Probably we Reformed are the most, if not almost the only, vulnerable group to Pietism. Congregating in the local church and actively trying to manifest love to our brothers and neighbours has been the best remedy for this.
I disagree. I was part of a non-denominational church with an Arminian bent for several years, and they were very strong on expository preaching, one-on-one discipleship, equipping members for evangelism and apologetics, and encouraging deep, meaningful fellowship among its members. For a church of its size, (and it would qualify as a megachurch) Biblical illiteracy was not much of an issue as it is in most of modern American evangelicalism. Many, if not most members knew their Bibles fairly well and took sanctification seriously. But personal study of God's Word, evangelistic outreach, and regular fellowship beyond the typical Sunday morning and Wednesday night schedule found in many churches were emphasized so much to the point that just about anything outside of that was met with suspicion as being "worldly," or something to that effect. "Oh, you're going to miss one of the five meetings scheduled throughout the week? You better be hanging out with friends that you plan on inviting to homechurch." "You're pretty invested in politics. You do know our citizenship is in heaven, and that we're not to be entangled in civilian affairs, right?" "What's that? You just accepted a job offer for a position that has some conflicts with our schedule? You must love this world, desiring to store up treasures here on earth, and you are uncommitted to Christ's bride." I'm speaking somewhat hyperbolically, but statements like the ones above are characteristic of the mentality a lot of people had when I was there. And this was compounded by the fact that dispensational premillennialism was taught. "We're just passing through, and Jesus could return very soon, so why bother trying to build something that won't last?" I was part of the problem, too. I once met someone from another church that told me that she wanted to start a business, and I silently judged her, thinking that she had misplaced priorities, selfish ambition, and a love for money. Basically, career planning and following Christ were antithetical in my mind. I was led to believe that any line of work that did not have some connection to evangelistic endeavors was virtually meaningless. As such, working towards leadership in ministry within the church or at some Christian non-profit was the only course of action with eternal, spiritual significance. And the spiritual was always to be prioritized over that which was deemed earthly. TL; DR: Non-reformed churches can be vulnerable to this, too-maybe even more-so. I came from an arminian dispy (and perhaps R2K) church, and I am recovering from Pietism.
@@charlesa.monagan4159 wow thanks for the writeup! Love to hear about real life experiences of other brothers. That was a really deceptive; no way anyone would have known until its too late. Everything sounded beautiful and even very impressive for Mega Church. I just recently joined a local Presbyterian Church after almost a lifetime of Pentecostalism and I’m still shocked about how chill they are. They certainly focus on Sanctification and do great expository preaching but they dont keep track of your every daily move. They help and expect you to find your own individual path of sanctification, based on Biblical principles. I still have to see how they behave in the face of sinning church members though. We’ll see.
@@kenim My pleasure. I pray that God would help us all learn to take sin seriously and respond accordingly, beginning with our own. We must put to death our own individual sins, and much of evangelicalism must collectively repent of tossing Matthew 18 aside and foregoing proper church discipline within our congregations.
Pietists invented small group Bible study led by lay people . Before them lutherans only allowed educated clergy to debate doctrine. The pietists reacted to too much emphasis on head knowledge with often no heart reality. It was almost like the whole church reformed but many of those truly saved in later decades turned to pietism after a book by Spener (froward)
“. . . [One] common error concerning salvation which prevailed . . . [in the feudal era] and continues to prevail now was the identification of salvation with spirituality. The material world was held to be, by neoplatonists and others, evil and fallen, and the spiritual world good. Salvation thus meant forsaking material things for things spiritual, and asceticism and flights from the world to the life of a hermit became common among pagans. These pagan movements exerted a deep influence on many Christians and led to the monastic movement, and, much later, to pietism. According to Scripture, however, man is totally fallen, in all his being, _i.e.,_ the extent of the Fall affects every aspect of his being. The Fall is apparent in his ‘spirit’ as much as in his ‘body.’ Man is a unity, and the Fall affected the whole man. There is no virtue inherent in either spirit or matter, and the Fall had its origin in the mind of man, so that the scholastic view (derived from Aristotle) that the mind is untainted by the Fall is clearly wrong. Satan is entirely a spiritual being; he is a creature, with a local being, but he is not part of the material universe but of the angelic or spiritual order of beings. Satan as a spiritual creature is still fallen. The mind or spirit of man is not exempt from sin, and the more men have imagined that separation from the material world unto a spiritual or mental ivory tower constitutes virtue, the more they have blinded themselves to their sin.” - Rousas J. Rushdoony, _The Death of Meaning,_ pp. 108-109
Brother I am not a pietist , but as a lecturer of church history when you say pietists are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use … you have zero idea of the history of the pietists … the Lutheran Count Zinzendorf was a pietist whose leadership led to hundreds of sacrificial missionaries (2 willing to become slaves in the West Indies to reach slaves with the gospel). There were pietist schools , orphanages for poor folk and their whole point was being practical on earth while glorifying God in Heaven. They were revolutionary in that they educated poor folks children for free with a Bible basis. They believed in the priesthood of the believers and small group Bible studies (while still attending church) which was radical in that the reformation did much good through Luther but the Lutheran church became exclusive , academic / scholastic and only clergy could lead anything like a Bible study. Pietism changed all that in a practical way. As the puritans in Britain in the time of Elisabeth I onwards tried to purify the church from within of catholic legacy in the Anglican Church (then outside it via separatists) so in Germany many Lutheran’s 40 or so years after Luther reacted to the problem of head knowledge and no heart knowledge and this no practical out working in love to our neighbour of the reformation. Spencer wrote a forward to a book by Art (original 1605 ad) in 1665 which coined the phrase Pietist and lead to various schools of pietism mostly good some bad.Their motto was the glory of God and welfare of mankind. They believe in personal Bible study, priesthood of the believer, the good of fellow men and preaching that emphasised conversion and practical Christianity. Zinzendorf influenced Wesley and with a sermon by reread Martin Luther was partially used of God leading up to Wesley’s salvation. With hundreds of missionaries (including to India before William Carrey) and their influence positively on various groups in the church (even John Owen was influenced by them who you like)… the pietists are not a group to follow but to say they only did bad or that they were heavenly minded to be no earthly use is … weird if you know anything of their history and not just the fringe separatist group of pietists … I don’t judge all reformed or Calvinists on the weird groups or covenant child theology streams. Please please and this is not being nasty study the details of church history and not whatever article told you that blatant lie. Love allot of what you say so that is why I took the time to encourage research. Many modern words are not as they were used in history. Pietism has a bad name but mostly because people don’t know history.
This is a very simplistic and misleading representation of the terms gnostic and pietism. You need to do your homework and research these topics before talking about them and misleading others. I recommend open minded inquirers DYOR, this person does not know what they are talking about.
I agree, He half got the gnostic definition right missing out some serious concepts, but almost entirely seems to not know the history or pietism in Germany which was based on being more practical … he seems to have read an article or two which really missed the proper history of it. I am a College Church History Lecturer. That does not make me an expert . But he gets allot of basics wrong. Gnostics was and is terrible , pietism had some good and some bad which is the same as can be said of the reformed movement, the puritans and many others. Gnostics were all bad.
@ gnostics were not all bad. I’ve never understood why so many Christians have such black and white thinking. Aspects of it you don’t have to agree with, but that doesn’t make the entire philosophy “bad”
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Biblical pietism, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God AND ALL THESE THINGS WILL BE ADDED UNTO YOU"
Thanks Joel and team good word.
I like this channel but the team did a terrible job on pietism history
Good words, thank you!
Probably we Reformed are the most, if not almost the only, vulnerable group to Pietism. Congregating in the local church and actively trying to manifest love to our brothers and neighbours has been the best remedy for this.
I disagree. I was part of a non-denominational church with an Arminian bent for several years, and they were very strong on expository preaching, one-on-one discipleship, equipping members for evangelism and apologetics, and encouraging deep, meaningful fellowship among its members. For a church of its size, (and it would qualify as a megachurch) Biblical illiteracy was not much of an issue as it is in most of modern American evangelicalism. Many, if not most members knew their Bibles fairly well and took sanctification seriously. But personal study of God's Word, evangelistic outreach, and regular fellowship beyond the typical Sunday morning and Wednesday night schedule found in many churches were emphasized so much to the point that just about anything outside of that was met with suspicion as being "worldly," or something to that effect.
"Oh, you're going to miss one of the five meetings scheduled throughout the week? You better be hanging out with friends that you plan on inviting to homechurch."
"You're pretty invested in politics. You do know our citizenship is in heaven, and that we're not to be entangled in civilian affairs, right?"
"What's that? You just accepted a job offer for a position that has some conflicts with our schedule? You must love this world, desiring to store up treasures here on earth, and you are uncommitted to Christ's bride."
I'm speaking somewhat hyperbolically, but statements like the ones above are characteristic of the mentality a lot of people had when I was there. And this was compounded by the fact that dispensational premillennialism was taught. "We're just passing through, and Jesus could return very soon, so why bother trying to build something that won't last?" I was part of the problem, too. I once met someone from another church that told me that she wanted to start a business, and I silently judged her, thinking that she had misplaced priorities, selfish ambition, and a love for money. Basically, career planning and following Christ were antithetical in my mind. I was led to believe that any line of work that did not have some connection to evangelistic endeavors was virtually meaningless. As such, working towards leadership in ministry within the church or at some Christian non-profit was the only course of action with eternal, spiritual significance. And the spiritual was always to be prioritized over that which was deemed earthly.
TL; DR: Non-reformed churches can be vulnerable to this, too-maybe even more-so. I came from an arminian dispy (and perhaps R2K) church, and I am recovering from Pietism.
@@charlesa.monagan4159 wow thanks for the writeup! Love to hear about real life experiences of other brothers. That was a really deceptive; no way anyone would have known until its too late. Everything sounded beautiful and even very impressive for Mega Church.
I just recently joined a local Presbyterian Church after almost a lifetime of Pentecostalism and I’m still shocked about how chill they are. They certainly focus on Sanctification and do great expository preaching but they dont keep track of your every daily move. They help and expect you to find your own individual path of sanctification, based on Biblical principles. I still have to see how they behave in the face of sinning church members though. We’ll see.
@@kenim My pleasure. I pray that God would help us all learn to take sin seriously and respond accordingly, beginning with our own. We must put to death our own individual sins, and much of evangelicalism must collectively repent of tossing Matthew 18 aside and foregoing proper church discipline within our congregations.
Pietists invented small group Bible study led by lay people . Before them lutherans only allowed educated clergy to debate doctrine. The pietists reacted to too much emphasis on head knowledge with often no heart reality. It was almost like the whole church reformed but many of those truly saved in later decades turned to pietism after a book by Spener (froward)
Amem!! Thank you Pastor Joel!
“. . . [One] common error concerning salvation which prevailed . . . [in the feudal era] and continues to prevail now was the identification of salvation with spirituality. The material world was held to be, by neoplatonists and others, evil and fallen, and the spiritual world good. Salvation thus meant forsaking material things for things spiritual, and asceticism and flights from the world to the life of a hermit became common among pagans. These pagan movements exerted a deep influence on many Christians and led to the monastic movement, and, much later, to pietism. According to Scripture, however, man is totally fallen, in all his being, _i.e.,_ the extent of the Fall affects every aspect of his being. The Fall is apparent in his ‘spirit’ as much as in his ‘body.’ Man is a unity, and the Fall affected the whole man. There is no virtue inherent in either spirit or matter, and the Fall had its origin in the mind of man, so that the scholastic view (derived from Aristotle) that the mind is untainted by the Fall is clearly wrong. Satan is entirely a spiritual being; he is a creature, with a local being, but he is not part of the material universe but of the angelic or spiritual order of beings. Satan as a spiritual creature is still fallen. The mind or spirit of man is not exempt from sin, and the more men have imagined that separation from the material world unto a spiritual or mental ivory tower constitutes virtue, the more they have blinded themselves to their sin.”
- Rousas J. Rushdoony, _The Death of Meaning,_ pp. 108-109
This is wonderful. Wooow.
Where I live there is a new church spreading like wildfire and it has all the gnostic teachings
Brother I am not a pietist , but as a lecturer of church history when you say pietists are so heavenly minded they are of no earthly use … you have zero idea of the history of the pietists … the Lutheran Count Zinzendorf was a pietist whose leadership led to hundreds of sacrificial missionaries (2 willing to become slaves in the West Indies to reach slaves with the gospel). There were pietist schools , orphanages for poor folk and their whole point was being practical on earth while glorifying God in Heaven. They were revolutionary in that they educated poor folks children for free with a Bible basis. They believed in the priesthood of the believers and small group Bible studies (while still attending church) which was radical in that the reformation did much good through Luther but the Lutheran church became exclusive , academic / scholastic and only clergy could lead anything like a Bible study. Pietism changed all that in a practical way. As the puritans in Britain in the time of Elisabeth I onwards tried to purify the church from within of catholic legacy in the Anglican Church (then outside it via separatists) so in Germany many Lutheran’s 40 or so years after Luther reacted to the problem of head knowledge and no heart knowledge and this no practical out working in love to our neighbour of the reformation. Spencer wrote a forward to a book by Art (original 1605 ad) in 1665 which coined the phrase Pietist and lead to various schools of pietism mostly good some bad.Their motto was the glory of God and welfare of mankind. They believe in personal Bible study, priesthood of the believer, the good of fellow men and preaching that emphasised conversion and practical Christianity. Zinzendorf influenced Wesley and with a sermon by reread Martin Luther was partially used of God leading up to Wesley’s salvation. With hundreds of missionaries (including to India before William Carrey) and their influence positively on various groups in the church (even John Owen was influenced by them who you like)… the pietists are not a group to follow but to say they only did bad or that they were heavenly minded to be no earthly use is … weird if you know anything of their history and not just the fringe separatist group of pietists … I don’t judge all reformed or Calvinists on the weird groups or covenant child theology streams. Please please and this is not being nasty study the details of church history and not whatever article told you that blatant lie. Love allot of what you say so that is why I took the time to encourage research. Many modern words are not as they were used in history. Pietism has a bad name but mostly because people don’t know history.
This is a very simplistic and misleading representation of the terms gnostic and pietism. You need to do your homework and research these topics before talking about them and misleading others. I recommend open minded inquirers DYOR, this person does not know what they are talking about.
I agree, He half got the gnostic definition right missing out some serious concepts, but almost entirely seems to not know the history or pietism in Germany which was based on being more practical … he seems to have read an article or two which really missed the proper history of it. I am a College Church History Lecturer. That does not make me an expert . But he gets allot of basics wrong. Gnostics was and is terrible , pietism had some good and some bad which is the same as can be said of the reformed movement, the puritans and many others. Gnostics were all bad.
@ gnostics were not all bad. I’ve never understood why so many Christians have such black and white thinking. Aspects of it you don’t have to agree with, but that doesn’t make the entire philosophy “bad”