Pietism: good or bad?

[Claes]

I am new here, and have a burning question. I searched "pietism" in discussions, and discovered that it is mostly used in a negative way. Why is this? My dictionary says 1. it was a movement that stressed personal piety over religious formality and orthodoxy, 2. intensity of religious devotion or feeling. John Wesley was influenced by the pietists and is revered. Help! I don't see the bogey.

[Char]

PIETISM sux.

[Rey Reynoso]

Come on, explain why, Char!

[Char]

We have discussed the problems inherent with it in other discussions. Pietism was one of Wesley's weakest and most dangerous points. One can be a genuine Christian and be a pietist, so don't think the negativity is denying their salvation or anything of the like. But it is destructive in sometimes unforeseen ways.

First and foremost, it is almost completely inward focused. It is about what you are doing, how you are feeling, the kind of religious devotion you show. You, you, you. This is expressed in your own statement that it stresses personal piety over orthodoxy. Christianity is conversely meant to be Christ focused. It focuses on something outside of you. Something foreign and alien.

That said, it has a strong tendency to look away from Christ. It doesn't deny him or anything, he just takes a back seat. His work becomes downplayed next to your own. Wesley's theology is sometimes derisively characterized as law-gospel-law. That is, the power of the gospel is abandoned quickly for an adherence again to the law. Pietistic churches tend to be long on law and short on gospel, thinking gospel is something that only unbelievers need to have preached to them. Christians don't look to Christ for their current and future righteousness, instead they are encouraged to look once again to themselves. This puts people into a sort of bondage to the law that the gospel was meant to free them from. It's like a fake free for 90 days offer that you later find out is going to cost you everything.

Again noting from that quote, it is highly individualistic, and denies that Christian piety is lived out in community. Rather it is lived out inside of me. But it does not really acknowledge that I am the problem. Inward focus has been our problem from the beginning-it is not going to be solved by looking inward more piously. Even our good works are meant for the benefit of our neighbour, not ourselves-as they often become in the pietist mindset-works to show how good you are, how faithful. Given all of that, Pietists often have a weak view of both the law and our sinfulness.

I have mentioned that pietism tends to create christians who vascilate between self-righteousness and despair. It does this because again pietists look to themselves. When they see themselves as succeeding, they become type 1 pietists-they think they are really good people and the gospel slips into the background-the gospel is after all something good and successful people do not need to hear again and again. But when they fail they become type 2 pietists-the ones who look at themselves and want to die because they have failed God repeatedly. Pietism does not offer them the comfort of Christ, the reality their experience denies.

I think this mode of thinking is also why you see people often "rededicating" their lives or responding to altar calls many times. It's the only way one is allowed grace for their failure. They get one kick at the can of grace at conversion then are on their own-but they know instinctively they need the blood of Christ repeatedly.

I also note that orthodoxy means right belief-pietists stress right action over right belief. I do think there is some opposition there, but I would take the former over the latter, because it stresses Christ rather than myself, and I know I can never live totally right. He did it for me.

I could go on, but I think that inwardness is the main point to be understood.

[Char]

I was getting to that Rey.

Rey Reynoso said:

Come on, explain why, Char!

[Rey Reynoso]

I see that now.

Essentially, Pietism looks a lot like what took Paul a chapter and a half (with introduction and repeated again in the third chapter) to lay the groundwork Against, to then deal with it at the end of Chapter 2 of Colossians.

The Christian looks at his situation, thinks "man I'm fleshly" and thinks "to defeat the flesh I have to come up with the right rules against the flesh." Submitting themselves to this new authority they ignore that all the treasures (not part of them) of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in the incarnate God, and they are already complete in Him. Paul actually employs a realized eschatology to get the point across (while still acknowledging the truth statement of eschatology to be) when he says things like "you were already circumcised in Christ's circumcision, you were already buried in Christ's burial, you were already resurrected in Christ's resurrection).

The irony is that the Pietist is investing in the flesh to control the flesh by ignoring that he's already complete, as it were. Paul says as much in the end of that chapter. It looks great, has a nice religious sheen to it, but in the end it's cyclical, hopeless and merely a shadow while Christ is the real deal, where the hope is found, the true substance.

[Lisa Robinson]

I don't typically quote from the Message, but I love Eugene Peterson's rendering here of Gal 2:19-21, which is quite appropriate in addressing pietism and Char's point:

"What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn't work. So I quit being a "law man" so that I could be God's man. Christ's life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not "mine," but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God's grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."

[Alan Askins]

We spent a few years in a Disciple's congregation. They viewed themselves as pietist. I wouldn't characterize them as committed to the Law since there was not any 1 of the big 10 they didn't tolerate (or applaud) transgressing. They were legalistic in ways pertaining to their Disciples distinctives.

To Char's point they were very "me" focused, very emotional, very prideful. They saw themselves as a light for justice, champions for the oppressed, which they defined as those disenfranchized souls discriminated against for reasons of race, gender, and sexual orientation, or whatever the cause du jour happened to be at any given time. Anything but Christ, though they might attach his name citing their favorite verse, "What would Jesus do?" Numerous hymns and responsive readings were focused on these topics, not Christ.

But let a man cheat on his wife and bring his mistress to church regularly with his young wife sitting at the back alone, no problem there. He got all the backslaps, handshakes, and love. She got nothing. But, hey, because they thought he needed forgiveness it made them feel better emotionally; and feeling better emotionally, or as they would call it, having a spiritual experience, an encounter with the Divine, is what they sought. And why else would anyone go to church but to have a spiritual experience?

One other point: They took pride in being different from those other churches that focused on doctrine. When I announced to the elder board that I was leaving the church to join a Bible church, the head hireling retorted, "Brother Alan needs to spend some time in Egypt." I saw it as escaping Gomorrah.

I agree there needs to be balance. I believe where sound doctrine is taught balance will be present.

[Jnorm]

It is my personal oppinion that Pietism saved the western world from becoming complete atheists.


Thus, if it wasn't for the pietist movement, western protestant christianity would of died a long time ago............it's rationalism would of completely caved in to Atheism. It was Pietism that kept protestantism alive.


When I was protestant, I was a major fan of William Law, I also liked John Wesly.




Jnorm888

[Char]

Wow so many errors for such a short statement. I'd really like to see you prove them historically Jnorm. Historic Protestantism is not rationalist, nor is it friendly to Atheism. Pietism was a repudiation of Protestant doctrine. Thus it could hardly be credited with "keeping alive" something it ultimately opposed and tried to replace. Historic Protestantism survived in spite of pietism, not because of it. Pietism was in fact a capitulation to modernism, particularly in terms of privatization of faith.

[Claes]

Great posts, Im learning. Pietist= self-centered goody-goody. In the 17th century pietism must have been something different. Remember it was a reaction to religious formalism. Pietists taught a young, self-centered, goody-goody John Wesley about free grace. Old pietist hymns have no trace of piosity.

[Greg Smith]

At least in Lutheran circles, Pietism as developed by Francke and Spener, was a response to the dead orthodoxy that Lutheranism had become. I am not saying Pietism is right or wrong. I am saying that if the theology had been more sound in practice, Pietism would not have happened.

Interestingly enough, I have included a link below that criticizes "liturgical pietism." This from a LCMS pastor that is no pietist.

http://cyberbrethren.com/2009/07/04/a-fraternal-warning-against-the...

[Char]

No I wouldn't necessarily say that. It was always inward focused from Spener on (though it is true that it got more extreme as time went along). As mentioned it was in some ways a reaction, yet reactions almost always make fundamental errors to avoid whatever they are reacting against.

I included Wesley in my description for that reason-he did make errors associated with pietism. Holiness teaching does come out of Wesley after all. When I mentioned law-gospel-law, note that "free grace" (gospel) is sandwiched in the middle. So it was there. No Pietist denies it, it's just not the most important thing after conversion-it fades to the background (more for some than others admittedly). Grace often isn't what sustains one's sanctification, or at the very best it only helps you out a little. Regardless it's still ultimately you doing the work.

Claes said:

Great posts, Im learning. Pietist= self-centered goody-goody. In the 17th century pietism must have been something different. Remember it was a reaction to religious formalism. Pietists taught a young, self-centered, goody-goody John Wesley about free grace. Old pietist hymns have no trace of piosity.