There are two kinds of conservatism: a living one by which the faith is passed on intact and unchanged, always being kindled anew by the power of the Word and of the Holy Spirit; and a conservatism without life, that makes outward formalism the exclusive evidence of faith, with no reference to the condition of the heart.

There are also two types of liberalism: the one characterized by an openness to the ever-moving Spirit that makes the faith applicable to every age and nation; and the other one which makes the inward feeling the exclusive evidence of faith, unhindered by doctrine or Scriptural evidences.

The living conservatism and the spiritual liberalism are essentially one and the same thing, as they are evidences of the work of the same Holy Spirit; the dead conservatism and the worldly liberalism seem to be mutually exclusive, but lead one to the same sad end — a false hope in a Spirit-less Christianity.

ChatGTP tells me that the above quotation comes from Piet Hein. Who am I to argue? But I find the first two paragraphs almost verbatim on page 92 of Robert Friedmann’s book Mennonite Piety through the Centuries, © 1949 by the Mennonite Historical Society, Goshen College, Goshen, Indiana, USA. In Friedmann’s book the phrase in the second paragraph “the ever-moving Spirit” is a reference to the Gospel of John, chapter three, verse eight.

For the sake of this writing, I will label the combination of living conservatism and spiritual liberalism as piety; the dead conservatism as pharisaism, and the worldly liberalism that makes the inward feeling the exclusive evidence of faith as pietism. I don’t believe these are mutually exclusive labels, most of us, however pure and noble we believe our motives to be, will find ourselves more or less in one camp yet attracted to some elements of one of the others.

I will attempt to define and describe these three camps in following posts.