christians took this seriously think of how the church’s ministry is both diversified and multiplied. A preacher-centered church is not a part of the Pietist vision.

Third, it was not enough to have knowledge of the Christian faith, for Christianity consisted in practice. But for Pietists, even practice needed a spiritual dimension. A favorite means for discerning a proper quality of service was to use the designations “hireling” and “shepherd” from John 10. A hireling was not only a blatant thief. Hirelings could also be subtle. At the orphanage in Halle, childcare workers were called hirelings if their work was merely professionally competent and not personally involved. Such detachment was incapable of engendering new dispositions in the children. When love is tested, the worker does not get testy. Only when love is questioned and one’s commitment tried does steadfast love come through. Steadfast love was what the orphans knew nothing about. So the wisdom of Spener was vindicated, namely that if Christians were not priests to each other they might have been each other’s murderer. Hirelings could not have been sources of regeneration but they could have gradually moved others in their care to a fatal resignation or to despair.

The practice of love was corporate as well as personal. At Halle for example, the industries and shops of the city were pressured to take orphans as apprentices in the various trades. The guilds of these various crafts objected strenuously, which might have been one of the first examples of an affirmative action program, started by Pietists no less! The proportion of this issue is striking in its magnitude, considering that in the space of three years the number of orphans cared for at Francke’s orphanage had grown to 100. Within the institution, the personhood of each child was enhanced in every way. Contrary to accepted procedures, each orphan was given a bed, a practice that was ridiculed as extravagant. But not to Pietists. Only hirelings fostered the impersonal. The practice of love, personally and institutionally, was the most humanizing endeavor of all.

Fourth, renewal of the church and community called for care in the exercise of religious disputes. Interestingly enough, Spener linked this proposal to the matter of conversion. As I read Spener, the erring and the people with whom Christians have disputes were won for the gospel more by demeanor than by argument. Such persons were neighbors and brothers by the right of creation. Think of the world view in those words! Whatever is done, good or ill, is done to a family member. Cold argumentation is an act of depersonalization; it hardens rather than regenerates.

The last two of Spener’s proposals concern pastoral training and the nature of preaching. Relying on biological and organic metaphors, he referred to the seminary as a nursery (not the infant variety, but the horticultural type). What he wanted was a setting for education as much as the content of it. The setting was important because that was where the spirit was either killed or given wings, to cite Gregory of Nazianzus. Student life and the demeanor of faculty are part of the setting, the “soil” of the nursery. In order to cultivate the “seedling,” the professor was for practical purposes a spiritual director as well as a teacher. Spiritual exercises were to be taught as much as content of courses. Students were to accompany professors on pastoral visitation. In a way, what was emerging there is what we call praxis. Education is by doing and then by reflecting on the meaning and significance of what has been done. Furthermore, the student was allowed to experience himself (sic) in the process of ministering, a crucial element that the Clinical Pastoral Education movement has made into a cornerstone of educational philosophy. Thus as Pietists looked at it, a student not only knows theology but has begun to learn how to know the self. Much of pastoral care has to do with exercising that art and teaching it to others.

The theory was that the preacher required as much preparation as the sermon, because the sermon was directed to the inner person, with the goal in mind to awaken love and fear for God and service to one’s neighbor. The preacher (his demeanor as well as his skill) was to the congregation what the professor was to the theological student. Both school and church were nurseries, places conducive to spiritual growth and vitality. The pastor therefore had two ministries: planter of the seed by preaching, and cultivator of the seed by priestly demeanor. And so all Christians have two ministries: planting and cultivating.

Reborn in order to renew. Pietism passed that vocation on to every Christian.

John Weborg, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Theology at North Park Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois.

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

The term “Pietism” was first applied as a term of derision at Frankfort on Main, Germany in 1674.

While there is no official or recognizable “Pietist” church or denomination as such, nevertheless the movement has left its mark on much of contemporary Christianity. The influence of the “Pietists” can be clearly traced in contemporary expressions of missions, ecumenism, revivalism, social activism and Bible study groups. Pietism has also influenced how we worship through its rich hymnology, how we give, and how we conduct our devotional life.

Pietism and Puritanism, while usually considered two separate movements, were actually related. Puritanism was one of the formative influences on Pietism. The American Puritan Cotton Mather carried on correspondence with the Pietist leader Spener.

Pietists did not see themselves as a new church but as an extension of the Reformation within the Reformation churches. They did promote the creation of conventicles (cell groups), that is little churches within the church.

A Pietist, A.H. Francke, instituted the faith mission movement by depending upon voluntary contributions of friends for the support of his schools. He is said to have believed in vivid, specific answers to prayers.

Pietists in the Netherlands were the first to use the term “huts kerk” or house church for their renewal meetings.

New World Pietists negotiated liberal treaties with Native Americans when occupying lands.

The Pietist Amana Society was turned into a joint stock corporation and now ranks as one of the leading producers of household appliances in the U.S.

A Pietist press at Ephrata produced the longest book in colonial America in 1748/49, The Martyr’s Mirror.

Pietists were uncomfortable with formal titles in the Christian community and introduced the nouns of address, “brother” and “sister.” Also “the pastor” was familiarized to “pastor” as a name. In six years in the early Eighteenth Century, the Halle Pietists distributed 100,000 New Testaments and 80,000 Bibles.

Pietist emphasis on Bible translation had the effect of generating renewed interest in written language wherever they went.

Pietists created the model of orphanages for both church-related and public programs. In each of Halle’s orphan asylums, children were taught a trade and treated as individuals.

The first organ was brought to the new world by the followers of the pietist Kelpius, many of whom were musicians.

Philip Jacob Spener’s Pia Desideria or “Heartfelt Desire for God-Pleasing Reform,” first published in 1675, is considered to be the “manifesto” of Pietism. An English translation is still being published today by Fortress Press who reports continued strong interest in the book. (See Pia Desideria).

Pietists known as the “Woman of the Wilderness”, settled in caves outside of Philadelphia, PA in 1695. This band of forty men sought to meditate and prepare for the coming of the Lord while engaged in works of mercy and evangelism.

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

On the twenty-fourth day of June, 1694, a band of German pietists and mystics landed at the port of Philadelphia. They numbered forty, the symbol of perfection. They had come to the New World from all parts of Germany to find religious haven, but especially, like the woman of Revelation 12:14–17, to go into the wilderness to meditate and prepare for the coming of the Lord. For this reason the Brotherhood was known by the symbolic name, “The Woman of the Wilderness,” although they called themselves “The Contented of the God-loving Soul.” Their leader was the twenty-one year old Johannes Kelpius, visionary and introspective, a man of great devotion and imagination.

After a brief sojourn in Germantown, the Fraternity settled on a large tract of land “amid the silence and rugged banks of the Wissahickon,” whence the names, “The Wissahickon Hermits,” and “The Mystics of the Wissahickon.” There the members of the Brotherhood meditated and studied, worshiped together in their Tabernacle, and engaged in works of mercy, teaching, tending the sick and evangelizing.

Many of the members were musicians, and had brought musical instruments with them from Europe—strings, woodwinds, brass and keyboard— indeed, they are credited with bringing the first organ to the New World. They regularly used instruments in worship for voluntaries and accompaniment to the singing of hymns, just as did their more famous spiritual successors, the community at Ephrata. A number of them were also hymn writers, the best known being their leader, Johannes Kelpius, whose hymns are contained in two manuscripts of which only one has musical notation. Other writers among the Brothers were Heinrich Bernhard Koster, Johann Gotfried Seelig, and Justus Falckner, whose most famous hymn, “Rise, ye children of salvation,” is still sung.

Falckner is especially noteworthy because he was the first Lutheran pastor to be ordained in America. His ordination was an impressive occasion. It took place on November 24, 1703, at Old Swede’s Church in Philadelphia in the building that stands to this day. The Wissahickon Brotherhood participated in the service, singing and playing the organ (probably their own), viols, hautboys, trombones, trumpets and kettledrums.

The Brotherhood flourished until the untimely death of its Magister Kelpius in 1708. Attempts to keep it going under other leadership were not successful, and it soon died out.

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

Pietism’s primary concern was to carry out the Reformation in the area of Christian living. Pietists felt that the theologians of the 16th and 17th centuries had used the insights and work of the Reformers to establish a solid doctrinal foundation. Now their task was to promote a continuing reformation in the life of the church, and the transformation of the world through the conversion and constant renewal of individuals.

The Person

Pietist writers took the Fall very seriously and assumed that the world, sin, the devil and the fallen nature of the unregenerate person were ever-present threats to the well-being of both individual and society. By his or her fallen nature the person is surely “lower than a worm,” yet because the Creator is good and Christ died to redeem humanity, the person is at the same time “nobler than the angels.”

Heinrich Mueller pointed out in his Heavenly Kiss of Love that humanity is indeed God’s “noblest creation” because not only is human nature united with God’s nature in Christ, but because it is so created that it can bear the marks of Christ. Thus, while humanity is totally depraved (that is, is totally incapable of attaining to salvation on its own), there is that within the person which can be “awakened,” although this awakening cannot occur apart from the activity of the Holy Spirit in the hearing of the Word of God.

The Pietists took seriously the significance of human emotion and the psyche. Emotionalism was, in fact, fostered to some degree by the introspective, psychologizing tendencies found in Pietism: Who am I? Am I truly a child of God? Am I living in a state of sin or grace? Am I backsliding? Why am I doing this? What are my feelings telling me? Thus while calling for godly lives, Pietist leaders in all walks of life were primarily concerned with the inner person, whose emotional/spiritual condition gave rise to, and was manifested in, those outward signs of godliness.

Preaching

As the Pietist emphasis on heartfelt faith and right practice was at least in part a reaction to the perceived aridity and theological squabbling of scholasticism, so the Pietist emphasis on the personal, emotional and practical in preaching was a reaction against the practice of using the pulpit to flay one’s theological enemies and/or to display one’s erudition. The Pietists felt that knowledge of the biblical languages was absolutely essential for the pastor to prepare a meaningful sermon (Francke even encouraged laypersons to learn Greek and Hebrew in order to enhance their personal understanding of Scripture), but the point of preaching was to illumine and inspire the listener, not dazzle him or her with theological formulations and unknown languages. Some preachers went so far as to form small groups to discuss and reflect upon the sermon.

Pietist preaching was directed primarily at those within the Church. In the Church the Pietists tended to identify two basic groups: those who had been born and baptized into the Church yet had little or no true Christian commitment, and those who were born again, or converted. Thus we find two basic emphases in the Pietist pulpit: conversion, and piety or devotion.

The Pietists’ audience, then, was made up primarily of “Christianized” persons, people who for the most part were baptized, catechized, church attending folk. For the Pietists, Christian society was the new, but yet old, Israel. That is, as Israel was God’s people but did not follow God’s commands and eventually rejected the Messiah, so are those baptized into the new covenant also God’s people, but they are an errant, disobedient and unseeing people —until they are born again. Francke wrote that “There is a difference between Christians just as there was in the Jewish people,” that is, there were disciples, Pharisees and scribes, tax collectors and sinners. Yet all were “good Jews” and “true Israelites” until John the Baptizer came, called them to repentance and baptism, and made the essential, crucial differences apparent, thus spawning discord, faith, rejection, obedience, division—all manner of responses and consequences. This was exacerbated by Jesus’ preaching and is precisely what occurs in “Christian” society when “God’s Word is preached in earnest” (presumably by Pietists)— some become scoffers while others follow the light (that is, Pietist ways of thinking, believing and living). Thus one can be a Christian and a “child of the world” at the same time, or one can be a Christian and a “child of God” just, as the Jews were God’s people yet were still in a state of unrepentance, or were in obedient faithfulness—depending upon the nature of their response to John’s call to repentance or, later, to Jesus’ preaching. The sermon can be a decisive event in the lives of individuals and, through their changed lives, in Church and society.

Response was precisely the aim of Pietist preaching. The person trapped in original sin was not only blind, but was incapable of recognizing his or her blindness. The Holy Spirit, who is active in the preaching and hearing of the Word of God, awakens the image of God in the person and reveals the depths to which he or she has fallen. Since fallen humanity is incapable of drawing correct conclusions about the love of God which abounds in creation, the sermon is intended to draw the listener into self-examination. This self discovery in light of God’s holiness and love presented in the sermon should make quite clear to the listener just how crucial rebirth is. It is a rare sermon which does not call the church-goer to scrutinize his or her heart and surrender it to God. Johann Porst, one of Spener’s successors at St. Nicholas’ Church in Berlin used even the dedication of a new organ to exhort people to examine their hearts:

Well now, dear listeners, are you all taking this occasion to examine your hearts as to how they stand and have heretofore sung before God ? If you have merely sung out of habit or not in true devotion of the heart, not in spirit and in truth, and thus without the leading and guidance of the Holy Spirit, you have deceived yourselves miserably.

The desired response was either one of repentance and personal commitment, or a renewed desire for holiness manifested in love for God and acts of love for one’s neighbor.

For the believer the sermon was not an isolated event. Nor was it a matter which concerned only the preacher. The Pietists stressed the significance of personal meditation on Scripture, small group discussion of Scripture and the sermon, and personal and family preparation for Sunday worship. In a booklet designed to help his parishioners Francke lists, among numerous others, the following suggestions:

Phooey on the lukewarm ways of our worship service! … Now when the sermon is going on, reasonably, all the listeners’ hearts should be there… Concerning this [the introduction of the sermon], Christian listeners should be right observant so that they may take to heart all the better what sort of subject shall be presented in this sermon. . . Two main vices chiefly occur in the hearing of the sermon, that they either sleep, or chatter with their neighbor…

The power in Pietist preaching lay in the fact that these pastors were utterly convinced of the truth of their message and pursued the personal holiness they espoused. The sermons, while basically concerned with conversion and sanctification, convened a wide range of topics from “practical” or ethical issues such as the Christian’s duty to the poor, to more “spiritual” matters such as submission to God’s guidance.

Social Concern

There was never a question as to whether the Christian is to be involved in the concerns of the world. While the Pietists did not intend to bring about rapid major changes in the political situation, they did in fact intend to change the entire world, including the political realm, through the conversion of all people, including those in the ruling classes.

Johann Arndt, the early German Pietist, had said “Fire burns for the poor as well as for the rich.” He was “upset by the crass differences between poor and rich in a Christianity which had fallen so far from the image of the first Christians.” In his book Little Garden of Paradise he prayed,

Ah, give me grace that I may help relieve and not make greater my neighbor’s affliction and misfortune, that I may comfort him in his sorrow and all who are of a grieved spirit, may have mercy on strangers, on widows and orphans, that I readily help and love, not with tongue, but in deed and truth. The sinner says the wise man ignores his neighbor, but blessed is he who has mercy on the unfortunate.

The image of God in all people makes race and nationality of secondary importance, and the unity of those in Christ makes, according to Spener, “Poverty … a stain upon our Christianity.” Spener connected the existence of poverty (in a “Chrisitan” nation) with the lack of true piety.

Despite the frequent charges against Pietism of hostility toward the world and other-worldliness, it is at Halle, where Francke was leader, that one finds such “modern” concerns as socialized medicine, health education, the creation of jobs for the unemployed, education for the poor, and the like. Two phrases found frequently in Pietist literature, often connected, are “God’s glory” and “neighbor’s good” or “neighbor’s best.” While looking after the good of one’s neighbor certainly included evangelization, edification, and correction in spiritual matters, it also had to do with his or her physical well-being. One’s neighbor was not only the person next door or the friend in one’s small group; neighbor also meant the poor and disadvantaged in one’s town.

Francke’s sermon, “The Duty to the Poor” illustrates Pietist concern for Christian involvement. In this sermon Francke takes to task members of the ruling classes and the teaching profession for prizing personal honor and financial success over their responsibility to the poor.

Those who look only to their temporal pleasures and comfort, and thus have no consideration for the poor, have already merited hell in excess and must be with the rich man [in the story of Lazarus in Luke] in torment even though they neither go whoring nor steal nor commit other wrongs.

In the same sermon Francke dismissed the usual excuses for not giving to the poor: the inability to decide who is really “rich enough” (anyone is rich enough to give to someone less fortunate), the assumption that people are poor because they have wantonly wasted their means and thus do not deserve assistance, and the fear that any money given the poor will be used for unjust ends. In other words, every Christian had sufficient possessions, money or at least good will to give something to those less fortunate. And this was not merely an observation, rather it was an imperative.

With God’s glory and neighbor’s good as Pietism’s main concern, it is not surprising that under Francke’s leadership at Halle there appeared an orphanage, two homes for widows, a school for poor children (including girls), free food for needy students, a home for beggars, a hospital, free medicine for the poor, regular visits to prisons and hospitals, and care for the handicapped.

While Pietism manifested social concern primarily in the sort of personal and immediate care mentioned above, charges that it was uninterested in the larger social issues are simply not true. Indeed, Pietists were not involved in protest marches and/or violent revolution, but virtually no one in the churches was active in that way in the 17th and 18th centuries. They were, however, lobbyists and agitators and chaplains. Francke founded the orphanage because he was sufficiently socially astute to see that the waifs whom he tutored and fed were not likely to be rehabilitated so long as they returned to abusive households or had to sleep in alleys. Halle’s orphanage was one of the few in its day in which the orphans were not housed with criminals, vagabonds and beggars, and were not used as cheap labor. Rather, they were educated according to their abilities and were treated by a physician whose primary concern was the orphanage.

Aware that the unemployed and disenfranchised were likely to turn to crime, Francke encouraged the wealthy in government positions to establish institutions and programs for the homeless and jobless. As the University of Halle’s representative to the funeral of Friedrich I, Francke preached, “You, the mighty, the ruling, and the wealthy are truly pitiable people if you do not have the Spirit of God,” and he went on to remind them of their duties to their citizens. He also proposed a new concept of justice within the court system. Law books were to be written in German, trials were to be shortened, and pious judges were to make their decisions according to goodness rather than to the letter of the law. As there was an outer and inner person, so there was an outer and inner court, the court of the letter of the law to which the harsh could appeal, and the court of the gracious God in which the accuser would have to display patience and kindness. As members of the local courts of Brandenburg-Prussia became more involved with Halle Pietism they busied themselves with social concerns. Some began new school systems, others introduced reading lessons to prisons and even knocked windows in prison walls; others erected orphanages after the Halle pattern. The Pietists intended to reform the world by converting its leaders, and one result of conversion is love for individuals and society.

Missions

Missionary activity by no means began with Pietism. Wherever European Christians settled new lands, their pastors attempted to bring the Gospel to the local peoples. It was Pietism, however, which was a prime mover in sending theologically trained people for the express purpose of evangelizing other peoples in non-Christian cultures.

Contrary to popular belief, Pietist missionaries were hardly the culture-destructive, insensitive villains so frequently portrayed in novels and movies. Sigurd Westberg identifies five basic principles of Pietist mission work:

1. Church and school go together. All Christians must be taught to read so that they may read Scripture.

2. The Bible must be available to people in their own language.

3. The preacher must know the mind of the people. To this end missionaries occasionally wrote rather extensive descriptions of local religions and customs as training tools for future missionaries.

4. The point of it all is personal conversion.

5. As soon as possible, a local, indigenous church with its own ministry, must be established.

These five points show a sensitivity and a practical realism not commonly perceived by critics and, it must be admitted, not always put into practice by missionaries. Nonetheless, Pietists took seriously the customs and rights of the cultures in which they evangelized. In Tranquebar, for example, Halle provided medical supplies, equipment, and money to support those who turned to Christianity and thus experienced rejection by family and friends. In the USA, Moravian missionaries requested the permission of local Native American tribes before moving into their territories to proclaim the gospel. Once settled in, they frequently adopted the local customs and life-styles. They also encouraged the establishment and growth of local congregations rather than the expansion of the Moravian “denomination.”

Ecumenicity

Of particular interest is ecumenical involvement in missions. Francke was already in contact with the S.P.C.K. (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) in 1698, the year of its founding in London. Pietists in the courts of England and Denmark were in contact with Halle, seeking missionaries and reports from the field. By 1709 Cotton Mather in New England was in correspondence with Francke in Germany and Pietist missionaries in the East Indies, sharing reports of missionary activity, and raising money for the mission in Tranquebar. Wherever Christians of good will were interested more in bringing souls to Christ than establishing particular denominations, the Pietists were very willing to co-operate. This did not lead to the dissolution of denominational ties, but did facilitate the spread of the gospel and helped prevent unnecessary duplication of effort. The primary goal was to win souls to Christ and to do so in a loving and sensitive way.

We may remember the Pietist view of the person: while culture and custom may be different, we are all one in our creatureliness, fallenness, and need of redemption and subsequent sanctification through devotion to God’s glory and neighbor’s good. The overwhelming goodness of God and the realities of the human condition should inform our lives as Christians in our preaching (which should invite, challenge and inspire), our social concern (which should begin in our homes and stretch to the ends of the earth), and our missionary activities (which should proclaim the Gospel in love in word and deed, free of cultural, denominational or theological imperialism). When our primary concern is that God be glorified in every aspect of our personal and corporate lives and that God’s love be manifested in ministry to whole persons taking into account their, and our, condition and needs, then we will have learned the most basic implications of Pietism for Christianity, and Christians, today.

Gary R. Sattler, Th.D., is Assistant Professor of Christian Formation and Discipleship, and Director of the Office of Christian Community at Fuller Theological Seminary, Pasadena, California

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

One of the immediate concerns of Henry M. Muhlenburg when he arrived in Pennsylvania in 1742 was the improvement of the quality of the clergy in the colonial Lutheran churches. To aid this process, Muhlenburg created a series of questions to examine candidates for the ordained ministry. While the author is concerned with loyalty to the historic Lutheran position, evidences are apparent of his “reverend fathers in Halle.”

The selection is excerpted from The Documentary History of the Evangelical Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States 1748–1821(1898).

I. The candidate is to prepare a sketch of his life, giving, in as brief a compass as possible, an account of its chief events and of his academical studies. As this may readily become too extensive, it will suffice, if he briefly narrate: 1. His first awakening; 2. How God furthered the work of grace in his heart; 3. What moved him to study for the holy ministry, and where, in what branches and under whose direction, he has attempted to prepare himself.

II. What theological books does he have?

III. Mention the Chief Divisions of Theology, and answer the following questions concerning—1 . What is Theology? 2. A general answer to the question: What is Sin, and a more specific statement as to what is Original Sin? 3. Describe the Sin against the Holy Ghost; 4. Give an extended description of the Justification of the Sinner before God, and confirm it with proof texts: 5. What is Saving Faith? 6. Whether and in how far are good works necessary to Salvation? 7. What is Sanctification, and how is it promoted? 8. In how far is Death the Wages of Sin (a), in the converted, (b), in the unconverted?

IV. Whether our Evangelical Lutheran is the only justifying and saving faith, and upon what scriptural foundations does it rest?

V. Give an exegetical explanation of Luke 16:8.

VI. Prepare from this the theme and skeleton of a sermon, with application.

VII. Describe the true character and duties of an evangelical preacher.

VIII. How an evangelical preacher should conduct himself towards the dying who confess that they are sinners in general, without confessing any special sin?

IX. Whether, and in how far evangelical preachers can and should be in subordination to one another? The answers, with the questions and proofs, to be neatly written out, and to be ready for submission by three o’ clock tomorrow afternoon.

All for the glory of God, and the good of the Church!

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.

The most vivid—and memorable—evidence of Pietist thought is to be found in their hymns and poetry. Singing was a cherished means of expressing spiritual desires and struggles and several Pietists contributed whole volumes of poetry to which familiar Lutheran and Reformed tunes were applied. In these stanzas the reader immediately notes a warm love for Christ and the simple faith trust of the believer.

CHRISTIAN HEARTS,

IN LOVE UNITED

Christian hearts, in love united,Seek alone in Jesus rest;Has he not your love excited?Then let love inspire each breast;Members—on our Head depending.Light—reflecting him our Sun.Brethren—his commands attending.We in him, our Lord, are one.

Come then, come, O flock of Jesus,Covenant with him anew;Unto him, who conquered for us,Pledge we love and service true;And should our love’s union holyFirmly linked no more remain,Wait ye at his footstool lowly,Till he draw it close again.

Grant, Lord, that with thy direction,‘Love each other,’ we comply,Aiming with unfeigned affectionThy love to exemplify;Let our mutual love be glowing;Thus will all men plainly see,That we, as on one stem growing,Living branches are in thee.

And that such may be our union,As shine with the Father is,And not one of our communionE’er forsake the path of bliss;May our light ’fore men with brightness,From thy light reflected, shine;Thus the world will bear us witness,That we, Lord, are truly thine.

Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Christian History magazine.Click here for reprint information on Christian History.