June 21, 2008 — In 1517 a Roman Catholic monk named Martin Luther posted 95 propositions on a church door in the town of Wittenberg, Germany. In that act Luther was challenging his church’s doctrine and some specific church practices. He had no idea he was setting in motion a movement that would change the world forever.
The movement came to be known as the Protestant Reformation. It quickly gained adherents in Germany, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Scotland and portions of France. The term "Protestant" was not initially applied to the reformers, but came to be used of all groups protesting Roman Catholic orthodoxy and hegemony.
The Vatican dug in its heels and the "Protestants" were forced to separate from Roman Catholicism, resulting in the Lutheran church in Germany and Scandinavia, the Reformed church in Switzerland and the Netherlands, the Presbyterian Church in Scotland, and the Anglican Church in England. The word "Christian," which had been synonymous with Roman Catholicism, came to cover a variety of brands, flavors and shades of religion.
But some things didn’t change.
In each "reformed" region the church and government remained officially bound together. The formalism and insincerity of many church leaders turned people off. Clergy were mostly doctrinal hair-splitting dilettantes more interested in philosophical wrangling and rhetorical ostentation than in the spiritual concerns of their congregations. Worship was little more than dull, routine ritualism, but regional laws made attendance mandatory. Sleeping in on Sunday could get you a fine or time in the pokey.
In this mix, in the latter half of the 17th century, grew a grassroots reaction against the corruption and bad things about institutional religion which remained after the Reformation. The shorthand name for this new development is "pietism."
Pietism is an emphasis, a shade, a flavor, a movement which flows across denominational and doctrinal distinctions. It has been called a "second Reformation."
Example: In 1666 one pastor’s sermon recommended that laymen meet together, setting aside "glasses, cards, or dice," encouraging each other in the Christian faith and seeking to apply passages from Scripture and devotional writings to individual lives. Nothing like that had ever been heard in church before.
Pietism offered a "heart religion" to supplant the dominant "head religion" of the day. Meeting in leader’s homes, the movement spread rapidly throughout Europe and North America. John Wesley and the Methodist church were profoundly influenced by pietism. One of the criticisms leveled against Wesley by the Church of England was that he promoted "an unseemly spiritual enthusiasm" among his followers.
Can’t have folks getting excited about God!
The Bible became the infallible, plenary verbally "divinely inspired" source of everything God wants people to know and do. Disciplined theological thinking became unimportant, spirit was everything. In many places anti-intellectualism developed, higher education for clergy became suspect, expressing doubts about the faith became infidelity. The "priesthood of all believers" morphed into an assumption that all believers possess equal spiritual competence, needing only the Bible and personal talks with God to properly order their lives. Mysticism proliferated. Divine guidance became specific and available upon demand.
Pietists are serious to the point of nit-picking about living righteous and holy lives. They take their standards and goals from the pages of the Bible as they interpret it. They oppose false teaching and believe they have a divine mandate to expose errors of belief and behavior.
Think Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority.
Today’s pietism may be best characterized by the phrase "a personal relationship with God." These are the folks who believe that God directly and personally imparts information and guidance upon request. When facing a dilemma or suffering heartache they sing sentimental songs like "What A Friend We Have In Jesus" or "Take Your Burden to the Lord and Leave It There."
Pietism gave rise to revival meetings, informal prayer meetings, personal witnessing, and a conviction that all individual and group behavior must conform to Christian principles. Not a bad idea, but pietists could never come to an agreement about which interpretation of Christian principles should be the standard.
Pietism is still alive and well in most churches, although most contemporary pietists don’t know that’s what they are. They have the Bible in their heads, the assurance of salvation in their hearts, and they expend a great deal of time and effort stamping out sin.
Occasionally one of them gets elected to high public office.
Editor's note: W. Jackson "Jack" Wilson is a psychologist, an Episcopal priest, a sometime academic and a writer living in Colorado.
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