350th birthday of Philipp Jakob Spener - Germany / Federal Republic of Germany 1985 - 80 Pfennig

On January 13, 1635, Philipp Jakob Spener, the founder of Pietism, was born in Rappoltsweiler / Oberelsass. The pietism founded by Philipp Jakob Spener is the most significant religious reform movement within the Protestant church. One generation after the end of the Thirty Years' War in 1675, Philipp Jakob Spener designed the reform program of Pietism in his Pia Desideria (Pious Desires). According to this, Martin Luther's Reformation of the Christian doctrine must be supplemented by a reformation of the Christian life, if the church should not freeze in dead orthodoxy. Concentration on the Bible as the source of all Christian life, personal religious decision, averting denominational disputes and turning to practical Christianity and active love, collection of decisive Christians within a secularized society - these are the core elements of Spener's program. The pietism of the 17th and 18th centuries has led to a profound renewal of the Protestant church. Mission and social work have received decisive impulses from him. His internalizing religious power left a lasting mark on classical German literature and philosophy. Not always escaping the danger of flight from the world and the religious narrowness, Pietism in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has renewed itself time and again and is an indispensable part of the Protestant churches up to the present day. After studying philosophy, history and theology at the Universities of Strasbourg and Basel, Spener initially prepared for a scholar career. For many years his interests were in the science of history. Even before he emerged as a religious reformer, he made a name for himself through basic works that are still respected today on genealogy and heraldry. Unexpectedly Spener 1666 was appointed to the post of a senior Lutheran pastor of the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt am Main. Here he worked for two decades. In Spener's time in Frankfurt, the beginnings of pietism fall. From the pulpit of the Frankfurt Barfüsserkirche, in place of which today is the Paulskirche, he preached against the outward church Christianity and called for true, active faith. At Spener's instigation, the Frankfurt poor and orphanage was founded in 1679, which became exemplary for many similar institutions. Together with the Frankfurt lawyer Johann Jakob Schütz Spener founded in 1670 the Collegium pietatis, a gathering in addition to public worship, in which even lay people could interpret the Bible. These collegia pietatis, also called "conventicles" or "hours," became the external mark of pietism. The "Pia Desideria" were widely applauded. But where they were trying to put them into action, they encountered opposition from the Orthodox state church. Pietist conventicles were banned in most German countries. Spener could not prevent the best of his followers from despairing of and separating from the reformability of the Church. Since then, in addition to Spener-founded ecclesiastical pietism, a radical separatist pietism has developed, which has become popular among North America's first German immigrants. Only in his time in Berlin could Spener help Pietism in the Protestant church to a breakthrough. The tolerance policy of the reformed Hohenzollernhaus was to make Spener useful for the protection and promotion of Pietism. The University of Halle / Saale, newly founded in 1694, became, through Spener's influence, a center of pietism from which generations of Pietist-influenced pastors emanated, not only to the German lands, but also to Northern Amarica, Russia, and indeed to Protestant missionaries to India. When Spener died on February 5, 1705, he had gained a reputation in Protestant Germany, like no other theologian had after Luther. (Text: Professor Dr. Johannes Wallmann, University of Bochum)