Kleinig: "Singing with Devotion" (1)

My favorite speaker at last week's Gerhardt symposium was Dr Kleinig, although I must admit that Dr Krispin (whom I'd never heard before) was pretty impressive.

Kleinig's presentation started with a brief venture into showing that Gerhardt was not a pietist, did not start pietism, and did not write pietistic hymns. I'd never heard that there was an accusation toward Gerhardt in that direction. But I guess if you'd heard that, it was good that Kleinig began with the explanation that piety in the first decade or two of the 17th century was a piety of reception of God's gifts, and not a piety of what we do. Later in the century, pietism led to ideas that the heart is separate from the mind, and that both are separate from the body ... the body being bad. But this pietism was not part of what Gerhardt knew as piety.

Then Kleinig went on to discuss how Gerhardt's hymns were founded on
a Scriptural piety,
a liturgical piety,
a sacramental piety, and
a physical piety.