An Introduction to German Pietism

Most evangelicals have never heard of ‘German Pietism.’ This is unfortunate, as Pietism is one of the three sources (along with English Puritanism and Scots-Irish Presbyterianism) which led to the movement we know of as evangelicalism.[1] So, what is it? Where did it come from?

The German Pietists, simply explained, were theologians in the Lutheran tradition living in the Holy Roman Empire (now Germany) in the late 1600s. Their emphasis on personal piety was both unique and countercultural for the Christianity of their day.

The Soil of Pietism

The roots of Pietism spring from the turbulent soil of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Two significant occurrences during this time had a formative influence on German religious experience.

First, the Thirty Year’s War erupted in the Holy Roman Empire, devastating large tracts of continental Europe. Pietism was a ‘moral reaction’ against the horrors of this period,[2] a time when entire towns and villages could disappear off the map.[3] Morality sunk to such a low level that widows and orphans were “counted for dung.”[4]

The second tragic event was the rise of scholastic orthodoxy, a movement toward strict codification of doctrine at the expense of Christian practice and piety. Faith was viewed as assent to theological propositions.[5] Sermons degenerated into long arguments against non-Lutheran positions, theology was emphasized, and prayer and exegesis were low priorities.[6]

In such a climate, it is not surprising that many religious people believed practical piety lost. The Pietists themselves, who rose from the smoking heaps of a ruined Europe, believed that they were pursuing a second reformation, picking up where Luther left off. Such an idea was expressly stated by Anton Boehm, who lamented that “After the Death of Luther…Things fell out quite otherwise…Strifes and Contentions, Disputes and Clamours, grew to an excessive Height; but the plain Practice of Piety fell to Decay.”[7] To bolster their argument, the Pietists could look to the Augsburg Confession, which affirmed that “we teach that it is necessary to do good works, not so that we can trust them to earn grace but because it is the will of God.”[8]

Johann Arndt

The first significant name associated with the Pietist movement in Germany is that of Johann Arndt (1555-1621). Arndt was the real ‘father’ of Pietism.[9] Arndt lived throughout the region of Germany during his life, preaching in Badeborn, Quedlinburg, and Eisleben, as well as spending time in Braunschweig.[10] His most famous work was True Christianity, and it could serve (he told the reader) “…as a guide, showing thee not only how thou mayest, through faith in Christ, obtain the remission of thy sins, but also how thou mayest avail thyself of the grace of God, in order to lead a holy life…”[11]

As this statement reveals, the Pietists were interested not only in the doctrine of justification, but also in the doctrine of sanctification, a doctrine which Calvin had emphasized more than Luther.[12] For Arndt, the doctrine of sanctification tied into his main emphasis, that of the new life.[13] Disagreeing in emphasis with the scholastic theologians, Arndt argued that the Scripture and the sacraments were designed to foster a new birth:

“…his [Christ’s] doctrine, with the Word and Sacraments, is delivered to us for no other end, than that it be inwardly digested, and converted, as it were, into our very life and spirit. As from a good seed springs up good fruit, so from the Word and Sacraments should spring up within us the noble life of regeneration, or the new birth; the new, holy, and spiritual man; or, to speak all in one word, a true and real Christian.”[14]

Philipp Jacob Spener

Philipp Jacob Spener (1635-1705) was a Lutheran pastor at Frankfurt am Main, and his most famous work was the publication of Pia Desideria, or “Pious Desires.”[15] Spener’s book contains four sections. The first provides an introduction and reason for writing. The second section, “Conspectus of Corrupt Conditions in the Church,” addresses the moral decay among the civil authorities, clergy, and common people. Spener provides hope in the third section, titled “The Possibility of Better Conditions in the Church.” Here he says, “If we consult the Holy Scriptures we can have no doubt that God promised his church here on earth a better state than this.”[16] Spener’s fourth section contains “Proposals to Correct Conditions in the Church,” where he recommends “More Extensive Use of the Scriptures,” “Exercise of the Spiritual Priesthood,” “Practice vs. Knowledge of Christianity,” “Reform of Schools and Universities,” and “Preaching for Purposes of Edification.”[17]

Arndt desired to see church transformation through small groups of devoted Christians (an idea known as ‘ecclesiolae in ecclesia’), and these small groups would contain those with renewed individual hearts.[18] Spener, despite his clash with the scholastic theologians, was still a devoted Lutheran; his writing The Spiritual Priesthood betrays both his emphasis on the new birth, and his commitment to Lutheran sacramental theology: “How do Christians become priests? …the new birth in Baptism gives us the divine adoption as sons and the spiritual priesthood connected with it…”[19]

August Hermann Francke

It was Spener’s disciple August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) who brought much of the reforms that Spener desired. Francke was a student and later lecturer at Leipzig, and he visited Spener to increase his understanding of Lutheran pietism. He referred to Spener as “my dear father” and called himself “your dutiful son.”[20] His own life was radically changed when he learned more about the new birth. Despite his preaching position, Francke had to deal with his own lack of true faith. Engulfed in doubt and despair, he finally came to the end of his own efforts when he knelt down in prayer for mercy. As he recounts in his autobiography, “With great care and doubt I had fallen to my knees but with an unspeakable joy and a great certainty I stood up again. When I knelt down I did not believe that there was a God but when I stood up I believed it to the point of giving up my blood without fear or doubt.”[21] For Francke, also, the new relationship of God was of central importance, and it led to a transformation of life.[22]

Francke developed the theories of Spener into actual religious institutions at Halle, where he developed schools, orphanages, and other institutions of mercy.[23] Halle became the center of the pietistic movement in Germany.[24]

The Influence of the German Pietists

While Pietism may have been a fleeting movement on the shores of continental Europe, it had significant influence, especially in the New World. The Pietist movement supplied Lutheran priests to distant colonial communities in the New World. Pietists and their sympathizers supported and worked with the likes of George Whitefield and other revival-minded preachers.

Then there are the Moravians, the fiery Christian community led by Count Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (1700-1760). Zinzendorf was heavily influenced by the Pietists; he personally knew Spener and Francke, and they contributed to his emphasis on the new birth. It is important to remember that the Moravians (influenced by the Pietists) were sending missionaries to distant parts of the world nearly one hundred years before the modern missions movement was inaugurated by William Carey. Further, the Moravians had a dramatic influence on both Whitefield and Wesley – Wesley came to faith (in part) due to his interactions with the Moravians.

Gradually, the influence of the Pietists melded into the stream of evangelicalism. Today we hardly remember them – but this group, which so emphasized the need to be ‘spiritually reborn,’ is a lasting part of the American religious heritage.

 

[1] Thomas Kidd, The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (New Haven: Yale University, 2007), xiv.

[2] Dale Brown, Understanding Pietism (Grand Rapids: Eerdman’s, 1978), 21.

[3] F. Ernest Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical Pietism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), 181.

[4] Pastor Heinlin of Wurttemberg, quoted in Ibid., 181.

[5] Stoeffler, Evangelical Pietism, 183.

[6] Brown, Understanding Pietism, 25.

[7] Ernst Benz, “Ecumenical Relations between Boston Puritanism and German Pietism: Cotton Mather and August Hermann Francke,” Harvard Theological Review 54/3 (July 1961): 170.

[8] “The Unaltered Augsburg Confession,” https://www.stpls.com/uploads/4/4/8/0/44802893/augsburg-confession.pdf.

^[9] Brown, Understanding Pietism, 19.

[10] Stoeffler, Evangelical Pietism, 203-204.

[11] John Arndt, True Christianity: A Treatise on Sincere Repentance, True Faith, the Holy Walk of the True Christian, Etc., trans. A. W. Boehm (Philadelphia: The Lutheran Book Store, 1872), xl.

[12] Justo Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: Volume II (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 260.

[13] Stoeffler, Evangelical Pietism, 209.

[14] Arndt, True Christianity, 129.

[15] Peter Erb, Pietists: Selected Writings (New York: Paulist Press, 1983), 5.

[16] Philipp Spener, Pia Desideria, trans. Theodore Tappert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964), 76.

[17] Ibid., vii.

[18] Kidd, The Great Awakening, 26.

[19] Erb, Pietists, 51.

[20] F. Ernest Stoeffler, German Pietism during the Eighteenth Century (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1973), 6.

[21] Erb, Pietists, 105.

[22] Ibid., 8.

[23] Ibid., 31.

[24] Ibid., 39.