Reclaiming Pietism Part 2

Last updated on: August 18, 2011 at 7:31 pm by Roger E. Olson

Reclaiming Pietism Part 2 2011-08-18T19:31:17-05:00 Roger E. Olson

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I’ll call this Part 2 even though I didn’t label the previous post Part 1. I’ll just declare it so without going back and changing it.

I have seen some excellent questions about Pietism here and I’ll do my best to answer them in time. I don’t know exactly how many parts this thread will have, but I intend it to have several.

Like so many good theological terms and labels “Pietism” and “Pietist” are essentially contested concepts. Numerous books have been written exploring this historical movement, mostly within Protestantism, that we call Pietism. (One I’ve just finished reading is German Radical Pietism by Hans Schneider [Scarecrow, 2007] which contains some excellent information on the debate among German scholars about the true identity of Pietism.)

My concern is that the term Pietism has become a label of derision among both church people in general (if not also the “man in the street”) and theologians. And yet someone as influential as theologian Donald Bloesch (who died this year) did his best to reclaim the concept and apply it to himself and his approach to theology and spirituality. (Don was for me a model of true Pietism!)

For me the problem is this. I have for years applied the label to myself–just as I have embraced the label Arminian. And yet, as with Arminian, I keep running into people who have a distorted idea of Pietist. For the untutored it often means nothing more than having a “holier-then-thou” attitude. For too many of the tutored (in church history and theology) it means being anti-intellectual, anti-doctrinal, subjectivist, detached from social activism, etc. The label Pietist is like a ship with many barnacles attached to it–all of them bad.

Why not just give it up? Well, because I don’t know what I’d replace it with and it’s simply wrong to distort a whole movement and heritage in that way. I always want to recover the true, positive meanings of terms for important movements in Christian history.

I grew up in the Pentecostal movement, but when I studied church history in a Pietist seminary I realized I felt a greater affinity for that movement than for my own Pentecostal heritage. Besides, I already knew my grandparents were Pietists as members of the Evangelical Free Church of America–which was founded (like the Evangelical Covenant Church to which some of my relatives belonged) by Scandinavian Pietists. Many evangelical denominations and organizations were founded by Pietists–mostly German and Scandinavian immigrants.

Gradually I discovered that in the wider evangelical movement both my Arminianism and my Pietism were looked down on by leading evangelical theologians and spokespersons. These terms I had come to embrace and consider positive hindered me here and there in interviews and conversations with evangelical leaders.

Gradually I came to realize what they were calling Pietism was really Quietism or Pietism gone to seed. I looked around for an evangelical theologian who put a good spin on Pietism and found Donald G. Bloesch who became my mentor-at-a-distance (through his writings). He quoted all the great Pietists of the past and clearly distinguished between “good Pietism” and “bad Pietism” (the latter being not true Pietism). (Among the past Pietists Bloesch quoted favorable were Spener, Franke, Zinzendorf and the Blumhardts. He allowed that Schleiermacher had been brought up Pietist but considered his later, adult “Pietism of a higher order” not true Pietism at all!)

While in seminary I set my sights on a leading Pietist institution–Bethel College and Seminary–as a place I would like to teach someday. That’s because a Bethel theology professor named Al Glenn came to teach at my seminary one evening each week. I picked him up at the airport and drove him back after class–often picking his brains until he was exhausted. Eventually he helped me join the Bethel faculty. Al was and is a paragon of true Pietism.

Bethel was then (and I trust still is) a university with strong Pietist roots and ties. The denomination with which it is affiliated was founded by Swedish Pietists–the Baptist General Conference (now WorldConverge). During my 15 years at Bethel I heard many of the older BGC and Bethel leaders talk about their Pietist roots–among them especially Carl Lundquist and Virgin Olson.

One of the reasons I came to the seminary where I presently serve is its Pietist ethos. Even thought it is rooted in the Southern Baptist tradition its ethos is definitely consistent with Pietism. It requires all faculty and students to participate weekly in “covenant groups” for Scripture reading and prayer. The seminary has a strong spiritual formation component with a full time spiritual director.

Here I will end (for today) by offering my own definition of Pietism. Remember it is an essentially contested concept, so there will be disagreement from some others. However, I have studied Pietism in depth, written about it (e.g., in The Story of Christian Theology) and spoken publicly about it (e.g., at Bethel’s Pietism conference in 2009 where I delivered a plenary address entitled “Pietism: Myths and Realities” that will be published next year in a volume of chapters growing out of that conference). One of my next book projects will be about Pietism.

So, how do I now define Pietism? Simply this way: “Pietism is a movement and ethos to reform Christianity by emphasizing the renewal of the ‘inner man’ by the Holy Spirit through regeneration together with a continuing personal relationship with Jesus Christ marked by prayer, devotion, worship and witness.” Some may question if this is not a partial definition of evangelicalism in general! Well, in a future post here I will explain that there are really TWO EVANGELICALISMS–one based mostly on Protestant scholastic orthodoxy and the other based mostly on Pietism (and revivalism). While many have tried to keep these two impulses joined within the one evangelical movement I think they are now pulling apart to the point that the movement is dividing. Together they are a combustible compound.

The point of Pietism is that the experience and life described above in my definition (so this really becomes part of the definition) is essential to authentic Christian faith. Doctrinal belief and/or participation in sacraments alone are not sufficient to make one authentically Christian.

When we study the Pietist movement I have my students sing a hymn that perfectly expresses the Pietist ethos: “My faith has found a resting place.” It may not say everything about Pietism, but it expresses the Pietist ethos beautifully.

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