A Companion to German Pietism: 1660–1800 ed. by Douglas H. Schantz (review)

This handsomely produced volume on the German Pietist movement of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries brings together essays by sixteen contemporary North American and European scholars, organized under four general categories: theology, devotional practice, culture, and social/political influence. The editor, Douglas H. Schantz, author of An Introduction to German Pietism (Johns Hopkins, 2013), is a major scholar in the field, with a wide network of colleagues who have taken up the subject of Pietism, both Lutheran and Reformed, considering it in a wide variety of movements such as Puritanism, Methodism, Quakers, Catholic spirituality, and even Judaism. The general thesis that these scholars share and promote is that Pietism is both a precursor of and participant in the emergence of western modernity as it is characterized by “a mentality which demanded experiential verification of the claims of faith” (18). This general characteristic brings to mind Descartes and his intellectual descendants in philosophy; Bacon and modern scientific method; and in religion, popular movements of revival that renewed western Christendom after a century of religious warfare and fueled Protestant global missions.

This thesis of the connection to modernity is a direct counter to the common argument, made famous by Albrecht Ritschl that Pietism is a moralistic, world-denying child of late medieval piety, un-Lutheran in its demand for conversion, making of faith a “work of the Law.” Out of this school of interpretation comes the tired argument of some confessionalists that Pietism is an enemy of orthodox Christianity which properly asserts the unconditionality of grace. This confessionalist argument has its merits, but also its dangers; among them the reduction of Christian faith to the formalism of sacramental incorporation (see Kierkegaard) and the “cheap grace” of the state church (see Bonhoeffer). Instead, the scholars in this volume follow in the train of Weber and Troeltsch who asserted a connection between sectarian Christianity and the type of society that emerged in Europe and America after 1700 where Christianity can no longer rely on the establishment of “throne and altar,” but depends on voluntary allegiance, personal commitment, and freedom from government control.

These observations are somewhat countered or at least modified by the first essay, “Pietism and Protestant Orthodoxy” by Markus Mathias of the Protestant University of Theology in Amsterdam. Mathias argues that “Orthodox theologians” (I prefer the term Scholastic) of the 1600s were troubled by the failure of the church, especially under conditions shaped by decades of warfare and privation, to nurture the faith and practical discipline of ordinary Christians and made what he calls “church-political attempts” (20) to do such things as limit the effects of theological controversies and enhance pastoral visitation, compulsory religious education, catechization, and the teaching of faith in public worship. Upon these efforts the Pietists would build. A fine article on “Pietism and Music” by Tanya Kervorkian of Millersville University examines, among other things, the distinction between hymns and art music, such as cantatas, organ preludes, postludes, and the like, and instrumental music meant to inspire the faithful in worship settings.

Among the finds is a provocative essay by Ulrike Gleixner, “Pietism and Gender.” Experiential verification of faith as the motive force of the movement means that women as well as men had to think about their relation to God as “reborn” and assess their role in family and society anew. Also notable is an essay on Pietism and the Jews by Peter Vogt which asserts that Pietists saw themselves as companions to Jewish spiritual traditions and partners in God’s eschatological plan for his people. Riches and surprises abound in this substantial volume. All essays are of the highest quality.