In 1687 a young Lutheran theologian, August Hermann Francke, found his academic career interrupted by financial concerns. A brilliant scholar, he had been able to study through the beneficence of a stipend supervised by his cousin, Dr. David Gloxin. Thus, when Gloxin unexpectedly instructed him to leave Leipzig for Lueneburg, Francke had no choice but to interrupt his studies at the university and go.
This seemingly adverse turn of events, however, came to be the most auspicious journey of Francke's life, for it was in Lueneburg that he experienced wiedergeburt, rebirth. Undaunted by the interruption of his academic career, Francke took advantage of his opportunity to pursue what had recently become his chief goal in life—to become a righteous Christian. In his own words, Francke had been seduced away from his pious childhood by the sirens of "the world and its vanity, so that I compared myself with other students with whom I con versed, and placed great advancement, regard for the world, temporal honor, high science, and easy living as my goal. Meanwhile I found in my soul little peace and joy because I well recognized that I had strayed far from the former good beginning of a true Christianity which I had in my childhood." 1
While at the university, Francke had attended small group discussions for the more able students, sang, prayed, and, in keeping with the Lutheran custom of the period, attended confession and Communion regularly. He also enjoyed a serious discussion of the faith. Outwardly he appeared quite content, yet despite his keen intellect and self-insight, he still did not have the power to renounce his worldly desires and to live a virtuous life. "I grasped my theology in my head and not in my heart, and it was much more a dead science than a living under standing. I knew well what to say, what faith, rebirth, justification, renewal, et cetera, are; knew well, too, how to differentiate one from the other and how to prove it with texts from Scripture, but of it all I found nothing in my heart." 2
In this frame of mind and heart August Hermann Francke arrived in Lueneburg with his goal firmly before him but unable to shake off the mantle of worldliness he had acquired. The scholar was now to try his hand as preacher. Invited to preach in the Johanneskirche, the at tempt changed his life, set him firmly in the evangelical tradition, and subsequently touched the lives of thousands, perhaps millions, of people.
He intended to preach a sermon showing how a "true, living faith" may be differentiated from a "mere human and imagined faith." His preparations only accentuated the disparity between his intellectual grasp of fait;, and an in ward assent to the living Christ; between his ability to proof text, and faith that manifests itself in love for God and one's neighbor. In despair Francke fell to his knees time and time again while a powerful battle raged within him for several days. Finally, he experienced the living God in Jesus Christ. He reported: "I again fell on my knees on that Sunday eve and cried to God, whom I neither knew nor believed, for salvation from such a sorrowful condition, if there truly was a God. Then the Lord heard me, the living God from His holy throne, as I was still on my knees. So great was His fatherly love that little by little He would take away such doubt and restlessness of heart, not so that I would be very con tent, but rather so that I would be all the more convinced.... Then as one turns his hand, so all my doubts were gone. I was sure in my heart of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. I knew God not only as God but rather as one called my Father. All sadness and unrest in my heart was taken away in a moment.... I had bent down with great sorrow and doubt, but arose again with inexpressible joy and great assurance. As I knelt I did not believe there was a God. As I arose I would have confirmed it without fear or doubt, even with the shedding of my blood." 3
Like Luther, Francke's later theology—indeed, his whole life—was firmly grounded in the living God encountered in his experience of conversion. "It seemed to prescribe for him the way in which men ordinarily enter upon a really meaningful relation to God, and it constituted for him the incontrovertible ground of personal religious certainty." 4 For many Christians today, Francke's experience is not unfamiliar. Some may have had less emotional encounters; others may have had even more exciting ones. As with Augustine, Luther, and other influential Christians, Francke's Christian life did not begin or end with the experience itself. He stressed his experience as rebirth, not his rebirth as experience. Conversion, then, is not the end point, but rather the watershed experience of human life.
Francke had been fortunate to grow up in a pious home in the city of Gotha, where the spiritual and physical welfare of the citizenry was of great concern to the local ruler, Duke Ernst the Pious. In his conversion, these early Christian principles were rekindled, while less desirable facets fell away. His desire for honor in the academic community, the hope for recognition, the seeking for status among the nobility and striving for "the good life," all became things of the past. In time, Francke certainly became famous for his scholarship; his name was recognized by church leaders from America to Asia, and he was held in high regard by kings and emperors, but this was not his expressed goal. It grew, rather, out of his sincere dedication to a new intent to "renounce ungodly ways and worldly desire and live in this world chaste, upright, and pious."
This rather simplistic-sounding approach to life eventually resulted in a massive institution, the Stiftungen, which housed widows and orphans, educated wealthy and poor alike (including poor girls, a major innovation), established the first Bible institute, sent missionaries throughout the world, effected the humanizing of Prussian law, and touched on the spiritual and physical lives of people throughout Germany.
Just what happened in his conversion? Certainly Francke's experience was little different from that of millions of Christians throughout history. Perhaps the answer lies in Francke's response to his conversion, as well as to his subsequent experiences with Christ.
As powerful as his conversion experience may have been, Francke saw it as neither an end in itself nor as something to be sought again. It is here that we may profit from Francke's perspective on religious experience.
It was not an end in itself. Francke's conversion did not occur as the result of seeking an experience. In turmoil over his lack of faith and crushed by the unbearable weight of a purely academic God, Francke sought day and night, pacing the floor or on his knees, the living God who alone could save him. He was concerned not to experience God, but rather to experience God. There is quite a difference! In the former case, one arranges the circumstances of one's encounter with God, waiting for tears, fireworks, a deep sense of sin, excitement, or whatever else has been prescribed by one's religious community or imagination. In such a situation, the possibility of frustration, disappointment, and even bitterness is enormous as is the temptation to create one's own experience.
In the second circumstances, however, one allows God to set the conditions of the meeting. Here God Himself is the central figure, the beginning and end of an experience that is simply the vehicle for the divine-human encounter. There are no preestablished criteria to be fulfilled. Thus one is less likely to be disappointed by (or proud of) the intensity or drama of the experience. It is also less likely to become the focus of the subsequent Christian life.
Although Francke referred frequently to his conversion and was ever aware of the presence of the Holy Spirit, we do not find him seeking to duplicate his conversion or manufacture any new experiences. It is all too easy for one's conversion experience, precisely be cause of its beauty or power, to nudge aside Christ's promises as the source of assurance, comfort, and hope. Religious experience then becomes a drug, providing the emotional impetus, the good feeling, to get through another "Christian" day or week. Experience also be comes, dangerously, proof that one is still a Christian. Worse yet, it can develop a hierarchy determined by who has had the most recent, frequent, and/or dynamic experience(s). Those who, sadly, have never had a certain type of experience are to be pitied or even suspected of not being real Christians at all. In traditional theological terms, such an elevating of experience would be called idolatry.
Francke was not averse to further religious experiences, but felt that they must flow from devotion to God, not from a desire to feel something. "Should . . . your emotions be righteous, they must be fixed on the divine, invisible, and spiritual (2 Cor. 4:18)." 5 In fact, the very act of relying upon the experience rather than upon the grace of God to give peace and assurance is self-defeating. As Francke points out, "As soon as the heart elevates itself and neither seeks nor finds its salvation in the forgiveness of sin, it enters upon a false way which is full of unrest." 6
Thus, Francke's conversion, rather than becoming the focus of his life, served as a signpost that continually re minded him of the living God who had accepted him, loved him, and continued to act in his life. The personal God in Christ, then, becomes the focus of his Christian life. Only loving obedience to a gracious Father could inspire the intense service of Francke and his friends.
Although it was no end in itself, the conversion experience was of great significance to Francke as a watershed or sign of both end and beginning. It was the end of the "old man," blind with sin who, according to Francke, "has no direction and follows first this example, then that." 7 The slippery footing of dead orthodoxy or mystical speculation gave way to the solid ground of Jesus Christ alive in the believer and revealed in Holy Scripture. The egocentricity of the nonbeliever, manifested in material ism, status-seeking, lust for power and the life, is clearly revealed as an "empty way" in the light of the Saviour, who draws near the repentant sinner. The stark reality of the human condition apart from Christ is seen and forsaken, and the new believer enters upon the path leading away from self-centeredness.
Conversion, then, signals the end of the old way of being and is a springboard to a new realm of existence. Experience begins this new way of being, as reflected in Francke's Confession of a Christian: "What I ... saw and heard and learned in spiritual experience is more certain to me than what my physical eyes see, my physical ears hear, and my physical hands touch. God Himself has taught me to differentiate between nature and grace, light and darkness, fancy and power." 8 Set free by grace, given light by which to walk and the power to put off the old and live the new, the Christian can turn from his or her egocentric life style to the imitation of Christ's sacrificial love for others. This is the beginning of an eternal relationship with the loving Father, who will be en countered again and again in various ways according to His will. The new life in the Spirit is, as Scripture makes clear, characterized by the fruits of the Spirit in which God is honored and neighbor is served.
An experience of conversion, then, should not be the goal of Christian preaching or teaching, but conversion it self, however God chooses to cause it to occur. A series of experiences with God is not the characteristic of new life in Christ. The Christian life consists of living for God's honor and neighbor's good through the power of the Holy Spirit. Of course, experience is essential to any relationship, and conversion is necessary for the Christian life to happen. But let the prayer of the teacher, friend, preacher, missionary, be not that an other may have an experience, but rather that the nonbeliever may encounter the living Christ at whatever point or what ever way He may choose. Then let us be ready to behave wisely in response to whatever experience may follow.
1 "Lebenslauf," in August Hermann Francke,
Werke in Auswahl, ed. by Erhard Peschke (Berlin:
Luther-Verlag, 1959), p. 10.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid., p. 28.
4 F. Ernest Stoeffler, The Rise of Evangelical
Pietism (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), p. 181.
5 August Hermann Francke, Lebensregeln (Stutt
gart: J. F. Steinkopf Verlag, 1967), p. 7.
6 Erich Beyreuther, "Bekenntnis eines Christen,"
August Hermann Francke (Marburg an der Lahn:
Verlag der Francke-Buchhandlung, 1969), p. 241.
7 Erhard Peschke, Studien zur Theologie August
Hermann Francke (Berlin: Evangelische Verlaganstalt
GmbH., 1964), vol. 1, p. 18.
8 Beyreuther, op. cit., p. 242.