Worship, Revised and Expanded Edition: Reformed according to Scripture

by Hughes Oliphant Old

By the beginning of the eighteenth century Pietism began to shape the worship of Protestantism. Pietism had begun to appear in French Catholicism during the previous century as a reaction against the domination of religious life by the court of Louis XIV. Such figures as Blaise Pascal (1623–62) and Madame Guyon (1648–1717) emphasized the private dimensions of religious experience over against a secularized state religion. By the end of the century the movement began to appear in Germany under the leadership of Philipp Spener (1635–1705) and August Hermann Francke (1663–1727). Here Pietism took on a much more Protestant flavor. Characteristic of German Pietism was the development of small prayer groups. Not wanting to break with the official state church, the German Pietists developed little fellowships within each local church that met at people’s homes on Sunday afternoons or in the evening. These people shared their personal religious experiences, held informal Bible studies, sang hymns, and prayed about each other’s needs. This ecclesiola in ecclesia, or church within the church, was not supposed to conflict with the official church, but in fact it tended to become the center of religious life in such a way that the official Sunday morning celebration of worship in the established church was apt to be regarded as a dry formality. At the small-group prayer meetings the warmth of Christian fellowship was found, and the prayers of formal, public worship were looked upon as...