Methodist and Pietist: Retrieving the Evangelical United Brethren Tradition - Softcover

O'Malley, J Steven; Vickers, Jason E.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1426714351 ISBN 13: 9781426714351

Verlag: Kingswood Books, 2011

Inhaltsangabe

In 1968, the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) churches merged to form The United Methodist Church. More than forty years later, many United Methodists know very little about the history, doctrine, and polity of the EUB. To be sure, there are vestiges of the EUB, most notably the Confession of Faith, in the United Methodist Book of Discipline, but there is much more to be profitably explored. For example, the EUB represents a strand of German Pietism that developed an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church that, with the exception of Wesley, Fletcher and the early Methodists, was unparalleled in the history of Protestantism. This book makes accessible to clergy and laity alike the considerable riches of the EUB tradition with a view toward the renewal of United Methodism today.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jason E. Vickers is Associate Professor of Theology and Wesleyan Studies at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.

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Methodist and Pietist

Retrieving The Evangelical United Brethren Tradition

By J. Steven O'Malley, Jason E. Vickers

Abingdon Press

Copyright © 2011 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4267-1435-1

Contents

INTRODUCTION—J. STEVEN O'MALLEY AND JASON E. ViCKERS, 
PART ONE—HISTORY, 
1. THE PIETIST BACKGROUND OF THE EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN CHURCH—K. JAMES STEIN, 
2. MARTIN BOEHM, PHILIP WILLIAM OTTERBEIN, AND THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST—SCOTT KISKER, 
3. JACOB ALBRIGHT AND THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION— KENNETH E. ROWE, 
PART TWO—DOCTRINE AND THEOLOGY, 
4. THE THEOLOGICAL HERITAGE OF PIETISM— J. STEVEN O'MALLEY, 
5. DOCTRINE AND THEOLOGY IN THE CHURCH OF THE UNITED BRETHREN IN CHRIST —TYRON INBODY, 
6. DOCTRINE AND THEOLOGY IN THE EVANGELICAL ASSOCIATION/CHURCH—WILLIAM NAUMANN, 
7. THE CONFESSION OF FAITH: A THEOLOGICAL COMMENTARY—JASON E. VICKERS, 
PART THREE—POLITY AND PRATICES, 
8. EPISCOPACY AND ORDINATION—JAMES E. KIRBY, 
9. THE PRACTICE OF LITURGY AND SACRAMENTS IN THE EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN TRADITION—KENDALL KANE MCCABE, 
10. THE PRACTICE OF MISSION AND EVANGELISM: THE MISSION TO GERMANY—ULRIKE SCHULER, 
11. QUOT; TRUE HOLINESS QUOT; AS SOCIAL PRACTICE IN THE EVANGELICAL AND UNITED BRETHREN TRADITIONS: A LEGACY FOR SUCCESSOR DENOMINATIONS — WENDY J. DEICHMANN EDWARDS, 
12. WOMEN IN THE PIETIST HERITAGE OF METHODISM— PAUL W. CHILCOTE, 
AFTERWORD—THE EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN TRADITION AND THE FUTURE OF UNITED METHODISM—WILLIAM J. ABRAHAM, 
APPENDI—EVANGELICAL UNITED BRETHREN WOMEN'S TIMELINE—PAUL W. CHILCOTE, 
NOTES, 
CONTRIBUTORS, 
INDEX, 

CHAPTER 1

The Pietist Background of The Evangelical United Brethren Church

K. James Stein

To discern Pietism's influence in the creation of The Evangelical United Brethren Church, we must first come to grips with the nature or meaning of Pietism itself. Most scholars agree that defining and describing Pietism are not easy. For example, Ernest Stoeffler began his book The Rise of Evangelical Pietism with this discouraging sentence: "One of the least understood movements in history of Christianity has undoubtedly been that of Pietism." Similarly, when Carter Lindberg raised the questions about what Pietism, piety, and a pious person really are, he immediately concluded: "Here we jump with both feet into that vast swamp of Pietist studies. The scholars of Pietism give us many and sometimes conflicting maps for traversing this swamp." Keeping in mind that there is a vast scholarly debate about the nature and meaning of Pietism, we can begin to get our bearings by attending the origins and aims of this important movement in the history Christianity.

THE ORIGINS AND AIMS OF EARLY PIETISM

Despite the scholarly debate about the nature and meaning of Pietism, there is general agreement among scholars that Pietism originated as a renewal movement within Protestantism. This view has much to commend it. For example, Philipp Jakob Spener (1635–1705), whom I like to call "the Pietist Patriarch," was accused by his orthodox Lutheran detractors of being dissatisfied with Martin Luther's Reformation. To be sure, Spener denied being discontented with what Luther had done in the previous century. He even praised the good that had emerged in the Reformation. However, he also believed that Christians must go beyond and improve the Reformation. Indeed, early Pietists like Spener frequently saw their seventeenth-century movement as being "the second phase of the Reformation."

A later example of Pietist dissatisfaction with the Reformation can be found in early American Methodism. Bishop Francis Asbury's Journal entry of April 28-29, 1775, recounts having dinner with William Otterbein and Benedict Schwope and reports their intention to make proposals to the German Reformed synod "to lay a plan for the reformation of the Dutch congregations."

These examples suggest an obvious question. Why were early Pietists dissatisfied with the Reformation churches of their day? Although many Pietists publicly acknowledged their gratitude for the theological foundations provided by Martin Luther, Ulrich Zwingli, and John Calvin, they clearly felt that the churches founded by these major sixteenth-century Reformers were lacking in their time. But what precisely did they lack? To answer this question we need to familiarize ourselves with additional background developments.

Shortly after Martin Luther's death in 1546, internal theological battles threatened to divide the German Lutheran branch of Protestantism. In the wake of this threat, the adoption of the Formula of Concord in 1577 and the publication of the Book of Concord in 1580 provided a theological center around which Luther's followers could rally. This led, however, to a strong creedal ethos within Lutheranism so that, by the seventeenth century, many Lutherans came to view churchmanship largely in terms of adherence to creeds and living an outwardly acceptable moral life. To a degree this also occurred in Calvinism.

Spener, who helped revive catechetical instruction and confirmation in German Lutheranism, recounted how when he was ministering in Frankfurt, an intelligent foreigner, who was passing the city, visited his catechetical classes and remarked that instruction went only into the children's heads, but how they "bring the head into the heart?"

Pietism was and is "heart religion." It seeks not to change basic doctrines, but to enable the gospel that the doctrines arouse an affective and not just an intellectual response in believers. Indeed, many early Pietists believed that in failure to engage the affections, Reformation churches failed believers with what they needed most to survive the social and political realities of their day. Hence, Karl Heussi the origins of Pietism as follows:

German pietism is a partial appearance of a great interconfessional movement, which was aroused in the seventeenth century the great economic and political vibrations and the stiffness of orthodox church life. It had its parallels in Catholic mysticism and Jansenism, in English Puritanism and Quakerism of seventeenth century, and in English Methodism of the eighteenth century.

Heussi clearly associates the rise of Pietism with the horrors of the Thirty Years' War (1618–48) and the inability of entrenched Protestant orthodoxy to address the spiritual needs of European Protestants. Yet a deeply spiritual movement swept across early seventeenth-century Europe embracing not only Roman Catholic and Protestant but also Jewish believers. Pietism seems to have emerged within this devotional and less formal religious atmosphere that antedated it. Indeed, one can see this explicitly in the work of Johann Arndt (1555–1621), whom many regard as the father of Pietism. Arndt was a Lutheran pastor advocating the mystical union existing between Christ and believers, and his major work, Wahres Christenthum (True Christianity), beautifully weds Lutheran doctrine with Roman Catholic mysticism. His chief aim is to help people see that a living faith involves trusting God, uniting oneself with God, wishing for nothing except God, and doing all of this through Jesus Christ. For Arndt, true Christianity is a "living faith whose fruit is a godly, active life."

In the light of its origins and aims, many scholars view Pietism spiritual movement seeking to...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Kingswood Books
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2011
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1426714351
• ISBN 13: 9781426714351
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 304
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar