Philipp Jakob Spener

Philipp Jakob Spener (13 January 1635, Rappoltsweiler – 5 February 1705, Berlin) was a German Lutheran theologian who essentially founded what would become to be known as Pietism. He was later dubbed the "Father of Pietism."

Spener was born in Ribeauvillé in Upper Alsace (now part of France, at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire). After a brief time at the grammar school of Colmar, he went to Strasbourg in 1651, where he devoted himself to the study of philology, history and philosophy, and won his degree of master (1653) by a disputation against the philosophy of Thomas Hobbes. He then became private tutor to the princes Christian and Charles of the Electorate of the Palatinate, and lectured in the university on philology and history. From 1659 to 1662 he visited the universities of Basel, Tübingen and Geneva, and commenced the study of heraldry, which he pursued throughout his life. In Geneva especially his religious views and tendencies were turned in the direction of mysticism.

Spener returned to Strasbourg in 1663, where he was appointed preacher without pastoral duties, with the right of holding lectures. Three years afterwards he was invited to become the chief pastor in the Lutheran Church at Frankfurt. Here he published his two chief works, Pia desideria (1675) and Allgemeine Gottesgelehrtheit (1680), and began that form of pastoral work which resulted in the movement called Pietism. In 1686 he accepted the invitation to the first court chaplaincy at Dresden. But the Elector John George III, at whose personal desire the post had been offered to him, was soon offended when Spener condemned the morals of John George's court. Spener refused to resign his post, and the Saxon government hesitated to dismiss him. But in 1691 the Saxon representative at Berlin induced the court of Brandenburg to offer him the rectorship of St Nicholas in Berlin with the title of counsellor of the Marcher Consistory (Konsistorialrat).

...
Wikipedia