Not bad for a Quaker. In fact in this instance Trueblood is spot on and his musing is quite appropriate for Lent. Christian piety— at its essence, the legitimate practice of godliness and holiness in its myriad forms—must always manifest itself ultimately in action or service. Otherwise, we become a bunch of navel gazers who forfeit our primary responsibility to the Father to be his faithful image-bears in making his Name known and honored in the creation. Even the Desert Fathers understood this truth. Trueblood was also a bit of a prophet because if one thing is clear in these days of lawlessness, the defining characteristic of social activists is their misguided and self-righteous anger. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.

Though it might be argued, theoretically, that a Christianity in which men know how to picket, but not how to pray, is bound to wither, theorizing is not required, because we can already observe the logic of events. The fact is that emphasis upon the life of outer service, without a corresponding emphasis upon the life of devotion, has already led to obviously damaging results, one of which is calculated arrogance. How different it might be if the angry activists were to heed the words found in The Imitation of Christ, “Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”

The essence of pietism, by contrast, is the limitation: of primary interest to personal salvation. Even today, by the highways, we can see signs paid for by somebody, which urge us to “get right with God.” The evil of this well-intentioned effort lies not in what it says, but in what it so evidently omits. The assumption is that salvation is nothing more than a private transaction between the individual and God and that it can become an accomplished, dated event.

—From The New Man for Our Time by Elton Trueblood