One problem with trying to serve as the representative of “the Pietist tradition” is that Pietism is not so much an ecclesial or even theological tradition as a religious ethos that leavens other Christian traditions. That includes the Baptist denomination that sponsors my rather pietistic university, the Brethren churches that draw on Pietism and Anabaptism […]
Any Pietist should hesitate to write critically about Catholicism, since anti-Catholicism is so deeply rooted in our tradition. For all his desire for Christian unity and his disinclination to engage in nasty polemics, Pietist pioneer Philipp Jakob Spener was as hostile to the Catholic Church as most other German Lutheran pastors in the era after […]
As people who like to talk about new birth, new life, and the church and world made new, we Pietists set ourselves up to undervalue what’s old. That’s particularly true of Pietism’s Radical wing, which experimented with a dizzying array of innovations in Christian belief, practice, and community in the 18th century. But even those […]
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