Pietism
Description
Emphasizing the aspects of rigorous morality and personal devoutness in religious life.
Context
A movement among European Protestants which stressed that religion was more a matter of faith and behaviour than of intellect, promoting devotionalism, rigid personal morality and extreme individualism in interpretation of the Scriptures.
Claim
Protestant Pietism was one of many examples of a human inclination to moral righteousness, physical purity, and simplicity. It existed in the better class of Pharisees, in later orthodox Jewry, in the religious orders of Roman Catholicism (notably the Franciscans) and elsewhere, in Chinese and Hindu reform movements, for example. Pietism is simply the institutionalizing of the deep human feeling of religious humility and devotion.
Counter-claim
Pietism makes religious life a largely private matter, without social consequence.
It leads either to arrogance or despair.