“Unlike every other participant in this year-long conversation,” I wrote early in my lead essay this month for Following Jesus, “the Pietist Tradition has no ecclesial shape or institutional structure. And the number of Christians worldwide who identify as Pietist is vanishingly small.” But what Roger Olson calls the Pietist ethos shows up in virtually … More Following Jesus: The Pietist Tradition
According to church historian Carter Lindberg, that’s how German Lutherans in the early 18th century thought of Philipp Jakob Spener: second only to Martin Luther himself. Born this day in 1635, Spener is less remembered nowadays, but played a prominent role in renewing early modern Protestantism, as a popular preacher and writer and the founding … More A New Book about “The Second Greatest Lutheran Theologian”
Here’s the text of my Chapel talk at Bethel University last Friday morning. I’ll skip past some of the introductory remarks — mostly clarifying that Pietism, lamentably, has nothing to do with pie — and get right into the biblical passage for the talk. I explained that Luke 24 is what G.W. Carlson had urged … More The Pietist Option for Bethel (Luke 24)
Over the past months of transition, challenge, and uncertainty, I’ve learned something about myself: I’m a Pietist. It may seem like an obvious statement from someone who wrote a book called The Pietist Option and keeps a blog called The Pietist Schoolman. But I’m seeing even more clearly than before just how central Pietism is to my understanding … More I’m a Pietist
While my research has taken a new direction, I hope that Pietism will never be too long off my agenda. So I was grateful to Caleb Lindgren of Christianity Today for inviting me to write a profile of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705), the Lutheran pastor who is often considered the father of the Pietist movement. Though … More My Philipp Spener Profile for Christianity Today
This spring I’ve had the pleasure of teaching a group of adults who are planning a trip to Germany this fall. We started with a 90-minute tour of the Reformation last week and will conclude next Sunday with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but for the middle of our three-Sunday course, they were kind enough to let me … More If I Ever Led a Trip to Germany on the History of Pietism…
Let me suspend my Lenten hiatus just long enough to share the text of the sermon I delivered yesterday at Salem Covenant Church in New Brighton, Minnesota. It was the fourth in a “Path to Renewal” series inspired by The Pietist Option: Hope for the Renewal of Christianity, with my co-author — and Salem’s senior pastor … More The Path to Renewal: Be a Priest! (John 2:13-22)
I preached this sermon yesterday at Rice Creek Covenant Church in Lino Lakes, Minnesota. I was there partly to teach an adult class on The Pietist Option, but the text came from the congregation’s participation in our denomination’s Immerse Bible reading program. They’d just finished Exodus 1-24… I have to say, it’s risky to invite a non-preacher to … More God Will Speak… and We Will Die
“What’s Pietism?” It’s one of the most common questions I’m asked, and I still don’t have a concise answer cued up and ready to go. I’ll try to do better on that count before our book comes out this fall. But at least in some respects, I just want to sing yesterday’s pulpit hymn at … More Pietism in a (Musical) Nutshell
A couple years ago our family went to southern Iowa for a reunion. Noticing that the nearest town was called Moravia, I decided to take a morning to drive around… and discovered several examples of Moravian, Brethren, and other Pietist groups that had settled in that part of America. That tour of “Pietist Iowa” ended … More Pietist “Communism”: The Amana Colonies
The Pietist Schoolman 