CO:L\ CORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY
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CO:l\ CORDIA THEOLOGICAL MONTHLY The Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament of rhe Altar According to Luther NORMAN NAGEL The Theology of Communism MARTIN H. SCHARLEMANN Thomas More and the Wittenberg Lutherans CARL S. MEYER Pietism: Classical and Modem - A Comparison of Two Representative Descriptions EGON W. GERDES Homiletics Brief Studies Book Review VolXXXIX April 1968 No.4 Pietism: Classical and Modern A Comparison of Two Representative Descriptions EGON \Y1. GERDES nly a few years after Philipp Jacob the death of the pietistic student in 1689:l O Spener in 1675 published his famous Still in the same year he followed this up Pia Desideria,l his followers were labeled with a short poem on the Pietists in gen "Pietists." 2 The new name spread to Leip eraL 5 These two poems taken together zig, where under the leadership of August form the first document of our considera Hermann Francke a group of students met tion. in the Collegium Philobiblicum. They also The forms of Pietism as they developed were nicknamed "Pietists." 3 Then one of around Spener and Francke and for which the students suddenly died. His funeral Feller speaks are most adequately sum was the occasion for the Leipzig professor marized as classical Pietism. Perhaps one of poetry, Joachim Feller, to say a word should also include in this its WT" ........~m about the new movement with which he berg manifestation as best represented by was in sympathy. And so he became the Johann Albrecht Bengel. It is this type of first man to identify himself with Pietism Pietism that we take as the one side of in a positive sense. He wrote a poem on our comparison. What is excluded then are, first, the various forms of radical 1 For a critical edition see Philipp Jacob Pietism that also influenced to some degree Spener, Pia Desideria, ed. Kurt Aland, 2d ed. Nikolaus Graf von Zinzendorf and the (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1955). This edition is Moravians. The related semipietistic the basis for the English translation, Pia Desi deria by Philipp Jacob Spener-, translated, edited, movements of Methodism and the Great and with an Introduction by Theodore G. Tap Awakening are also excluded.6 All these pert (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1964). The introduction is very helpful for the historical 4 Quoted in full by Johann Georg Walch, context of the document. Einleitung in die Religionsstreitigkeiten det' 2 For the rise of the name "Pietists" see Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirchen, von der Re Martin Schmidt's valuable introduction to the formation an bis auf ietzige Zeiten ausgefUhret, source book Das Zeitalter des Pietismus, ed. 1st ed., 1730; 2d ed., 1733 (Jena: Meyer), I, Martin Schmidt and Wilhelm Jannasch (Bre 548H. men: Schiinemann, 1965), particularly pp. 32 H. 5 Also quoted in full ibid., p. 579. 3 The events at Leipzig have been discussed 6 As to the various pietistic groups, their most recently by Erich Beyreuther, August Her differences and relations, the following articles mann Francke, Zeuge des lebendigen Gottes, in dictionaries give the necessary basic informa 2d ed. (Marburg: Francke-Buchhandlung, tion: Martin Schmidt, "Pietismus" in Religion 1961), pp. 61 H. i1~ Geschichte ttnd Gegenwart, ed. Kurt Galling (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1961), V, colI. 370-8l. This article recently appeared in English trans Egan W. Gerdes is professor of historical lation in The Encyclopedia 0/ the Lutheran theology at Garrett Theological Seminary, Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1965). Cf. Evanston, Ill. Ernst Beyreuther, "Pietismus" in Evangelisches 257 258 PIETISM: CLASSICAL AND MODERN early forms of Pietism of the late 17th ingful, let us present our documents in and early 18th centuries were revived, full. The 1689 poems by Joachim Feller though in different forms, in the 19th cen run as follows in a rather literal and non tury, even in various manifestations of rhyming English translation: revivalism or Neopietism.7 Wherever Pi The name of the Pietists is now known all etism is prevalent today, it is this 19th-cen over town. tury type that determines its life rather Who is a Pietist? He who studies the than classical Pietism. But we do not want Word of God to discuss the 19th century in its own right And leads also a holy life according to it. either. We rather wish to look at Pietism That is well done, well for every Christian. in its modern form, although it may be For this amounts to nothing if after the dependent on 19th-century developments. manner of rhetoricians In 1965 a Methodist minister, Charles And disputants one puts on airs in the Merrill Smith, became the spokesman for pulpit the antipietist party of the church. In his And does not live holy as one ought to, book How to Become a Bishop without according to the teaching. Being Religious 8 he gives an equally classic Piety must previously nest in the heart. definition of modern Pietism as Feller did It also builds ten times more than well -.,. -'GreIs, for classical T "~,w"'l. The mair ,. N e between th.... tI"ro is that Feller is pro Even all scholarship, it also is of profit here and there. pietistic whereas Smith attacks Pietism. Thus, because the deceased was, 1ll addi But this takes us into the actual com tion to several fine gifts, parison, which we will defer until we have And never-ceasing diligence, a good looked at the documents themselves. Pietist, In order to make the comparison mean- Therefore he is now also a good Quietist. Kirchenlexikon, ed. Heinz Brunotte and Otto The soul rests well in God, the body Weber (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, equally well in the grave. 1959), III, colI. 216-21. Kurt Aland, "Pi etismus" in Weltkirchenlexikon, ed. Franklin H. I have recently thought of the Pietists Littell and Hans Hermann Walz ( Stuttgart: here, Kreuz-Verlag, 1960), coIL 1151-56. A mod ern and extensive discussion of the history and And that in its basic meaning and apart theology of Pietism has not yet been written, from heresy. but the present writer is preparing A History And where is heresy? The name is not of Pietism for both a German and an American new, either, publisher. And useful, as one names the lawyers 7 For the revival movements of Neopietism after law. see Friedrich Wilhelm Kantzenbach, Die Br I myself will herewith admit without shy weckungsbewegung (Neuendettelsau: Freimund, 1957), and Ernst Beyreuther, Die Brweckungs ness bewegung, Fascicle R., xxxI, in Vol. 4 of Die That I am a Pietist without disgrace and Kirche in ihrer Geschichte, ed. Kurt Dietrich hypocrisy.9 Schmidt and Ernst Wolf (Gottingen: Vanden hoeck & Ruprecht, 1963). 9 The German original is given by Walch 8 Charles Merrill Smith, How to Become a as follows: Bishop without Being Religious (Garden City, Es ist ietzt Stadt-bekannt det Nahm der Pietisten, N. Y.: Doubleday, 1965). Was ist ein Pietist? def Gottes Wort studirt, PIETISM: CLASSICAL AND MODERN 259 The 1965 discussion of piety by Charles A genuinely religious man is, as the Merrill Smith is for our purposes sum sociologists would say, inner-directed. He marized in the following statements of his: has deep and abiding convictions usually derived from his faith in God and what Perhaps the best single word to de he believes to be God's will. Thus he is scribe the flavor of personality one must likely to be socially irresponsible, largely strive to achieve is "pious." This implies uninterested in the kind of impression he that the preacher will gather up in him makes on people, often involved in un self a host of qualities and characteristics popular causes. He tends to be a crusader, and distill them into an esssence which frequently intolerant of what he conceives he exudes at all times, and which adver to be injustice or evil. Unfortunately he tizes unmistakably that there is a man of much prayer and meditation and lofty is usually tactless, making enemies un necessarily and thus becoming an embar thoughts, a man who has disentangled rassment to the church. himself from the secular, soiling concerns which obsess men - in short, a clergy ... He is the fellow who gives rise to man. the suspicion that the church is socialistic and brings the whole clerical profession into disrepute .... Here we must pause to make a distinc The pious man, on the other hand, tion betwen "religious" and "pious." seems more religious to the layman than the religious man because he tries very und nach demselben auch ein heilig Leben hard to fit the image that laymen conjure fiihrt. Das ist ia wahl gethan! ia wahl van ieden up when they think of "preacher." Christen. Denn dieses machts nicht aus, wenn man nach Rhetaristen You see, as ourselves we have tastes, preju Und Disputanten Art sich auf der Canzel dices, habits, manners, idiosyncrasies which ziert, often are directly opposed to the pious Und nach der Lehre nicht lebt heilig, wie image we must strive to create, and if we gebiihrt. permit their expression, they will ruin the Die Pietat die muss voraus im Herzen nisten. Die baut auch zehmal mehr, als wohlgesetzte image. No one is naturally pious. It has Wort, to be learned.... 10 Ia alle Wissenschaft, sie nutzt auch hier und dart. In the following comparison of classical Drum weil der Seelge war bey mancher schonen and modern Pietism we want to restrict Gabe, ourselves to a consideration of the docu Und nimmer miidden Fleis, ein guter Pietist, So ist er nunmehr auch ein guter Quietist. ments offered. It must be granted that Die Seel ruht wahl in Gatt, der Leib auch such a procedure involves the great danger wahl im Grabe.