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Historian Mark Noll has written that historic Pietism "breathed a badly needed vitality" into post-Reformation Europe. Now the time has come for Pietism to revitalize Christianity in post-Christendom America.
In The Pietist Option, Christopher Gehrz, a historian of Pietism, and Mark Pattie, a pastor in the Pietist tradition, show how Pietism holds great promise for the church-and the world-today. Modeled after Philipp Spener's 1675 classic, Pia Desideria, this timely book makes a case for the vitality of Pietism in our day.
Taking a hard look at American evangelicalism and why it needs renewal, Gehrz and Pattie explore the resources that Pietism can provide the church of the twenty-first century. This concise and winsome volume serves as a practical guide to the Pietist ethos for life and ministry, pointing us toward the renewal so many long for.
The Pietist Option introduces Pietism to those who don't know it-and reintroduces it to those who perceive it as an outdated and inward-focused spirituality, a nitpicking divisiveness, or an anti-intellectual withdrawal. With its emphasis on our walk with Jesus and its vibrant hope for a better future, Pietism connects decisively with the ideas and issues of our day. Here is a revitalizing option for all who desire to be faithful and fruitful in God's mission.
In The Pietist Option, Christopher Gehrz, a historian of Pietism, and Mark Pattie, a pastor in the Pietist tradition, show how Pietism holds great promise for the church-and the world-today. Modeled after Philipp Spener's 1675 classic, Pia Desideria, this timely book makes a case for the vitality of Pietism in our day.
Taking a hard look at American evangelicalism and why it needs renewal, Gehrz and Pattie explore the resources that Pietism can provide the church of the twenty-first century. This concise and winsome volume serves as a practical guide to the Pietist ethos for life and ministry, pointing us toward the renewal so many long for.
The Pietist Option introduces Pietism to those who don't know it-and reintroduces it to those who perceive it as an outdated and inward-focused spirituality, a nitpicking divisiveness, or an anti-intellectual withdrawal. With its emphasis on our walk with Jesus and its vibrant hope for a better future, Pietism connects decisively with the ideas and issues of our day. Here is a revitalizing option for all who desire to be faithful and fruitful in God's mission.
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Reviews
"The Pietist Option is historically faithful, biblically rooted, and encouraging. Christopher Gehrz and Mark Pattie III help us see how Christ-followers in past centuries faced challenging issues in ways that are relevant to current events. Gehrz has meaningfully elevated Bethel University's Pietist roots to current day relevance as we commit to engage the world's most challenging problems, to God's glory and for our neighbors' good. The Pietist Option has wisdom for the church, the academy, and the neighborhood. I'm thankful for this resource."
Jay Barnes, president, Bethel University
"For many people, both inside and outside communities of faith, Christianity has become captive to blind allegiances that are driven more by fear than a concern for justice, more interested in building walls than expressing love and solidarity with neighbors who are different. If the church is going to break the stranglehold of these allegiances so that loyalty to Jesus and the kingdom he preached is placed back at the center of the life of faith, then the Pietist vision offered here will surely play an important role. Gehrz and Pattie offer a clear-eyed vision of faithful practice fired by the hope of the gospel that animated the original 'Pietist option,' and they do so without slavishly repeating seventeenth-century proposals. What is offered here is a compelling and practical vision that is geared toward our own contemporary challenges and context. This is a timely and much-needed work that should be warmly embraced by Christians from across the spectrum."
Christian T. Collins Winn, Bethel University, coauthor of Reclaiming Pietism