An Introduction to German Pietism

Shantz, Douglas H.

doi:10.1353/book.72088

Cited by 39 publications

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“…Together with the work of the Petersens, it exerted a powerful stimulus for the spread of universalism among radical German Pietists, also by serving as a source for their alternative Bible translations and commentaries, most importantly the Berleburg Bible. 53 In America, an English translation of Klein-Nicolai's work appeared by the agency of the Huguenot exile scholar and physician turned radical Pietist George de Benneville (1703-1793), who had The Pluralization of Scripture in Early American Protestantism already been involved with the production of the Berleburg Bible during his time in Germany. After his emigration to Pennsylvania in 1741, de Benneville determined to spread the universalist message in the colonies and arranged to have the Siegvolck tract printed under the title The Everlasting Gospel (1753) by Christopher Saur, whose son also undertook two further German imprints (1768 and 1769).…”

Section: Scriptural Pluralization and The Rise Of Universalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pluralization of Scripture in Early American Protestantism: Competing Bible Translations and the Debate over Universal Salvation, ca. 1700–1780

Stievermann,

Pietrenka

2023

Religion and Am. Culture

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ABSRACT This article addresses a pervasive historiographic assumption about the supremacy of the King James Bible in British North America by proposing that a process we call the “pluralization of Scriptures” forced colonial Protestants to square their belief in “the Bible” with the undeniable reality of many “bibles.” While the KJV remained dominant among anglophone Protestant populations, by the early eighteenth century some heirs of New England Puritanism were challenging its adequacy and pushing for improved translations of key passages, as members of the clerical intelligentsia became immersed in cutting-edge textual and historical scholarship. Also, during the eighteenth century, non-English cultures of biblicism with their own religious print markets formed in the middle colonies, most importantly among diasporic communities of German Protestants, who brought the Luther Bible to America, and diverse “heterodox” Bibles associated with radical Pietist groups. This essay contends that, well before the American Revolution, the advent of Higher Criticism in American seminaries, and the first wave of English-language Bible production in the early republic, Scripture had ceased to be a static, monolithic entity. A considerable number of alternative translations and commentary traditions in a variety of different languages came to co-exist and, at some points, also interact with each other. Moreover, we argue that competing translations, even of passages speaking to core Christian doctrines, were inextricably bound up with some of the most significant controversies among colonial Protestants, such as the debate over the doctrine of universal salvation, our main case study.

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Section: Scriptural Pluralization and The Rise Of Universalismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Pluralization of Scripture in Early American Protestantism: Competing Bible Translations and the Debate over Universal Salvation, ca. 1700–1780

Stievermann,

Pietrenka

2023

Religion and Am. Culture

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“…81 More specifically, some researchers have claimed that Pietists can be credited with inspiring both evangelicalism and modern individualism. 82 In recent years, however, there has been growing scepticism among historians about the longstanding assumption that missions acted as agents of individualisation. 83 The concept of individualism, with its close associations to ideas of the European Enlightenment and modernity, is certainly not without analytical pitfalls.…”

Section: Bodily Knowledge Individualism and Spiritual Rebirthmentioning

confidence: 99%

Locating Filth: Sin, Syphilis and the Path to Purity

Ratschiller Nasim

2023

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies

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This chapter explores how the Basel Mission doctors tried to spread new knowledge of hygiene in their West African mission areas by combining religious notions of purity with scientific approaches to health and colonial concepts of cleanliness. The longstanding Pietist interpretation of disease as a distorted relationship with God still held true for the Basel medical missionaries, who frequently explained physical suffering with reference to a sinful way of life. The diagnosis of syphilis, in particular, unequivocally linked disease to sin, and proved to be an effective advertising tool to promote the necessity and benefit of the medical mission beyond evangelical circles. Although there were clear indications that the prevalent condition was not syphilis, the diagnosis prevailed for twenty-five years until the young Basel Mission doctor Theodor Müller identified the illness in 1910 as yaws, which was not in fact a venereal disease like syphilis.

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The Religious Space of Knowledge: The Basel Mission, Worldwide Webs and Pietist Purity

Ratschiller Nasim

2023

Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies

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This chapter examines the ideological and social context in which the Basel Mission emerged and scrutinises the changing meaning of Pietist purity over the nineteenth century. The Basel Mission drew upon the support of wealthy and powerful patrician families from Basel and far-flung Pietist networks across Europe and beyond. However, it swiftly transformed into a grassroots movement, funded by small donations from a large number of people in urban and rural areas of Switzerland and Germany. The Basel Mission’s evangelising efforts abroad were linked to charitable activities at home, which tackled the ostensible problem of de-Christianisation within Europe and fundamentally depended on voluntary work, especially by women and children. Although healing had been part of Pietism ever since the movement gained momentum, most adherents had reservations about the morality and efficacy of scientific medicine, discernible in their preference for healing and deliverance theology. The Basel missionaries’ prolonged experience of death and illness in West Africa, however, allowed for the reformulation of Pietist concepts of purity and healing through the integration of scientific theories of disease and hygiene.

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An Introduction to German Pietism

Cited by 39 publications

References 0 publications

The Pluralization of Scripture in Early American Protestantism: Competing Bible Translations and the Debate over Universal Salvation, ca. 1700–1780

The Pluralization of Scripture in Early American Protestantism: Competing Bible Translations and the Debate over Universal Salvation, ca. 1700–1780

Locating Filth: Sin, Syphilis and the Path to Purity

The Religious Space of Knowledge: The Basel Mission, Worldwide Webs and Pietist Purity

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