In addition to understanding Methodism within the context of the English Reformation, we also need to understand a parallel development. That during the time the English Reformation was taking place in England, that there's this development that was happening in Germany. And this is through the movement that is known as German Pietism or Pietism.
And when we say the word Pietism, we're not saying it with a small p, but we're referring to it with a capital P. I know the word has some negative connotation. Whenever we hear the word, it kind of means like a holier-than-thou person, but the word pietism is really a historical movement. It was a renewal movement within the Lutheran Church in Germany, and the aim was to complete the Reformation that was began by Martin Luther. So remember in the previous section where we talk about the development in the Reformed Tradition where you have Armenians reacting towards post-Calvin theology?
In Germany, in the Lutheran Church, you have people reacting to post-Lutheran theology. That was after Luther's death. And so two generations after the death of Luther, Lutherans began to be occupied with forms and orthodoxy. By the way, when we say the word orthodoxy, I'm sure you know the meaning of that. It refers to right doctrine or right teaching.
So Lutherans became so preoccupied with forms and orthodoxy. Lutheran thought and practice became stale and very much objectified. It became too rational, too scholastic. For example, if you happen to live during that time and you are a Lutheran and you are having a crisis about your faith, a crisis about the state of your own salvation, and then you would go to a Lutheran priest, well, what he'll tell you is that you need to avail of the sacraments.
But if you go to a pietist, this pietist will tell you that you need to be converted, that you need to be born again. You need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. So basically, in pietism, the view is that the Christian is not yet Christian enough.
I hope this is kind of raising some understanding for us for Methodism because we find the same emphasis in Methodism, particularly in John Wesley. So in pietism, there seems to be a preference for what we would call orthopathy. So there seems to be a preference for orthopathy. And as you can see here, the key words here are orto and pati or pathos, meaning right feeling.
There seems to be a preference for orthopathy over, again, what I mentioned a while ago, over... orthodoxy. Or again, orthodoxy meaning right doctrine or teaching.
Also, it doesn't end there with piety sim. There's also this preference for what we would call orthopraxy. That is right practice. By the way, this shouldn't give the impression that piety is only emphasized orthopathy and orthopraxy.
In reality, in the pietist vision of the Christian life, all of these three go together. They all go hand in hand. The orthopathy, the orthopraxy, and the orthodoxy.
And so the most important figure for pietism was Jacob Philip Spenner. Spenner spelled out a program for the movement by founding what is known as the Kolea Paitatis, or in English, the Gatherings for... piety. So basically, this refers to small groups that met in homes and in the churches for prayer, Bible study, and discussions about the faith.
And Spenner founded this in 1670. So basically, today, small group gatherings are no big deal. But during that time, this was very much a radical innovation. For the aim of the small gatherings or the skolea paitatis was heart Christianity.
That is, a deeper life of devotion to Jesus and an increase of personal holiness. So doesn't that sound familiar to us? Again, that kind of cries out to us, Methodism.
Another feature of paitism was philanthropy. And remember, we're talking about also not just ortho. Orthopathy, but also orthopraxy.
Orthopraxy. So they were also concerned with rite practice, and so they were big on philanthropy. Actually, in 1675, Jacob Spenner published Pia Desideria, in English, Pious Desires, and which is considered as the classic text of pietism.
Another important figure for pietism was Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf. Actually, Zinzendorf was the godson of Spenner. And he was a pupil of Spenner in the Halle School for Young Noblemen.
This school, by the way, was established by Spenner. Zinzendorf would eventually become the leader of the Moravian Brethren in 1727. If you remember his name and the Moravians, There's this connection of the Moravian movement with the beginnings of Methodism in England, which we will discuss later. So I need you to remember Nicholas Bonsendorff. So he comes from this tradition, from this pietism movement.
And so at about the same time, these pietistic tendencies that were going on, that were happening or flourishing in Germany, would later found their way in England. Since given the rising tide of immorality and irreligion in England, people grew tired of religion. This understandable because people lost taste for it in light of the fanaticism that led to the bloody revolution in England, which we discussed earlier, which was the glorious revolution. And so to counter this tide, the first religious societies, Again, patterned after what?
Patterned after the Kulea Paitatis, or the gatherings of piety in Germany. These societies begin to emerge around 1676 or 1678, and they bore many marks or similarities with German pietism. And at the forefront of the rise of the religious societies in England was the Anglican priest Anthony Horneck. Anthony Horneck was an Anglican minister.
But he was German. He was a German-Anglican minister. It's easy to make that connection between Germany and England through Horneck.
And Horneck was educated at Heidelberg and Leiden in Germany, and then he migrated to England after the Glorious Revolution. And in England, he became a committed Anglican, but his life and ministry demonstrated the influences of a developing German pietism. or continental pietism, founding its way in England. So Hornecht organized religious societies with particular rules to guide the societies.
And so it is important to understand that the birth of Methodism is tied up to the spread of religious societies in England because Methodism started as a cluster of religious societies in England. Again, that also accounts for its connection. to pietism.
So these religious societies laid the foundation for philanthropic and revivalist movements in England. So after the death of Hornecht, there were a number of these societies in and around London and to the other parts of England. In the next 20 years, actually, they expanded throughout the counties, profoundly impacting Anglican piety.
By the 1720s, this network of societies provided the matrix of relationships through which the Moravians and Oxford Methodists met in what became the evangelical revival in England. So that's what I was talking about a while ago. It is important to understand Methodism within the context of the spread of the religious societies in England.