Pietism
Revolutionary religious movement within Protestantism. It was the expression of a deep discontent with a corrupted church life, and a longing for a new spirit in the parishes, for spiritual enrichment by stressing the Bible, for the universal priesthood of all believers, and for a deep sense of community.
Pietistic groups stressed a personal relationship to God and a virtuous life that emphasized personal devotion instead of polemic judgment of others. Many groups were known for foot washing, simple dress, and women covering their heads in church. The Pietists anointed themselves with oil for healing and consecration, refrained from worldly amusements, and refused to take oaths, to go to war, or to engage in lawsuits. Chiliastic and apocalyptic notions, Christian perfectionism, and in part the belief in the “apokatastasis panton” (restoration of creation) not only played an important role, but also encouraged activities like public preaching, missionary work, and charity as well. By emphasizing personally experienced conversion (Wiedergeburt), the movement fostered self-reflection and introspection, which in turn led to a tendency to become an elite in-group, contrary to Pietism’s claim to be open and receptive to all people who would follow Christ. Although Pietism was opposed to the formation of new sects, more than any other Christian movement it splintered into multiple churches, denominations, groups, and even the smallest circles.As can be seen in the influential teachings of Jacob Boehme (1575—1624), Johann Valentin Andreae (1586—1654), and Johann Arndt (1555—1621), Pietism emerged during the religious, economic, and political crises of the seventeenth century within the Holy Roman Empire. It peaked with the founding of the Collegium Pietatis by Johann Jakob Schutz (1640— 1690), Philipp Jakob Spener (1635—1705), and Anton Dieffenbach in Frankfurt am Main in 1670, where both church and lay people gathered to read the Bible, pray, and discuss theological topics.
The publication of Pia Desideria in 1675 set forth the genuine piety and modest aims of the founding father of Pietism, Spener. At that early stage, Pietism was significantly influenced by Quakerism in England. Leaders of the movement often had personal contact with Quakers such as William Ames (d. 1662), Robert Barclay (1648—1690), and William Penn (1644—1718), from whose pamphlets the Pietists profited. After Spener’s death in 1705, many small principalities and magistrates within the Holy Roman Empire became intolerant, imposed severe penal laws, and finally proscribed any overt exercise of Pietism.
"Love feast among the Dunkers of Pennsylvania," nineteenth-century drawing by Howard Pyle. The Dunkers, a sect whose doctrines and habits of life are close to those of the Mennonites, derive their nickname from a German word descriptive of their mode of baptism by immersion. (Bettmann/Corbis)
After Spener died, his former student, August Hermann Francke (1663—1727), founded orphanages in Halle in 1698 that were famous for their relief and care of thousands of poor but pious students. Most of them were alumni of the University of Halle, founded in 1694. With the help of the Prussian government, Pietism influenced educational efforts and helped to make Halle a new center for oriental languages and led to a revision of the curriculum for theologians, reformed sermons, and had an effect on the Canstein Bible Society, established in 1710, which promoted Martin Luther’s translation of the Bible all over the world. The idea that every believer should possess his own Bible and read it daily was one outcome of Pietism. From Halle well-educated clergy spread out to many parts of the world and became in part responsible for Western hegemony seen in Christianization and precolonial economic, cultural, and social domination. In particular, Indian tribes in North America lost their heritage and independence as a result of the zealous missionary efforts by German Pietists John Ettwein (born in Freudenstadt, 17211802), Gottlieb August Spangenberg (born in Klettenberg/Harz, 1704-1792), David Zeisberger (born in Zauchtenthal, Mahren, 1721-1808), and Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf (born in Dresden, 1700-1760).
The latter, who came to America in 1741, attempted to organize all Pietistic German sects of North America into what he called the Church of God in the Spirit. His efforts led to the founding of the Pennsylvania Synod on December 26, 1741, a pre-ecumenical gathering of Pietists.Pietism soon became an international movement. Once it emerged within the Holy Roman Empire, it spread to the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Hungary, and many English colonies, but most of all to North America. Many immigrants’ communitarian settlements were grounded in Pietism, including the Society “Woman in the Wilderness” of John Kelpius, born in Schaessburg (1673—1708); the settlements of the Moravian Church; the Ephrata Cloister, founded by Conrad Beissel from Eberbach (1691—1768); the Harmony Society, founded by Georg Rapp from Iptin- gen, Wurttemberg (1757-1847); Zoar, founded by Joseph Michael Bimeler (1778-1853) from Wurttemberg; and the Amana Colonies. All these groups were bound together by their quest for religious tolerance and spiritual freedom, which was realized most significantly in the founding of Pennsylvania as a refuge. The Pietists’ retreat from the world led to perfectionism, strict moral consensus, and political noninvolvement.
Besides this radical type of Pietism, the more churchly type had an impact on the German Lutheran and German Reformed churches, German dissenters such as the Schwenkfelder Church, the Church of the Brethren (i.e., German Baptist Brethren), Dunkers from Schwarzenau in Hessen-Cassel, Sabbatarians (i.e., Seventh-Day Baptists), New Lights, the Methodists, United Brethren, and the Evangelical Association. The Salzburger Pietists came to the American colony of Georgia between 1732 and 1741. Among them were the pastors Johann Martin Boltzius (1703-ca.1765) and Israel Christian Gronau (b.1721). Other important Pietistic leaders with German backgrounds were Francis Daniel Pastorius (1651-1719), Alexander Mack (16791735), Samuel Guldin (1664-1745), Johann Christoph Sauer (1695-1758), Henry M.
Muhlenberg (1711-1787), and Justus Falkner (1672-1723). Once in America, most of the radical Pietist denominations broke connections with Germany.Toward the end of the eighteenth century, however, the “classical” period of Pietism was superseded by the French Encyclopedists, the philosophy of Christian Wolff (1679-1754) with its modern rationalism, and the process of secularization. The process of many secularizations challenged Pietism, especially in its literal understanding of the Bible. In the nineteenth century, the German Quaker settlement at Friedensthal and the Evangelical Revival (Erweckungsbewegung) carried out the movement that led to a Pietist revival (Neupietismus) and finally to the gathering of the Pentecostal conference in Gnadau in 1888 and in the founding of the Gnadau Association in 1897. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Pietistic hallmarks such as personal relationship with God and emphasis on evangelism and mission were integrated into much of the conservative Christianity of North America along the Bible Belt from North and South Carolina westward by way of Tennessee and finally into Kansas. While Pietism in its beginning was radical, creative, and inspiring, in the twentieth century it became a predominantly conservative movement of generally white middle-class people. Today Pietistic ideals are integral parts of other movements—for example, the charismatic churches and the esoteric movement—or of such disparate communities as the Amish church and the
Hermitage of Johann Zinzendorf, established in 1988. Nonetheless, the concerns in many churches today, such as the ordination of women, the relationship between justification and rebirth, and the demand for ecumenical efforts, were once those raised by Pietism.
Claus Bernet
See also Amana Colonies; Amish; Ephrata; Harmony Society; Kelpius, Johann; Muhlenberg, Henry M.; Pastorius, Francis Daniel; Pennsylvania; Schwenckfelders
References and Further Reading
Bernet, Claus. Between Quietism and Radical Pietism: The German Quaker Settlement Friedensthal. Birmingham, England, 2004 (Woodbrooke Journal Series, 14).
Carpenter, Delburn. The Radical Pietists: Celibate Communal Societies Established in the United States before 1820. New York: AMS, 1975.
Durnbaugh, Donald F. “Pietism: A Millennial View from an American Perspective.” Pietismus und Neuzeit 28 (2002): 11—29.
Fogleman, Aaron S. Hopeful Journeys: German Immigration, Settlement, and Political Culture in Colonial America, 1717—1775. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1996.
Wokeck, Marianne S. Trade in Strangers. The Beginnings of Mass Migration to North America. University Park: Pennsylvania State University, 1999.
Zehrer, Karl. “The Relationship between Halle Pietism and Early Methodism.” Methodist History 17, no. 3 (1979): 211-224.