PIETISM, a movement in the Lutheran Church, which arose towards the end of the 17th and continued during the first half of the following century. The name of Pietists was given to the adherents of the movement as a term of ridicule, like that of "Methodists" somewhat later in England. The Lutheran Church had continued Melanchthon's attempt to construct the evangelical faith as a doctrinal system ; and it appeared to many faithful adherents to have become a creed-bound theological and sacra mentarian institution, where the dogmatic formularies of the Church had usurped the position which Luther himself had as signed to the Bible alone. The influence of the Reformed Church (q.v.) on the other hand, in spite of the predestinarianism of Calvin, made less for doctrine than the practical formation of Christian life. The Presbyterian constitution gave the people a share in church life which the Lutherans lacked, but it involved a dogmatic legalism which imperilled Christian freedom and fos tered self-righteousness.
The direct originator of the movement for the revival of a practical and devout Christianity was Philip Jacob Spener, who combined the Lutheran emphasis on Biblical doctrine with the Reformed tendency to vigorous Christian life. Born at Rappolts weiler in Alsace on the 13th of January 1635, trained by a devout godmother, who used books of devotion like Arndt's True Chris tianity, accustomed to hear the sermons of a pastor who preached the Bible more than the Lutheran creeds, Spener was early con vinced of the necessity of a moral and religious reformation of the German Church. He studied theology, with a view to the Christian ministry, at Strassburg and entered upon his first pas toral charge at Frankfort-on-the-Main, profoundly impressed with a sense of the danger of the Christian life being sacrificed to zeal for rigid orthodoxy. Pietism, as a distinct movement in the Ger man Church, was then originated by Spener by religious meetings at his house (collegia pietatis), at which he repeated his sermons, expounded passages of the New Testament, and induced those present to join in conversation on religious questions that arose. They gave rise to the name "Pietists." In 1675 Spener published his Pia desideria, or Earnest Desires for a Reform of the True Evangelical Church. In this publication he made six proposals as the best means of restoring the life of the Church : the earnest and thorough study of the Bible in private meetings, ecclesiolae in ecclesia; (2) the Christian priesthood being universal, the laity should share in the spiritual government of the Church; (3) a knowledge of Christianity must be attended by the practice of it as its indispensable sign and supplement ; (4) instead of merely didactic, and often bitter, attacks on the heterodox and unbe lievers, a sympathetic and kindly treatment of them; (5) a re organization of the theological training of the universities, giving more prominence to the devotional life; and (6) a different style of preaching, namely, in the place of pleasing rhetoric, the im planting of Christianity in the inner or new man, the soul of which is faith, and its effects the fruits of life. This work pro
duced a great impression throughout Germany, and although large numbers of the orthodox Lutheran theologians and pastors were deeply offended by Spener's book, its complaints and its demands were both too well justified to admit of their being point-blank de nied. A large number of pastors at once practically adopted Spener's proposals. In Paul Gerhardt the movement found a singer whose hymns are genuine folk poetry. In 1686 Spener ac cepted an appointment to the court-chaplaincy at Dresden, which opened to him a wider though more difficult sphere of labour. One of his most enthusiastic disciples was August Hermann Francke, who had founded the famous orphanage at Halle, and with the aid of Christian Thomasius and Spener founded the new university there. The theological chairs were filled in conformity with Spener's proposals. Spener died in 1705; but the movement, guided by Francke, spread over Middle and North Germany. One of its greatest achievements was the organization of the Moravian Church in 1727 by Count von Zinzendorf, Spener's godson and a pupil in the Halle Orphanage.
Pietism, of course, had its weaknesses. Many Pietists main tained that the new birth must always be preceded by agonies of repentance, and that only a regenerated theologian could teach theology, while the whole schoOl shunned all common worldly amusements, such as dancing, the theatre, and public games. There thus arose a new form of justification by works.
As a distinct movement Pietism had run its course before the middle of the 18th century ; by its very individualism it had helped to prepare the way for another great movement, the Il lumination (A ufkliirung).