This is a most welcome addition to the study of the life and thought of one of the German architects of Pietism, August Hermann Francke (1663–1727). Francke never set out to write a systematic theology of the sacraments. As a pastor-theologian, he used the pulpit to give shape to his doctrine. For his examination of Francke's sacramental theology, Yoder therefore drew on a rich trove of primary source materials, principally the sermons that Francke preached over a thirty-six-year period at St Georgen, Glaucha, and at St Ulrich, Halle. Yoder's extensive and careful use of German and Latin primary source materials provides a robust and substantial framework for his systematic overview of Francke's sacramental theology. Viewed through the lens of the Pietist's eventful life story, Yoder traces the development of Francke's theology from ‘atheist philologist’, teaching biblical languages at Leipzig, to public theologian in Halle. In the absence of a contemporary scholarly biography of Francke, this approach meets both the need for a new biographical account in English and provides the necessary scaffolding for Yoder's own theological examination of the German Pietist.

Central to Francke's self-understanding as a Christian was his personal conversion experience in Lüneburg in 1687–8. Conversion, the recognition of individual sin and turning to Christ, was what distinguished true believers from practical atheists, by which Francke understood ‘individuals who did not deny God's existence through words or philosophical systems but by their actions’ (p. 53). Francke would later describe the faith he held prior to his conversion as Wahnglaube, ‘delusional faith’, and ‘willingly applied the same term to those around him who had not undergone what he believed to be true rebirth’ (p. 95). Francke held that genuine faith wrought in individual conversion, on the other hand, enabled believers to ‘glory in the righteousness of Christ and in turn to glorify God through the outworking of the Spirit’ (p. 97).

For Francke, the ultimate aim of Christian life was the believer's union with Christ, which he described in terms of a marriage. If the believer's inward relationship with Christ was a marriage, the outer signs of this inner union – the sacraments – were ‘the wedding gown of the church’ (p. 56). Francke placed the highest importance on the inward relationship of individual believers with Christ. He therefore insisted on a proper understanding by his congregants of the meaning and efficacy of the sacraments and, equally importantly, their right disposition and preparation for participation in the sacraments. Francke believed that if congregants were ‘truly ignorant of the realities of the sacrament, they would correspondingly be ignorant of their eternal union with Christ, their groom’ (p. 56).

For Francke, orthodoxy and orthopraxy went hand in hand. Head and heart needed to be aligned, as doctrinal knowledge was brought to life in the subjective experiences of each believer. True conversion, then, was a profound change of heart through which belief is expressed in action, and the outer life confirms the inner. Yoder explains: ‘his theology of conversion wrinkles upon itself, the outward depending on the inward and vice versa’ (p. 123). This understanding of conversion particularly underpinned his theology and practice of auricular confession and the eucharist. He decried ‘formula recitation and expectation of salvation’, refusing congregants he believed to be unrepentant absolution (p. 111). Similarly, since ‘the Supper was a place where believers drew closer to God or distanced themselves through unworthiness’ (p. 134), congregants he believed to be living contrary to their profession were regularly barred from participating in the Lord's Supper.

In giving shape to his theology of the sacraments, Francke drew on the work of earlier Puritan and Lutheran theologians, such as Lewis Bayly, Johann Arndt, Philipp Jakob Spener and Theophil Großgebauer. Yoder rightly highlights that Francke succeeded in ‘adapting and adopting earlier seventeenth-century Puritan thought … without replacing traditional Lutheran doctrine’ (p. 66). While his opponents accused Francke of being ‘an innovator of faith, and danger to the church’ (p. 25), Yoder shows that ‘Lutheranism was not the target of Francke's arrows’; rather ‘lack of true faith in the midst of true doctrine’ was (p. 83).

This excellent volume shows how Francke's theology profoundly shaped not only the German-speaking Pietist movement, but inspired Awakening and Revival movements far beyond Germany. Francke ‘sought individual rebirth for the sake of an awakening of the church and a reforming of the world’ (p. 145). In his epilogue Yoder touches on the influence of Francke's thought on North American Evangelicalism, and helpfully points to the many areas of Francke research that still need addressing to ‘piece together a fuller picture not only of the overlap and exchange of theological ideas’ in German Pietism but also of its influence beyond Francke's own sphere (p. 149).