One Head Points Toward Rome and Constantinople;
The Other Head Cranes Toward Fuller Seminary and Willow Creek.
The adult study last Sunday was about Pietism, a movement started by Jakob Spener and continued by Franke at Halle University. The Muhlenberg Lutherans (LCA branch of ELCA) came from Pietism. Walther was converted by Pietism. The Swedish Augustana Synod was honestly Pietistic. The Norwegians (ALC and ELS) were Pietistic. Spener could not be criticized by Lutherans, even when they critiqued Pietism, as Walther did.
Some attributes of Pietism are:
1. An urge to work with the Reformed.
2. A willingness to jettison the Means of Grace.
3. An emphasis on works and love - sanctification being the cause of justification rather than the result of justification, as Hoenecke observed.
4. An anti-Confessional spirit.
5. Anti-intellectualism, smugly claiming their heart religion is better than the orthodox head religion (a false and ridiculous claim).
6. Missions should take away school funding because missions are for them, while schools are for us. Anti-intellectualism is the fuel for this folly.
7. Contempt toward all traditional worship as worship when the time could be used for evangelizing the unchurched.
8. Conventicles: cell, share, care, koinonia, Bible study, soul, groups (lay led, often by women) are the real church. When cell groups worship on Sunday, they give the service integrity because the conventicles are colleges of piety within the visible organization.
Pietism is the Rosetta Stone of Lutherans today because the movement explains why one head is aimed at Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, the other at Fuller and Willow Creek.
Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy teach works as a pre-requisite for justification, in harmony with the Pietists. Officially, Rome has a library full of confessions and canonical law, but Rome is essentially anti-confessional because the one unifying issue is membership in Holy Mother Church.
Eastern Orthodoxy has most of the trappings and errors of Rome plus several advantages. Clergy can be married before ordination (not after). Eastern Orthodoxy is officially non-confessional.
All the synods train their workers in Pietism, so their turn to Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, Willow Creek, and Fuller Seminary is logical and fore-ordained.
The attributes of Pietism fit Fuller and Willow Creek perfectly. Both places are also inordinately proud of their proofs of sanctification.
The two heads of the calf (a real photo, by the way) are the two versions of Pietism. One is high church, smells and bells, lavender shirts with red buttons, loud resounding titles for their mini-bishops and mini-deans. The other is low church, just as haughty about their Hawaiian shirts, pit bands, prayer and praise services, and Pastors Bob and Ruth titles.
