From reform to retreat: Pietism in Württemberg

Abstract

In the early decades of Pietism in Wurttemberg – from the 1680s to 1715 or so – Pietism was a politically active force at both the inner-churchly and the separatist levels. Leading churchmen argued for reforms in church and state, and defended the interests of the Estates, with which the church was so closely linked, against the perceived political, social, and cultural dangers of absolutism. More humble pastors and groups of the laity met together and worked out criticisms of church and society, seeking to develop new ways of leading a godly life, and setting themselves apart from a sinful world in which the wrath of God was only too evident. Networks of organisation developed, as people joined together in conventicles, heard the message of travelling preachers or themselves went from place to place to hear the Word of the Lord. Social processes of mockery, labelling, splits in local communities, pushed many such groups into separation from the church, heightening their awareness of their own special status as true Christians, the godly, the reborn. At the local level, members of the laity were as active as were the more sober leaders of Spenerian Pietism in national affairs. From perhaps 1715 onwards, such reformist and radical ferment subsided. The main Pietist reforms of the church were accomplished by the 1720s, which finally saw the introduction, after repeated earlier attempts, of catechism teaching, and which ended with the Pietist-influenced Schulordnung of 1729. After 1715, there was a marked wane of separatist activity, as conventicles in practice became tolerated as an aspect of church life.