"A stellar constellation of books from the English historian W.R. Ward has successfully pushed consideration of evangelical roots back into the seventeenth century and convincingly expanded attention from the British world to Europe as a whole. The importance of this perspective for the tewenty0first century lies in noticing that the beginnings of evangelicalism were as international as contemporary expressions of evangelicalism have become. In this picture, distinctly evangelical beliefs and practices emerged in response to political pressure from European state-church establishments, especially in the Habsburg Empire. These responses led to widely scattered revivals where state authorities, Catholic and Protestant, tried to enforce religious conformity. Protests against this pattern of assimilation, arising first in central Europe, soon displayed a number of common features in defense of “true Christianity” against formulaic, systematic, or imposed orthodoxies. Protestors often relied on small-group enclaves as the best form for encouraging “true Christianity.” They were often led by lay people and witnessed much activity by children and youth. And they regularly expressed their hard-won faith in newly written songs and hymns. By pushing the history back into the seventeenth century, a new set of evangelical pioneers comes into focus, including Johann Arndt (1555-1621), whose much-reprinted True Christianity(1605-1610) moved Lutheran theology toward stressing Christ in his children rather than just Christ for his children. A recovery of this European history also shows clearly how the major elements of Lutheran Pietism heralded common evangelical patterns of alter centuries. Philip Jakob Spener (1635-1705), whose Pia Desideria of 1675 is regarded as the beginning of organized Pietism, promoted small-group conventicles as a way to encourage the personal appropriation of faith. His successor, August Hermann Francke (1663-1723), used a complex of institutions associated with the University of Halle to translate renewed personal religion into cross-cultural missions, active social service (especially the famous Halle orphanage), and entrepreneurial creativity in raising money for Christian causes. Under Count Ludwig Nicholas von Zinzendorf (1700-1760), the Moravians carried Pietist emphases into a partial break with Lutheranism and an even more wholehearted commitment to personal holiness, missions, and joyful worship."