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Title: The Pietist Option
Subtitle: Hope for the Renewal of Christianity
Author: Mark Pattie III, Christopher Gehrz
Narrator: Sean Runnette
Format: Unabridged
Length: 4 hrs and 54 mins
Language: English
Release date: 12-20-17
Publisher: christianaudio.com
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 2 votes
Genres: Religion & Spirituality, Christianity
Publisher's Summary:
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 21st 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The Pietist Option introduces Pietism to those who don't know it-and reintroduces it to those who perceive it as an outdated and inward-focused spirituality, a nitpicking divisiveness, or an anti-intellectual withdrawal.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.
Members Reviews:
Not the only thing to say about the renewal of Christianity, but itâs certainly fundamental
American Christianity is in a parlous state. It constitutes a shrinking share of the population. And in terms of worship service attendance, most of its churches are shrinking too.
Regarding share of the population, most Americans continue to identify as Christians, but that number is declining. According to Americaâs Changing Religious Landscape, a 2015 report from Pew Research Center, 70.6 percent of Americans identify as Christians, down from 78.4 percent only seven years earlier. Over the same period, so-called ânonesâ â that is, Americans with no religious affiliation â increased their share of the population from 16.1 to 22.8 percent.
Regarding worship service attendance, Thom Rainer argues that 65 percent of churches are plateaued (9 percent) or declining (56 percent) in worship service attendance. Thatâs better than the 80 percent figure often bandied about, but itâs still not good. Just a little over 1 in 3 churches (35 percent) are growing.
These data are rough metrics of church health, of course, but itâs difficult to believe the American church is doing well when its numbers head south over such a short period of time. What is to be done? How should American Christianity be renewed?
That is the question Christopher Gehrz and Mark Pattie III take up in their new book, The Pietist Option. Gehrz is a professor of history at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota, and Pattie is senior pastor of Salem Covenant Church in nearby New Brighton. Both are members of the Evangelical Covenant Church, a denomination with Swedish Pietist roots.
Pietism arose in late-17th-century Germany as a response to the perceived spiritual coldness of orthodox Lutheranism. Its first advocate was Philip Jacob Spener (1635â1705), whose 1675 book Pia Desideria outlined a Pietist plan of renewal.