Biography
Philipp Jakob Spener was born on January 13, 1635, in Rappoltsweiler, in Alsace, which is now in France. His family was devout and Lutheran. His father was a court official, and his godmother, a countess, took an interest in his education. He was raised in a home where the Bible was read, and he was nourished on the writings of Johann Arndt, whose True Christianity was a family favorite. He was a serious and sensitive boy. He studied at the University of Strasbourg, where he took a degree in theology. He spent several years in travel, visiting Basel, Geneva and Tübingen, where he met a number of Reformed leaders.
In Geneva, he came under the influence of the preaching of Jean de Labadie, a former Catholic priest who was a leader of a movement of spiritual renewal, and he was impressed by the practice of small groups for Bible study. He also read the works of the English Puritans, such as Richard Baxter. In 1663, he returned to Strasbourg and took up a post as a preacher. In 1666, he was called to serve as the senior pastor of the Lutheran church at Frankfurt am Main, one of the leading cities of Germany. He served there for twenty years. In Frankfurt, he found a church that was marked by a dry orthodoxy, with a good deal of nominal faith and worldliness. He felt that the church needed a revival.
He began a number of reforms. He had an extensive program of catechizing the children and the adults. He introduced a service in which the Bible was read and discussed. In 1670, he started a group that met in his home, twice a week, for prayer, Bible study and discussion of the Sunday sermon. He called it the collegium pietatis, the school of piety. It was a form of the small group which has been a mark of the renewal movement since. It was an innovation in the Lutheran church. It gave lay people a role in the life of the church.
In 1675, he published a work that became the manifesto of the movement. It was a preface to a new edition of Arndt's sermons, which was published separately under the title Pia Desideria, or Heartfelt Desires for a God-pleasing Reform of the True Evangelical Church. In it, he set out six proposals for the renewal of the church. He called for a more extensive study of the Bible, in small groups and in the home. He urged the revival of the priesthood of all believers, with a greater role for the laity. He stressed that the Christian faith is a matter of practice and of love, not just knowledge. He recommended that controversies be conducted with charity. He asked for a reform of the education of ministers, which should include devotion and pastoral skills. He proposed that sermons be aimed at the edification of the hearers.
The book had a great effect. It launched the movement known as Pietism, which became one of the most influential movements in the history of Protestantism. It spread across Germany and northern Europe. It gave rise to the work of August Hermann Francke, Count Zinzendorf and the Moravians, and indirectly to John Wesley and the Methodist revival. It also gave a boost to missions. Spener's ideas were taken up in schools, in hospitals and in charitable work.
He was criticized sharply by orthodox Lutherans, who accused him of fostering separatism and of undermining the doctrine of justification. He was accused of heresy by a number of theologians. He defended himself with patience and charity. He insisted that he did not wish to leave the church or to criticize its doctrine. In 1686, he was appointed as court preacher in Dresden, in Saxony, a post of great influence. He was unhappy there, as he clashed with the elector over his moral conduct. In 1691, he moved to Berlin, where he served as a pastor and a counselor to the Prussian court. He helped to found the University of Halle in 1694, which became a center of Pietism.
He was a man of gentle spirit and of deep devotion. He died on February 5, 1705, in Berlin, at the age of seventy. His life shows that a quiet pastor with a plan for small groups may start a movement that renews the church. He had the courage to propose reform and the patience to wait.