An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe

Explaining what a ‘Pietist’ was in 1689, Joachim Feller answered: ‘What is a Pietist? One who studies God’s Word and leads a holy life according to it’. While this was an earnest response from a member of the internally oriented group, many church historians have given similarly earnest, but simplistic answers. Pietist studies (especially in English) have tended to describe the Pietist movement in mystical and experiential terms, and jump to the conclusion that this was the next logical step in the history of Protestantism. Douglas Shantz’s book An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal and the Dawn of Modern Europe is tasked with answering the same question that Feller was asked in 1689. Shantz’s broad introduction to Pietism gives us the clearest answers possible for such a loaded question, and is easily the most thorough history of Pietism available in English. While Shantz provides particular theological markers to look for in the so-called Pietists (thankfully he does not locate Pietism in a vague mysticism, but in a post-millennial eschatology and the social phenomenon of conventicles), he is also careful to allow the larger movement to move freely between what Johannes Wallman somewhat restrictively termed the ‘broad’ and ‘narrow’ Pietists. This book is especially helpful in bringing to the forefront some of the figures whose work has remained in the background, behind Philip Jakob Spener and Augustus Francke. Jean de Labadie, Gerhard Teerstegen and Johann Jakob Schütz all receive due credit for their parts in expanding the religious movement beyond its usual confines of Halle, Frankfurt and Leipzig.