‘We do not have to look very far to see that today there is a new spirit of pietism abroad, a pietism that sees the essence of Christianity in the small, informal group, rather than in the total community of faith at worship within a recognized and formal liturgical order. It is a pietism that measures its success by the number of people it touches, rather than by the truth of the message it proclaims. It is a pietism that is preoccupied with ‘simple hymns’ and informal structures of worship. It is a pietism that is impatient with the German Reformation of the sixteenth century, a pietism that asserts that we need new forms and less of the old. It is a new spirit of pietism that looks in many respects like the old pietism, the Pietism in the technical sense which we have considered here. (Bach and Pietism: Similarities Today, by Robin A. Leaver, Concordia Theological Quarterly, 55:1 (Jan. 1991), pp. 5-22.)
(Via Cyberbrethren Lutheran Blog.)
Mika
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