Pietism

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 like 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, Indonesia, Barbara von Krüdener in the Baltics, 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. 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) "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."

By country

Germany

thumb|The "Five Brothers of Württemberg Pietism": Johannes Schnaitmann (1767–1847), Anton Egeler (1770–1850), Johann Martin Schäffer (1763–1851), Immanuel Gottlieb Kolb (1784–1859) and [[Johann Michael Hahn (1758–1819)]]

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. 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.

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

thumb|upright|Pietistic Lutheran frugality, humility, restraint, sense of duty, and order have been strong cultural and religious influences in 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 gained patronage under Archbishop Erik Benzelius, who encouraged the Pietistic Lutheran practices. Religious authorities could bring pressure on pietism like when they brought some of Magny's followers before the local consistory to answer questions about their unorthodox views or when they banished Magny from Vevey for heterodoxy in 1713.

Hymnody

Later history

thumb|left|upright|The Broad and the Narrow Way, a popular German Pietist painting, 1866

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 took the church in an altogether different direction. Yet some claim that Pietism contributed largely to the revival of Biblical studies in Germany and to making religion once more an affair of the heart and of life and not merely of the intellect.

It likewise gave a new emphasis to the role of the laity in the church. Rudolf Sohm claimed that "It was the last great surge of the waves of the ecclesiastical movement begun by the Reformation; it was the completion and the final form of the Protestantism created by the Reformation. Then came a time when another intellectual power took possession of the minds of men." 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 judgment. Bonhoeffer denounced the basic aim of Pietism, to produce a "desired piety" in a person, as unbiblical.

Pietism is considered the major influence that led to the creation of the "Evangelical Church of the Union" in Prussia in 1817. The King of Prussia ordered the Lutheran and Reformed churches in Prussia to unite; they took the name "Evangelical" as a name both groups had previously identified with. This union movement spread through many German lands in the 1800s. Pietism, with its looser attitude toward confessional theology, had opened the churches to the possibility of uniting. The unification of the two branches of German Protestantism sparked the Schism of the Old Lutherans. Many Lutherans, called Old Lutherans formed free churches or emigrated to the United States and Australia, where they formed bodies that would later become the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod and the Lutheran Church of Australia, respectively. (Many immigrants to America, who agreed with the union movement, formed German Evangelical Lutheran and Reformed congregations, later combined into the Evangelical Synod of North America, which is now a part of the United Church of Christ.)

thumb|[[Summer services are a feature of Laestadian Lutheran piety.]]

In the middle of the 19th century, Lars Levi Laestadius spearheaded a Pietist revival in Scandinavia that upheld what came to be known as Laestadian Lutheran theology, which is heralded today by the Laestadian Lutheran Church as well as by several congregations within mainstream Lutheran Churches, such as the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland and the Church of Sweden. After encountering a Sami woman who experienced a conversion, Laestadius had a similar experience that "transformed his life and defined his calling." As such, Laestadius "spend the rest of his life advancing his idea of Lutheran pietism, focusing his energies on marginalized groups in the northernmost regions of the Nordic countries." Uniquely, Laestadian Lutherans "discourage watching television, attending movies, dancing, playing card games or games of chance, and drinking alcoholic beverages." They also avoid birth control: Laestadian Lutheran families usually have four to ten children.

In 1900, the Church of the Lutheran Brethren was founded and it adheres to Pietist Lutheran theology, emphasizing a personal conversion experience.

Pietistic Lutheran denominations

Pietistic Lutheranism influenced existing Lutheran denominations such as the Church of Norway and many Pietistic Lutherans have remained in them, though other Pietistic Lutherans have established their own Synods too. In the middle of the 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.

Influence on the Methodists

As with Moravianism, Pietism was a major influence on John Wesley and others who began the Methodist movement in 18th-century Great Britain. John Wesley was influenced significantly by Moravians (e.g., Zinzendorf, Peter Boehler) and Pietists connected to Francke and Halle Pietism. The fruit of these Pietist influences can be seen in the modern American Methodists, especially those who are aligned with the Holiness movement.

Influence on religion in America

Pietism had an influence on religion in America, as many German immigrants settled in Pennsylvania, New York, and other areas. Its influence can be traced in certain sectors of Evangelicalism. Balmer says that:

<blockquote>Evangelicalism itself, I believe, is a quintessentially North American phenomenon, deriving as it did from the confluence of Pietism, Presbyterianism, and the vestiges of Puritanism. Evangelicalism picked up the peculiar characteristics from each strain – warmhearted spirituality from the Pietists (for instance), doctrinal precisionism from the Presbyterians, and individualistic introspection from the Puritans – even as the North American context itself has profoundly shaped the various manifestations of evangelicalism: fundamentalism, neo-evangelicalism, the holiness movement, Pentecostalism, the charismatic movement, and various forms of African-American and Hispanic evangelicalism.</blockquote>

Influence on science

The Merton Thesis is an argument about the nature of early experimental science proposed by Robert K. Merton. Similar to Max Weber's famous claim on the link between Protestant ethic and the capitalist economy, Merton argued for a similar positive correlation between the rise of Protestant Pietism and early experimental science. The Merton Thesis has resulted in continuous debates.

Impact on party voting in United States and Great Britain

In the United States, Richard L. McCormick says, "In the nineteenth century voters whose religious heritage was pietistic or evangelical were prone to support the Whigs and, later, the Republicans." Paul Kleppner generalizes, "the more pietistic the group's outlook the more intensely Republican its partisan affiliation." McCormick notes that the key link between religious values and politics resulted from the "urge of evangelicals and Pietists to 'reach out and purge the world of sin. Pietism became influential among Scandinavian Lutherans; additionally it affected other denominations in the United States, such as the Northern Methodists, Northern Baptists, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, and some smaller groups. The great majority were based in the northern states; some of these groups in the South would rather support the Democrats.

In England in the late 19th and early 20th century, the Nonconformist Protestant denominations, such as the Methodists, Baptists and Congregationalists, formed the base of the Liberal Party. David Hempton states, "The Liberal Party was the main beneficiary of Methodist political loyalties."

References

See: "Six Principles of Pietism", based on Philip Jacob Spener's six proposals http://www.miamifirstbrethren.org/about-us

External links

New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, Vol. IX: Pietism
After Three Centuries – The Legacy of Pietism by E.C. Fredrich
Literary Landmarks of Pietism by Martin O. Westerhaus
Pietism's World Mission Enterprise by Ernst H. Wendland
Old Apostolic Lutheran Church of America
The Evangelical Pietist Church of Chatfield