Nobler Than Angels, Lower Than a Worm

This book examines the Pietist view of the individual through the writings of the Lutheran "reform orthodox" theologian Heinrich M¸ller and later Lutheran Pietist August Hermann Francke. While demonstrating the close connection between the two movements, it is concerned primarily with Pietist anthropology. Francke's life and conversion experience are used to introduce the Pietist understanding of the person. The book is divided into a treatment of the person by nature, the inner person (heart, soul, conscience, mind), the will, the role and place of affliction in the person's life, the outer person (the body, neighbor, work, money and possessions, time), and death and the afterlife. Each element of the person is examined from the Pietist's perspective with numerous illustrative quotations taken from the sermons and devotional writings of Francke and M¸ller, allowing the reader to understand the concerns and methods of Pietist preachers and teachers, to grasp the sources of tension between the Pietists and the "orthodox", and to see more of the red threads which run through the various "renewal" movements in modern church history.