Against the pietists and revivalists: the 18th century orthodox coalition of Anglicans, Lutherans, and Reformed

Reading this 1974 study of the work of the SPG in Colonial North America and Anglican relationships with the continental Protestant traditions present in the colonies, I was intrigued by its account of how Anglicans allied with the 'orthodox' parties amongst the Lutherans and the Reformed (Dutch, German, and French) against pietistic and revivalist movements. The study, reflective of an earlier historiography, wrongly portrays the dominant Anglican attitude as 'Latitudinarian'.  It was the 'Orthodox' - as defined by Nockles in his classic The Oxford Movement in Context, the pre-1833 High Church tradition - who were dominant in the Church of England. The 'Orthodox' were characterised by a commitment to the Prayer Book, a restrained and modest piety, and an insistence on the apostolic nature of the threefold order, combined with, as Nockles notes, a refusal to unchurch those non-episcopal Lutheran and Reformed bodies for whom, in the 16th century, "it had not been possible to assert purity of doctrine alongside continued adherence to the episcopal system".

It is such 'orthodoxy' which suggests why Anglicans found common cause with those in the Swedish and German Lutheran and the Dutch, German, and French Reformed traditions opposing the pietists and revivalists.  Church order, liturgy, sacraments, parish: a shared conviction that these provided a godly and scriptural order which nurtured and sustained people in the Faith over a lifetime is what created this orthodox coalition against Enthusiasm.  (Indeed, as Nockles points out, Pusey - albeit with great disdain and for negative reasons - explicitly drew a parallel between the 'Orthodox party' in the Church of England and the anti-pietist orthodox in 18th century German Lutheranism.)

Below are two extracts from the study, a reminder of the common cause shared between 'orthodox' Anglicans, Lutherans, and Reformed against Enthusiasm and Pietism.

This schism [i.e. the Methodist schism] within the Church of England found a parallel in other churches in Europe when pietistic, evangelical reformers struggled with orthodox, liturgical churchmen. The pietists favored a sectarian form of organization that was voluntary and exclusive, requiring a religious experience as a test of membership, and they rejected traditional liturgical practices and emphasis on forms as a hindrance to the individual 's direct experience of God. According to the orthodox party, a church was an inclusive institution, generally national in scope, that used intellectual assent to a creed and conformity to a ritual as the standards for membership. Sacraments were a means of grace rather than merely symbols as the pietists claimed. The Church of England shared the characteristics of a church with the Lutherans and Reformed on the Continent, and it also shared with them an aversion to the enthusiasm of the pietistic factions within each church, and of the sectarians who had departed. The necessity of fighting sectarian opposition tended to bring the Protestant Churches closer together ...

In the colonies Anglicans were particularly close to Swedish Lutherans who not only resembled the Church of England in doctrine but also had retained an episcopal government. In addition, Anglicans were close to German Lutherans and Reformed as well as Dutch and French Reformed. Although the Church of England was tolerant of many differences among churches, it could not accept the position of pietists who attempted to infuse the spirit of enthusiasm into religion. In the eighteenth century nearly all of the churches were threatened by a reform movement that rejected the traditional orthodoxy represented by the national churches. Most churches were split between an orthodox or traditional faction which insisted that the established church was the proper means to union with God. These conservatives believed that a church should accept all people seeking salvation through the agency of a lawfully ordained ministry, the sacraments, and the liturgy. Their opponents rejected the forms and traditions of the existing churches, arguing that salvation carne directly from God 'and that membership in the community of Christians carne only after conversion. Reformers complained that the churches over-emphasized doctrine and form of worship to the neglect of the emotional aspects of the religious experience. When a crisis occurred at mid-century during the revival known as the Great Awakening, the orthodox factions of the Protestant churches, faced with serious challenge from the pietists, were drawn closer together. The division within the churches helped determine the relations between the SPG and the foreign Protestants. The Society gave no aid to the pietistic sects but rather supported only the churches or the orthodox factions in the colonies.

Also significant is the fact that the co-operation and aid could work in both directions. It was not, in other words, only a matter of Anglicans giving succour to Lutherans and Reformed:

There viere many instances of mutual aid. Not only did the Church of England help the foreigners, but, in parts of New York where the Dutch outnumbered the Anglicans and along the Delaware where the Swedish Church was strong, Anglicans received the aid. Swedish Lutherans joined with Anglicans to defend orthodoxy; traditionalists among the Dutch found support from the Church of England in its struggles with the pietists. An indication of the close ties among the churches was the merger of the Swedish congregations with the American Episcopal Church after the Revolution. Anglicans were sympathetic with the desires of these churches to retain their liturgy and supported the Dutch faction that wanted to use the Dutch language in religious services.

Finally, noting that "the foreign Protestants benefited from the largesse of the Society", the study points to how SPG respected the practices of these churches:

the SPG did not demand that the foreign Protestants abandon all of their religious traditions as a condition for aid, nor that they exactly follow all Anglican practices in order to be judged in conformity with the Church of England. Variations in the forms of Baptism and the Eucharist were allowed the French Huguenots, for example.

This highlights a characteristic Old High understanding that the non-episcopal continental Protestant traditions were to be regarded as partners, not as 'other', sharing the doctrine and discipline of the magisterial Reformation, even though the absence of episcopacy was a cause of regret.  The order, confessions, and rites of these traditions were to be encouraged and defended against the pietists and their unwise, misleading, and dangerous exaltation of experience over the sacraments and ordinances which were means and assurance of grace.

Underpinning all this, then, is a very different - and, I would argue, much richer and more compelling - Anglican vision of Protestant Christendom than gained influence post-1833.