Since the seventeenth century "Pietism" has been an important movement within German Protestantism, and it is still influential in some parts of Germany. It began as a reaction against the formal and conventional character that appeared in Protestantism in the aftermath of the Reformation. Pietism opposed on the one hand the intellectualism implicit in the orthodox tendency to equate faith with the giving of assent to correct doctrine, and on the other, the tendency to identify Christianity with conformity to the ecclesiastical establishments that had been set up in various parts of Germany. By stressing experience, feeling, and personal participation as essential to a true Christian faith, Pietists hoped to bring new life into the Lutheran Church. One can point to similar movements in other parts of Christendom, in the English-speaking world the movement most akin to Pietism was Methodism.

The founder of German Pietism was Philipp Jakob...