Hassle-free piety?

Jesus said: “And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil” (John 3:19) . The apostle Paul wrote: “And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove [them]” (Ephesians 5:11). Those people who were moved by the Holy Spirit to live their relationship with God in true piety became a light that revealed the evil in the world around them. It is no wonder that this brought the fires of opposition and persecution upon them.

But there were those who wanted the same kind of personal relationship with God, if only they could have it without getting themselves into trouble. In the late 17th century a movement originated within the Lutheran Church in Germany which was given the name of Pietism. The Pietists emphasized a personal relationship with God and moral uprightness, yet remained members of the Lutheran Church, regularly attending communion and bringing their babies to be baptized.
The phrase “the quiet in the land” (die Stillen im Lande) was used to describe their attitude and ethos as a religious movement that emphasized personal faith, inner spirituality, and moral living over formalism and theological orthodoxy.

They had decided to make inward feeling the exclusive evidence of faith, unhindered by doctrine or Scriptural evidences. Since inward feeling was all they had, they tended to give more attention to dramatic and emotional experiences than to the obedience to God which should have been the result of a genuine submission to God.

When the Empress Catherine called for German settlers for her newly conquered terriories in Ukraine, a large number of German-speaking Lutherans, Catholics and Mennonites responded. By far the largest number of these German settlers were Lutheran pietists. About 20% were Mennonites from Prussia. Since the German language was their passport to this new land, they abandoned any lingering use of the Netherlands language and became exclusively German-speaking. They were weary of the restrictions and difficulties they had faced because of their faith and they readily accepted the Pietist concept of being “the quiet in the land.”

In 1835 all 29 elders and ministers in the Molotschna colony signed a letter forbidding their members to read Menno Simon’s writings and demanding the surrender of all copies of the book. Their stated reason was that if any of their neighbours, or government officials, were to read the book it would get them all into trouble. Some members suspected the ministers were more afraid their own people would read the book and discover how far their church had slipped from the faith and life described by Menno.

It seems, then, that if fear of opposition leads us to maintain fellowship with those living in darkness, then we have abandoned the faith. Even if we have many warm and emotional experiences to talk about, the lack of fruit reveals what is really going on.