So if Pietism is an ethos or spirit, where can you see it today in Christianity? Who or what exemplifies the instincts we talked about last time?

On today’s episode, Mark, Sam, and I share some of our experiences with Pietism in the Evangelical Covenant Church and at Bethel University (two Christian institutions that explicitly claim a Pietist identity), mention other denominations historically shaped by Pietism, and take up others’ arguments that Richard Foster and Pope Francis (!) are “pietistic” figures in Christianity.

Download this and earlier episodes from iTunes. (And if you’re new to the conversation, click here to read about this second season of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast and how it connects to the book Mark and I are reading.)

Further reading:

• Chris Gehrz, “What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church? ‘Missional Pietists,'” The Pietist Schoolman, July 1, 2014
• Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom, “An Interview with John Weborg and Gary Walter on the Legacy of Pietism in the Covenant Church,” Pietisten, Spring/Summer 2010 (excerpted from her 2010 book, Angels, Worms, and Bogeys: The Christian Ethic of Pietism)
• Chris Gehrz, “The Usable Past: Pietism and Bethel University,” The Pietist Schoolman, Sept. 23, 2011
• G.W. Carlson and Ron Saari, “A Clarion Call for Baptist Pietism: Claiming our Heritage,” The Baptist Pietist Clarion, July 2003
• Perry Engle, “Bold, sweetened, with a little bit of room,” In Part, Dec. 17, 2012
• Roger E. Olson and Christian T. Collins Winn, Reclaiming Pietism: Retrieving an Evangelical Tradition (Eerdmans, 2015), ch. 8 (“Contemporary Appropriations of the Pietist Impulse”)
• Chris Castaldo, “Pope Pious: What Evangelicals Like About Francis,” Christianity Today, Sept. 23, 2015

Image: my own photo of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Centerville, Iowa. (Older Covenant churches like this one were mostly founded by Swedish immigrants, but today 28% of ECC congregations are intentionally multi-ethnic or among populations of color.)