Pietists and Culture Making

Donald Dayton’s opening lecture at the recent Bethel University Conference on Pietism left me pondering a distinction he made between what he called Intellectual Pietism and Congregational Pietism. What I took from Dayton’s lecture is that to deal with the Pietist spirit intellectually, while important—whether in academia or elsewhere--is quite different from practicing it in a body of believers, which was precisely what historic Pietism was after.

A recent book by Andy Crouch suggests much the same. Culture Making, he writes, is not the fruit of thought leading to behavior. “Culture [rather] helps us behave ourselves into new ways of thinking” (IVP, 2008, p. 64). The Pietist vision, from its beginnings, was primarily a protest against a Protestant Scholasticism that had codified faith, made Scripture a slave of doctrine, and robbed the church of life.

Crouch’s concern meshes in interesting ways with the Pietist vision. Culture is not changed by grandiose plans for saving the whole world. Culture making actually begins with people as they are and where they are, behaving in obedience to Scripture under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, whose role it is to bring to mind in everyday circumstances the things of Christ and his Kingdom. For the Christian, obedience to God in Christ is the key to culture making. The mind of Christ grows in us from following him and walking in his ways.

It is tempting for us all, and understandable, to try and form culture around our ideas, or those of some spiritual guru with whom it is tempting to align ourselves. But it is surely more fruitful in the long run to live our lives in such a way as to draw others to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are willing and able to generate through us a culture in keeping with their will.