ROGER E. OLSON and CHRISTIAN T. COLLINS WINN. Reclaiming Pietism: Retrieving an Evangelical Tradition. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2015. Pp. 190. $18.00 (U.S.)
If you know anything at all about the Brethren in Christ Church, you probably know it has been influenced theologically by Anabaptism, Pietism, and Wesleyanism. Perhaps you also know “Pietism” is the somewhat “unknown” factor compared to the other two streams. And if Pietism is not an unknown quantity, it may well be a misunderstood one. Mention Pietism to many people and they associate it with “other worldliness,” religious legalism, and smug superior religious attitudes. As Roger Olson and Christian Collins Winn concede, “‘Pietism’ is a bad word, or so claim common opinion and usage. We want to challenge and correct that. . . . In this little book we hope to brush off, clean up and reclaim our own Pietist heritage” (p. x).
An obvious next question for Olson and Collins Winn is why did they embark on such a project. They offer two reasons. First, they think “Pietism is an important element in Evangelical Christianity that still has rich resources for spiritual renewal of individuals and communities” (Pp. xi-xii). Second, they “believe that Pietism still has much to offer contemporary Christians who are interested in the spiritual life and in developing a theology that is grounded in experience while at the same time remaining biblically faithful” (p. xii). And so the authors set relatively straightforward goals. They want to explore and “[engage] the history of Pietism to understand the original motives and themes that energized the movement” (p. 1), and they hope to correct “myths and misconceptions about Pietism” while making their case that the ethos of the original movement is “a powerful resource for the renewal of contemporary Christianity” (p. 5).
Their goals are accomplished in eight chapters. The book addresses various misconceptions regarding the movement and then moves on to identify influential precursors, such as Christian mystics and classic devotional writers. Chapter three tells of Pietism as a movement intending to reform the Reformation; it also tells of the movement’s two primary figures, Philipp Jakob Spener and August Hermann Francke. Because Pietism was a diverse movement, the next chapter addresses radical Pietism, Count Zinzendorf, and the Württemberg version of Pietism. Chapter five is crucial and it outlines the movement’s key themes, while the next chapter describes how those themes were transplanted to Britain and North America. Chapters seven and eight identify various theologians from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who display Pietistic tendencies, such as Schleirermacher, Kierkegaard, the Blumhardts, Donald Bloesch, Richard Foster, Stanley Grenz, and Jürgen Moltmann.
As a person who essentially self identifies as a Pietist, and as one who is frustrated by the misconceptions surrounding Pietism, my great temptation is to gush simply and joyfully at this book’s publication. As Olson and Collins Winn note, for years scholars have been developing new and more accurate understandings of Pietism; however, the vast majority of these works are not accessible to non-scholars (p. xi). This text is. Despite covering over 500 years of history and some rather complex theological concepts, this book is very accessible. Sufficient details are offered in order to understand the proverbial “lay of the land” without the overwhelming detail some writers offer. And Olson and Collins Winn describe these crucial elements in an engaging fashion.
The central contribution the text provides is a clear and concise description of the ten “hallmarks of Pietism” (p. 84). I especially appreciated the emphasis on “transformation” which appears in a number of those hallmarks. Sadly, a stereotype of Pietism includes the notion that such people are primarily concerned with personal salvation and their post-death destiny. This, however, is very different than what the early Pietists espoused. They argued the Christian faith was “experiential [and] transformative” (p. 85, hallmark one) and Christianity was to be “visible,” stressing “holy living and transformed character” (p. 85, hallmark five). These two characteristics would result in a third hallmark: “world transformation toward the kingdom of God (p. 85, hallmark eight). When a person meets the crucified and risen Christ they enter into a relationship with God (hallmark four), and that experience and relationship makes them different people who then impact the world for good. Olson and Collins Winn do a superb job of unpacking these hallmarks and describing how various historical figures both understood them intellectually and lived them out.
While the book deserves this affirmation, it is not without problems. While Olson and Collins Winn do highlight that Scripture was crucial to the Pietists’ understanding of the Christian life, they do not go much deeper than affirming the Bible “as a medium of an immediate relationship with God” (p. 85, hallmark six). There is very little analysis of specific and recurring biblical texts that the various Pietist individuals and groups employed. In fact, the book’s index has only forty items relating to the very general topics of Scripture, devotion to Scripture, Scripture and the Holy Spirit, and the illumination and inspiration of Scripture, but no items relating to specific biblical texts. And the real frustration for Brethren in Christ readers will be found in chapter six (“Where Pietism Flourished on New Soil”). In their sub-section entitled “Moravians in America” (pp. 123-128), the authors offer a rather complex depiction of the “various ‘Brethren’ churches spawned by Pietism—not to be confused with the Moravian Brethren” (p. 125). Ultimately they suggest, “Out of the original Dunkers or German Baptist Brethren movement emerged many uniquely American Pietist denominations, colleges, and missionary agencies” (p. 127), and then they cite both the Brethren in Christ Church and Messiah College. It is my understanding that we do not trace our roots back to that movement.
Despite those negative points, I very highly recommend this book to anyone desiring an essentially sound, engaging, basic, and informative text about Pietism.