Journal: Puritan Reformed Journal
Volume: PRJ 05:2 (Jul 2013)
Article: Reviving Dead Bones: Contours Of Pietism In The Writings Of Jodocus Van Lodenstein And Philipp Spener
Author: Stanley K. McKenzie

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PRJ 5:2 (July 2013) p. 153

Reviving Dead Bones:
Contours Of Pietism In The Writings Of Jodocus Van Lodenstein And Philipp Spener

Stanley K. McKenzie

The religious climate in some parts of Europe in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries shifted in reaction to the arid orthodoxy and airy spirituality of the age, a change known as Pietism.1 Characteristic to Pietism was an emphasis on an experienced faith.2 “Its interest was focussed upon deepening and strengthening the devotional life of people rather than upon correctness of theological definition or liturgical form,” F. Ernest Stoeffler writes.3 With an irenic spirit, it fought accommodation of the world in the church—whether in the form of “ecclesiasticism, theologism, and sacerdotalism,” or moral and spiritual superficiality. “Always and everywhere these people set themselves resolutely against an easy accommodation of the Church to the world, and they did so positively, through edificatory preaching and writing rather than by means of polemical attacks”—reform measures not always welcomed. Its effects touched church and home, preacher and pastor, social outreach and missions,

PRJ 5:2 (July 2013) p. 154

literature and education, and more.4 Its impulses were part of “revival of moral and religious earnestness” in Christendom that, negatively, “represented a protest against the formalism in doctrine, worship, and life into which churches and their members had fallen after the original impulses of the Reformation had dissipated,” and, positively, “represented an attempt to cultivate a keener awareness of the present reality of God’s judgment and grace and the bearing which these were believed to have on personal and social life.”5

Critics have charged Pietism with being overly subjective, focused on emotions, extreme, fanatical, and legalistic—elements no doubt present at times. But Pietism is also understood by its internal emphases, not external manifestations (whether extreme or not).6 Stoeffler identifies four characteristics Pietism exhibits regardless of where it is found working. First, in Pietism “the essence of Christianity is to be found in the personally meaningful relationship of the individual to God” as opposed to an excessive focus on liturgy or doctrine, cult, or theology. This characteristic at times accents an “inner identification with God” and speaks “much of the creative work of the Spirit.”

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