Dear Editor,
I am largely in agreement with Ranald Macaulay’s concern over the prevalent evangelical tendency to shun engagement with society and its worrisome tendencies (en June ‘Evangelicalism in Crisis’). Yet I believe that his readiness to point the finger at European Pietism as providing an explanation of the origin of this tendency does not bear careful scrutiny.
European Pietists were not all of one type; some were rigorously biblical, some mystical. Some were separatist while others stayed in their state churches. Their orphanages, Bible Societies and Mission Societies pre-dated those of the English-speaking world and were evidences of activism.
George Muller’s notable orphanage at Bristol was erected on the Pietist model he had observed in his homeland. There were notable scholars of the Bible among them, such as J. A. Bengel (1687-1752). Professor Andrew Walls has gone on record as saying that there would have been no modern Protestant missionary movement without Pietism.
Thus, if we want to find an explanation for quietism and passivity among today’s evangelicals, we will need to look elsewhere. There are other candidates, such as the pessimistic Premillennialism, the influence of which proliferated in the 19th century.
Yours truly,
