Pietists & Puritans

BY PASTOR TERRY CULLER

Most people reading these words know that the AFLC has a heritage of Scandinavian Pietism. I suspect that those same people know some, but not much, of the history of what has been called Puritanism, and, as I have said when I taught classes on the Puritans, most of what you “know” might very well be wrong. In this article, I hope to show that there is a great kinship between these two particular ways of living faithful lives and “doing church,” and that this was recognized by at least some of the Pietists and Puritans of the past.

Pietism can be said to have had its start in the Lutheran Church when a pastor named Johann Arndt published a book called True Christianity. I have read that German immigrants to America in the 18th century often brought two books with them: Luther’s translation of the Bible and Arndt’s True Christianity. When another pastor named Philipp Jacob Spener wrote a new introduction to Arndt’s work, he called his article Pia Desideria, or “Pious Desires.” The Lutheran Church had strayed from Martin Luther’s vision of church life by focusing too much on holding right opinions on doctrine without paying the necessary attention to living a Christian lifestyle. It would probably be too strong to say that the Church didn’t care at all how its members lived as long as they agreed with Lutheran doctrine, but certainly a biblical lifestyle was not front and center in their teaching.

Puritanism began as a movement to further reform the Church of England after Elizabeth I came to the throne. The early Puritans wanted a presbyterian organization like that found in John Calvin’s Geneva, where many of the Puritans sought refuge during the repressive anti-Protestant reign of Elizabeth’s sister Mary. Puritans especially sought to remove what they saw as remnants of Roman Catholic teaching and practices in the English Church. The Puritan movement began before the Pietist movement and actually impacted the development of Pietism as the writings of early Puritans circulated among Protestants in Europe.

Puritans focused much of their teaching on what they called “experimental” Christianity, which we would translate into modern English as “experiential” Christianity. Without denying the importance of doctrine (indeed, as Calvinists, they held doctrine dear), Puritans contended that real (or, as Arndt called it, true) Christianity involved a change in a Christian’s way of life. As Calvinists, they would have known that the subtitle of Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion was intended, as Calvin said, for direction in godliness. The Puritan William Ames described it as “living to God.”

Spener made use of what was called in the 17th century “the order of salvation.” This is the pattern in which the Holy Spirit works out the salvation of the believer. First, the believer is elected, then called, and then illumined. He or she is then converted, regenerated, justified, united with Christ, renovated, preserved to the end, and finally glorified in Christ. This theological approach, somewhat at odds with what was widely regarded as orthodox among many Lutheran clergy, focused more on the experience of God in the life of the individual than simply having the Church tell the laity what they were to believe without encouragement to true Christian living.

The English and Scottish Puritans and the German and Scandinavian Pietists each lived in a world where the government controlled the Church. The governments wanted to control church life as they tried controlling everything else so that there would be unity among their people in most things. If clergy, controlled directly or indirectly by the government, were the only teachers and leaders in the church, then local governments felt comfortable. But both the Puritans and the Pietists encouraged what were then called conventicles, which we refer to as small groups. Both groups also were open to relationships across church body lines, something that caused concern among the leaders. For example, the American Puritan leader Cotton Mather carried on an extended correspondence relationship with August Hermann Francke, a student of Spener and the leader of the University of Halle (Germany).

Satan always seeks ways to turn anything in the Church against the true faith, and heresy is always a potential as people explore their faith lives. Unfortunately, both Pietism and Puritanism have occasionally spawned factions that distort the truth and lead people off the narrow path. That said, both movements have been influential in encouraging both a personal and a corporate emphasis on a living faith in both private and public arenas. And both are finding new adherents today.

Culler is a member of St. Paul’s Lutheran, Hagerstown, Md. Artwork: “Coventicle in Nordkapp, Norway,” 1931, Wiki Commons. “Philipp Jacob Spener,” c. 1675, Rijksmuseum.