Lately, I’ve been reading a lot in Lutheran Pietism. For those of you who don’t know, there are many types of Lutherans. There are Confessional Lutherans, who, because of the challenges of the modern age, have traditionally stressed the reliability and purity of legal documents placed at the center of German Lutheran institutionalism. There are progressive Lutherans, who are deeply concerned with social activism and the revision of a tradition which has been predominantly European (with all the baggage that comes with it). There are Evangelical Lutherans, who tend to emphasize what Lutheranism shares with other American protestant faiths. There are Catholic Lutherans, often called Evangelical Catholics, who tend to emphasize what Lutherans share with Roman Catholicism and other sacramental traditions, both in doctrine and in practice. There are Radical Lutherans, who are deeply indebted to modern Luther scholarship, especially scholarship written in inter and post-war Germany. And then, there are also pietist Lutherans.
What a world we live in, that there are so many expressions of faith derived from Luther and his legacy! And if you’re a Lutheran reading this, you might say: “And I’m a different kind of Lutheran, too!” And that’s great. I haven’t always understood the height and breadth and depth of our Lutheran faith; in fact, I used to think that there were “real Lutherans” and “fake Lutherans” (though I might not have put it in such stark language). But engaging in Lutheran studies and having the opportunity to read broadly in my tradition has shown me that there is quite a diversity of Lutherans even just in the United States. Add to this that the majority of Lutherans are not Americans, but instead Ethiopians—and questions of Lutheran identity become immensely and wonderfully complex.
I’ve been reading Lutheran pietism because the tradition of Lutheranism that I grew up in attempted to convince me that the only “real Lutherans” were Confessional Lutherans. And so, scholars in that tradition read Lutheran history quite selectively, basically reducing the history down to precursors to themselves. If Lutherans departed from a “confessional”—that is, state-sanctioned—understanding of their faith, they tend to be dismissed as not real Lutherans. Chief among the offenders, after of course the contemporary Evangelical and Progressive Lutherans, are the much despised “Pietists.” As Pr. Bryan Wolfmueller said in a youtube video a couple of years ago, though piety is good, Pietism is bad. One needs to know the sign of whether one might be a pietist, he claims, so that one can return to the straight and narrow of confessional orthodoxy (and therefore, Lutheranism proper).
Wolfmueller says that there are four signs that one might be a pietist. The first is that pietist magnify their own actions over God’s gifts to us and over the creedal tradition of the church. The second is that pietists look down on other people who are not as pious as they are: that is, they are hypocrites that make a tiered Chrisitanity, dividing the church between the spiritual and the nonspiritual. The third is that pietists emphasize that the spiritual life moves internally, at the expense of the external word and sacraments. And finally, the fourth sign of pietism Wolfmueller identifies is that they keep up a façade of their own righteousness, making their spiritual life more about presenting themselves as holy than living the Christian life of repentance. As an alternative to Pietism, Wolfmueller suggests that the Lutheran church should embrace “piety”, which consists of receiving God’s external word and sacrament and embracing the ten commandments as path toward humility before God and charity toward our neighbors.
Pr. Jordan Cooper, the president of the AALC seminary, is a little more nuanced. Whereas Wolfmueller focuses on pietism as a spiritual malady, Cooper is more concerned with pietism as a historical phenomenon. He locates pietism as a movement that begins with Philip J. Spener (1635-1705), a Lutheran pastor in Frankfurt. Cooper notes that Lutheran pietism was a diverse movement, and that it is responsible for a lot of the things we associate with Lutheranism today (for example, small groups, bible studies, and world missions). Even though confessional Lutherans can find things to disagree with in Pietist writers, Cooper remarks, it’s not like there were Pietist confessional documents. This lack of theological precision and the movement’s general diversity make it hard for confessional Lutherans today to make definitive judgments on the movement as a whole.
Wolfmueller and Cooper represent two popular ways that confessional Lutherans have tended to deal with pietism in the past. In Wolfmueller’s book, Has American Christianity Failed?, pietism takes on the significance of one of four condemning traits of American Christianity, (the others being “mysticism,” “decisionism,” and “enthusiasm”). Lutheran Pietism here becomes an abstract category by which to engage in denominational polemics—in a way that mirrors someone like Adolf Koeberle, who spoke of the three misguided ladders by which one attempts to reach God. This ahistorical, abstract concept of Pietism is then used to describe the spiritual states of certain people: in a sense, it divides between those who are Confessional and nonconfessional (that is, it functions a lot like the second mark of Wolfmueller’s ‘Pietism’). In this sense, it is impossible for Pietism to be considered as a legitimate Lutheran tradition, because Wolfmueller has decided from the get-go that it is a spiritual malady, not a serious theological movement. Wolfmueller’s description of pietism fits neatly within his own brand of Confessional Lutheranism, which teaches that the only legitimate expression of Lutheranism is to be found in a bizarre mix of inter-war German Luther scholarship and the 19th c. confessional revival.
Cooper represents a more sophisticated approach to Lutheran Pietism. Pietism here refers to an actual movement within the Lutheran church, and, one might then assume, another valid interpretation of the Reformation. Though Cooper has a preference for Lutheran Scholasticism, he does not suffer from the myopia which plagues Wolfmueller’s treatment of the topic. Pietism here has a concrete historical referent, and so he is not able to abstract it into a theological malaise. The term therefore becomes more difficult to apply to one’s theological (or political) opponents; it is no longer a hammer by which one can whack non-confessionals about, simply for existing. Even though I think Cooper and I would come out in different places when theologically evaluating different personalities in the Pietist movement, the argument wouldn’t be over the legitimacy of other expressions of the Lutheran faith.
Cooper seems to be one of a handful of exceptions in American Lutheran spaces, though. Lutheran church institutions in America, regardless of the faith of the majority of their adherents, tend to be officially either “Confessional” or “Progressive,” with very little room in between for intellectual curiosity into the wider Lutheran tradition. Progressive Lutherans, as I mentioned above, tend to engage in historical revisionism and political activism; Confessional Traditions tend to engage in ahistoricist polemics (based in their own revisions of the tradition, it should be pointed out), a sort of Lutheran Fundamentalism one might say. And I’m not using that term lightly: the fact of the matter is that the Lutheran churches in America were deeply divided by the Modernist/Fundamentalist controversy of the 20th century, which they participated in quite publicly. And the influence of secular politics has influenced both sides of this controversy toward alarming degrees of polarization.
All that is to say—I grew up in the mess which is American Lutheranism, and it really didn’t help me understand the Lutheran tradition in a reliable way. So, now that I have a vantage point outside of the Lutheran church, I’ve been working my way through some of the under-reported chapters of Lutheran history. And it’s been really edifying! In previous posts, I’ve talked about the theosophical and esoteric speculations that were present in early Lutheranism, through thinkers such as Luther himself, Philip Melanchthon, Martin Chemnitz, and Jacob Boehme. The fact that Lutherans were accused by their reformed counterparts of welcoming in new superstitions (astrology, alchemy, etc.) after only just dispensing with the old superstitions (that is, saints, relics, pilgrimages, the mass) is telling in and of itself. But what I’ve been tracing now is the influence of this underreported tradition on the subsequent development of Lutheran piety—and what I’m finding is that these strands were picked up, in various ways, by Lutheran Pietists.
So what are Lutheran pietists? Well, they’re Lutherans. They’re Lutherans that did Lutheran theology in a particular time (the 17th and 18th centuries) and in a particular way. I’ve been reading Douglas Shantz’s book An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe, and Shantz argues that:
Pietism arose in the late seventeenth-century German empire among empowered laity and clergy in the prosperous urban settings of Frankfurt and Leipzig. The Pietism movement introduced a new paradigm to traditional German Protestantism, one that encouraged personal renew and new birth, conventicle gathers for Bible study and mutual encouragement, social activism and postmillennialism, and ecumenical cooperation—in contrast to the polemical Protestantism that gave rise to the Thirty Years War. Pietism included an eclectic mix of esoteric spirituality, radical Reformation traditions, and biblical devotion, with no clear line separating church Pietists, such as Spener, from the Radicals. The cultural legacy of Pietism includes reforms in caring for the poor and the orphan, new Bible translations, new social networks, experiential literature such as the autobiography and memoir, and worldwide mission. Pietism thrived in German lands in the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries among all social classes within both Lutheran and Reformed Protestantism. It also thrived in Switzerland, Scandinavia, and the Baltic. Early Pietistic missionary efforts in South India and Labrador were cooperative German-Danish enterprises. Pietism came to North America as thousands of disillusioned Germans migrated to the New World.
Shantz, An Introduction to German Pietism, P. 7
A couple of things are important about this definition. One, notice that the general marks of Pietism include personal renewal and new birth, conventicle gatherings for Bible study and mutual encouragement, social activism, postmillennialism, and ecumenical cooperation. What a difference from the theological definition that Wolfmueller gave us! Also, notice the nuances: Shantz says that Pietism is an “eclectic mix” of esoteric spirituality, radical Reformation traditions, and biblical devotion—not all of these elements are represented by every pietist thinker: for example, there is a wide difference between Spener, Francke, and Gottfried Arnold! German Pietism carried out reforms from within the church, but also, in some cases, detached itself from the church and the church’s sacraments. It also looked outside the church, both to the renewal of society and to global missions. Cooper is right to emphasize the complexity and influence of the movement—one might disagree with postmillennial theology, but not disagree with a theology of rebirth or social renewal. One might disagree with a theology of rebirth, but still think that global missions are something we should all be supporting. The movement defies being easily locked into a theology-by-categories. It is so much more complex than that—and its complexity makes it so much more interesting!
I think, if I had to add something to the above definition, it would be this: Pietism is a reformational piety. That is, rather than being a “new paradigm” as Shantz says, Pietism should be seen as finding its source and inspiration in Luther and Calvin and their deep roots in medieval piety, as well as Renaissance humanism. The pietists seem strange to us; but this is only because we do not realize how strange the Reformers really are. In this sense, the early modern theologians actually help us see the Reformers better, because they are closer to the source and reflect more of the Reformers’ oddities. And further, our knowledge of the Reformers within their historical context will help us understand pietism better! The Lutheran pietists drew heavily from Luther and his promotion of both the German mystical tradition and some facets of Renaissance esotericism. They also benefitted deeply from the reformational embrace of patristic theology. But above all, they relied on Luther’s theology of repentance and baptism, of which they brought out the personal, social, and eschatological dimensions in their programs of reform.
My own interest in Pietism is academically driven, as I indicated above: Pietists did speculative theology! Jacob Boehme, Johann Arndt, Johan and Johanna Petersen, FC Oetinger, and Gottfried Arnold are all really important for the way that they influenced the course of modern philosophy, theology, and theosophy. The first two, Boehme and Arndt, are fairly early, and are part of the tradition of Lutheran spiritual alchemy. The last three are what are sometimes termed “radical pietists”, since they ended up at odds with the ecclesial authorities, diverging from enforced state practices and teaching. All of these figures after Boehme are in some way engaged in doing Boehmist theosophy in a Lutheran environment. And I just think the whole movement is very fun and interesting, a part of Lutheran theology that we don’t talk about all that much anymore, but probably should.
Why we don’t, who can say. Part of it is the influence of Albrecht Ritschl’s three volume History of Pietism, where Ritschl was the first to make a divide between Pietism and Radical Pietism. But there are also material causes. Pietist writings aren’t easily attained in English Translations—most of the writings remain in early modern German. When Lutherans decided to switch from German to English in the United States, they lost access to a lot of their own tradition. So, we just don’t know a whole lot about ourselves. But this may go back before the switch, to the time when our American institutions were being established: when you’re institution-building, coming together and forming synods, etc., nuance is by and large your enemy. What is wanted is a standard by which to decided whether one is a Lutheran or not.
But on this blog, I haven’t historically been into institution-building or trying to delineate the boundaries of Lutheranism. In fact, I tend toward the opposite: exploring the margins of Lutheranism, even if it’s not helpful for stabilizing our American Lutheran institutions. And yet, ultimately, I do think that reading the tradition more fully will help us out in the end. For example, my own field, Lutheran systematics, should only be enriched by considering more and more of our tradition. Our institutions would perhaps be better off too: realizing the Lutheran world is bigger than our own ideologies may help us cool off, stop polarizing, and allow enough theological and cultural amnesty for interesting scholarship and true piety to once again grow up in the major Lutheran denominations.
Scholarship is about virtue. One of the virtues that we should bring to scholarship is honesty; another is curiosity. Being honest about the complexity of our Lutheran tradition is actually to do scholarship in good faith, as an act of faith, trusting that God has actually been providentially involved with his Lutheran Church through the ministry of the Holy Spirit among us, instead of leaving us abandoned to fight for the purity of our particular strand of (state or separatist) Lutheranism. What a beautiful thing that would be—to not have to fight, but instead, to embrace gentleness and kindness, unity and love.
And if we look back on our tradition honestly, my hope is that this will spark curiosity in us. Curiosity is important in all of our relationships, even in our relationship with those that have gone before us. When we’re curious, we take the time to actually get to know them as Christian people who worshiped the same Lord that we do, today. And getting to know someone is the first little step in growing to love them. And if our scholarship can end in love, well, then—that would be a lovely thing, indeed.
I am woefully ill-read on the reformation and subsequent development of the movements that grew out of it (I'll get to it in a few decades when I'm done with the first four centuries of the church) but I think I'm comfortable saying what you have described is too many Lutherans. We need to have an Olympics-meets-church-council competition featuring representatives of the different branches; medalists get to go on calling their branches "Lutheranism" (but hereafter "Gold Lutheranism, Silver Lutheranism, etc) and the rest need to adopt new verbiage. An ecumenical council of non-reformed judges will preside in the interest of fairness.
More seriously, I absolutely love the call for honesty and curiosity in our scholarship. I've been actively working through a lot of thoughts this past week or two on how to gracefully and lovingly communicate serious and fundamental differences of belief with friends and loved ones, and a call to loving curiosity feels like exactly the right advice at the right time.
Haha yes. I think that this was tried once upon a time in Europe, only with broader Christianity. And it didn’t turn out too well 😉
I’m so glad it resonated! I’m really on a kick lately with how our scholarship can be something is formed by and forming us in the life of virtue. 😁😊