An Open Circle of Fellowship
A few months ago, my wife and I stayed overnight at the Swedish Country Inn in Lindsborg, Kansas. We walked and shopped the charming Main Street before dinner. Entering a bookstore, I began talking with the owner who knew the area very well. Because my grandparents had lived in Lindsborg and Marquette, Kansas when they first arrived in the States in 1881, I asked about the early Covenanters who settled there. Gust and Emma Lindahl stayed in Kansas only six months and, it seems, had left no memorable tracks.
We talked further about the differences between the early Swedish Lutherans and the immigrant Mission Friends, and I inquired if all the differences between the two groups finally came down to the point that the Mission Friends practiced a more pietistic life-style, in the sense of certain religious/social restrictions on dancing, drinking, playing cards, movies, and so forth. “Certainly not,” she replied, “we Lutherans were every bit as pietistic in matters of conduct!” Surprised, I asked, “So, what then divided our ancestral pioneers?” “The real difference,” she responded, “was on atonement theory — the Mission Friends followed P. P. Waldenström and we didn’t.”
I bought a little book from her store, God’s People in a New Land, Memorial Volume of Manuscripts by Johan Augustin Pihl, translated and edited by Vernon C. F. Holm with a Foreword by Zenos Hawkinson. I left the store, book in hand, pondering, after my brief exchange with the bookstore owner, whether piety in essence has more to do with doctrine than with conduct. Or was piety possibly a third something, neither doctrinal nor behavioral?
The concept of “Piety” is much older than the movement known as “pietism,” which we trace back to Spener, Franke, Zinzendorf, Rosenius, and the others. In fact, The Greek word, Eusebes, which translates as “piety,” was a well-established ideal before the early Church. That ideal, and the word, probably originated with the Pythagoreans, a scientific and religious society. Pythagoras, the founder, was born on the Island of Samos in 580 B.C.E.
Pythagoras and his disciples inquired into the mysteries behind mathematics, music, and theology. Less well-known than his famous theory in geometry — The Pythagorean Theorem — is the list of do’s and don’t’s that his devout community were to follow. The list is long, but a few examples will suffice:
- First, honor the immortal gods . . . .
- Honor also your father and mother . . . .
- Above all, have respect for yourself.
- After going to bed, do not allow sleep to close your eyelids until you have first examined all your actions of the day, asking yourself: Wherein have I done amiss? What have I omitted that ought to have been done? If you find on reflection that you have done anything amiss, be severe with yourself; if you have done anything good, rejoice.
- Assist a man lifting a burden, not in laying it down.
- Abstain from beans.
- Always serve salt with a meal.
- Do not sing without a harp accompaniment.
- Reflect always that it is ordained by destiny that all men must die.
- Accustom yourself to a way of living that is neat and tasteful, but without luxury.
- Avoid all that will stir envy.
- Step not beyond the center of balance.
Devout practice of these, and other maxims, was said to result in purification of the soul. Pietistic Pythagoreans, as is clear from this sampling, had their share of rules. Just the same, the spiritual concerns, discipline, and suggestions for simple living and self-examination are well-taken.
The idea of piety is also central in the Platonic dialogues. Socrates, you remember, was charged with impiety, that is, with corrupting the young people with new ideas and with being an atheist. Though Plato and many others considered him the best, most just, virtuous person ever to walk this earth, the majority decided at his trial that he lacked piety. Somewhat along the lines of the Pythagoreans, Socrates, in the interest of perfecting the soul, had tried to make those who thought only of new clothes, fashion jewelry, palatial homes, elegant decor, and the latest in expensive chariots, think more about the meaning of ideals like beauty, virtue, piety, justice, temperance, and the good. With the persistency of a TV newscaster doing an interview, Socrates would confront someone, anyone, in the agora (mall) and ask them what they were up to that day. At some point in the conversation, he would ask whether anything they were doing, or planned to do, in the course of the day was really worth doing, really worthwhile. It sounds impertinent, but he asked so as to encourage people to examine themselves. He did in fact irritate people, but, in his words, he was simply trying to help them to “perfect their souls.”
One of the most unusual conversations Socrates had was with a confident, know-it-all theologian by the name of Euthyphro. This fellow claimed to understand everything about God, the supernatural realm, and pious living. Socrates met him at the entrance to the court on the day Euthyphro was bringing a lawsuit for murder against his own father.
Euthyphro’s case was built on the following story: A laborer who worked for Euthyphro’s father had killed one of their slaves. Euthyphro’s father bound this laborer and forced him to lie in a ditch until he could find out what to do with him. His father sent a messenger to the city to ask the religious authorities what procedure to follow. Before the messenger returned, the worker died. That’s “Murder,” Euthyphro concludes. To insure that no evil consequences would be visited upon the society because of such an impious act, even when done by a close relative, it must be exposed, judged, and duly punished.
Socrates, who was under the charge of impiety, was eager to talk with the knowledgeable Euthyphro. Gaining an understanding of the essence of piety would help him at his own impending trial. But as the cross-examination proceeds, it becomes evident that Euthyphro has no idea whatever about the real nature of piety. He gives, and then under questioning retracts, a series of definitions. Finally, he is stumped when Socrates asks: Is piety loved by the gods, because it is pious? Or is it an action called “pious” because it is loved by the gods? (In other words, does the ethical dimension stand above the religious, or the religious above the ethical?) The dialogue ends inconclusively.
At his own trial, Socrates affirms, positively and publicly, his belief in a personal God whose inward presence guides his actions. His testimony establishes that the charge of impiety for one as deeply religious as he is completely inappropriate.
In the New Testament, written almost five centuries later, we find that the same Greek word, Eusebes, is used variously as a noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. It can mean reverence, respect, godliness, or dutiful and devout conduct. In I Timothy 2:2, for example, we read that piety ought be directed toward God, kings, those in high positions, and all people in order “. . . that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, godly (eusebeia) and respectful in every way.”
Now, given Spener, Franke, Zinzendorf, Waldenström, Rosenius, Pythagoras, Plato, a New Testament writer, and others, we should have a pretty clear idea of the meaning of the word “piety,” and its derivatives, “Pietism,” or “Pietist.” We should know how to answer, for example, when someone asks us right out, “Are you a pietist?”
But, even with all these resources at hand, the question — whether piety is a matter of conduct, doctrine, or something else — remains. Piety defies definition; one cannot draw a verbal fence around it. The best one can do, possibly, is to point to the lives of devout, reverent, conscientious believers. In the Foreword to the little book I mentioned above, God’s People In A New Land, Hawkinson concludes that the central figure, Rev. August Pihl,
. . . was a pietist, giving and taking inward life and strength in the circle of fellowship where in his experience the voice of his Lord was most often heard. Like most of his friends, he had little opportunity of schooling, instead he read deeply in the Bible, in Luther, and in Rosenius’ magazine, The Pietist . . . . (viii)
Well put! And the present namesake — Pietisten — provides an excellent forum for serious discussion of the shapes such lives take. Because piety has different significance for various cultural and temporal settings, one must ask time and again, “What does it mean to be a pietist today?”
We have moved beyond the moralistic “rules” orientation of the Pythagoreans and early Covenanters, by encouraging Christian people to make their own moral decisions in the many areas of life. Too, we seem to have moved, despite the efforts of some, away from debating atonement theories, modes of baptism, and millennial schemes to more charitable theological discussion. An emphasis on the soul’s personal relation to God, rather than on creeds, continues to be the genius of the Covenant tradition.
Beyond standardized conduct and normative doctrine, pietists today, I believe, form a circle, an open circle of fellowship of honest, caring, thoughtful people who are devoutly attentive to Truth. Of course, “open circle” is an oxymoron if one defines circles as carefully as Euclid did. Less precisely considered, an open circle means an inclusive, expandable group or a bunch of comrades. In such a camaraderie, Lutherans and Covenanters in Lindsborg, Kansas, and to the uttermost parts of the world, can live, talk, and worship together.
The inlets to an open circle of fellowship serve also as outlets to the larger world community of devout ones, pious from every clime and nation. Such openings allow one to move far beyond the old, sectarian “holier than thou” attitude. We have come to understand that piety has little to do with separation and isolation from the culture in which we live. Pious living, as a “third something,” has much to do with building character, deepening spiritual life, and expanding personal horizons — in short, with purifying one’s soul.