Hot Topic: Bethel's roots, strong or weak?

Bethel history professor Chris Gehrz talks about Bethel’s continuing roots in and commitment to Pietism.

Spring 2009

Christianity needed a change of heart—so said those who began the Pietist movement in the mid-1600s in Germany. They feared that European churches cared more for “dead orthodoxy” than living faith, and were alarmed that every citizen was also considered part of state churches—even without evidence of regeneration. What transpired was a movement that has, through the years, profoundly shaped many Wesleyan, Evangelical, Anabaptist, and Lutheran churches and schools across the world, including Bethel University. Beliefs in the necessity of personal conversion, the authority of the Bible (and one’s own right to study it), and a commitment to live purely are at the heart of Pietism.

Bethel history professor Chris Gehrz has studied Pietism and recently coordinated the conference “The Pietist Impulse in Christianity,” at Bethel with history and political science professor G.W. Carlson and biblical and theological studies professor Christian Collins Winn. Sponsored by Bethel, the Baptist General Conference History Center, and the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts, the conference drew more than 100 people from the United States, Canada, and Europe.

Focus Editor Heather Johnson talked with Gehrz about Bethel’s continuing roots in and commitment to pietism.  

What sparked your interest in Pietism?

First, as a professor, I’m curious what it means that we claim to be a Pietist university. In fact, part of the elaboration on our first core value (“We are Christ-followers”) is that we are of the Pietist tradition, but I’m not sure we always understand what that means. Second, I grew up in the Evangelical Covenant Church, which is rooted in Swedish and Swedish-American Pietism. So, I have a personal desire to understand those roots. 

What have you learned about Pietism from your personal research?

I’ve been convinced that stereotypes, not surprisingly, are often misplaced. We’ve heard, for example, that Pietists are anti-intellectual; that Pietists care only about changing hearts, and that the head doesn’t matter. And so, I’ve found it interesting to study Carl Lundquist, Bethel’s third president, who very much identified with Pietism in the Baptist General Conference (BGC). At the same time, he was committed to the project of liberal arts education. If you read his annual reports and conference publications, you see a first-rate educator thinking about what it means to be pietistic while also treasuring the life of the mind. 

What does Pietism look like at Bethel University?

It shows up in Bethel’s life, I think, in ways so ordinary that we don’t even notice them. For example, there’s a desire for relationships between students, but also among students and faculty and staff. When I first came here six years ago, I don’t think I understood what we meant by calling Bethel a Christian learning “community.” But I’m struck by the depth of relationships formed between faculty and students, not just in the classroom but in sharing meals and fellowship. And I’ve come to appreciate staying in touch with alumni. I love to counsel former students and hear about what their faith walk is like. This shows an enduring legacy of Pietism’s relational emphasis. The question we must continually ask ourselves is how do we sustain “heart religion” within our academic culture?

How is Bethel’s Pietism affected as we become more diverse denominationally and ethnically?

In the history of Bethel and the BGC, Pietism often gets conflated with being Swedish. So, when Bethel was still a regional college, most students came from BGC churches, and faculty member names all seemed to end with “-son” and “-quist.” But Bethel has gone through this rapid growth and is now part of a much larger evangelical context. We can give credit to [President Emeritus] George Brushaber for this. We couldn’t continue to just be a little Swedish school, and our identity became more broadly evangelical. But the Pietist legacy hasn’t been lost; I’m always glad to hear President Barnes affirm it in chapel and other talks to the Bethel community.

In the transition we’re going through now, we need to figure out what makes us unique in the evangelical college world because there are a lot of high-quality schools like Bethel. How is our culture different than others? I believe what we have to offer is Pietism. 

Is it important for students to know Bethel is unique because of Pietism?

I think it’s valuable. Here again, a big challenge for us is figuring out how Pietism is not just Swedish. We don’t want to identify it solely in one time and place. We need to respond to global changes in the church. What does it mean to be pietistic in Christianity today, when the vast majority of Christians are not in the West and are not white? Does Pietism speak to other cultures? I think it is something that transcends and speaks to many different people. And it’ll be up to faculty members, who are here much longer than students, to recontextualize and model pietistic values as our increasingly diverse students come and go. 

How does Bethel’s “Covenant for Life Together” contribute to our piety?

I think it speaks to the fact that we’re interested in the education and transformation of the whole person, not just dispensing information or training of skills. We’re forming the heart and hands, not just the head. So I value that we have this intentional effort to live in community and grow in Christ-likeness. Character formation and holy living are absolutely essential to what Pietists want to do. Herein lies a danger, though. There’s a fine line between legalism and that intentional effort. You put it down on paper, and it can start to look like a list of rules and not about God’s grace transforming us. So, we need to take our covenant very seriously, but it can’t be just a law book. 

What was the purpose of the recent conference at Bethel, “The Pietist Impulse in Christianity”?

We brought together a variety of constituencies including clergy, laity, and scholars from Bethel and other colleges, universities, and seminaries. It was not only multi-disciplinary, incorporating history, philosophy, theology, and worship, but also ecumenical. Shirley Mullen, president of Houghton College, talked about John Wesley’s perspectives on learning and education. Roger Olson, a Baptist professor of theology at Truett Theological Seminary, shared the myths and realities of pietism. And panel discussions hit on everything from hymnody and worship to social and political engagement for Pietists.

The fact that Bethel hosted a conference on Pietism seems to suggest it is still very much committed to its roots.

I think so. Christian [Collins Winn], G.W. [Carlson], and I are already talking about how to continue and deepen the conversation. In my own research and writing, I’d like to work on identifying five focal points that make Pietist colleges distinctive. But Jay [Barnes] underlined the most important one in his inaugural address: our concern at Bethel is the transformation of women and men. As the Pietists would say, “For God’s glory and neighbor’s good.” 

Want to hear more about the conference, or listen to some of the speakers? Go to bethel.edu/its/itunes-u/, click on “conferences.”