“’Quietismus Sacer’ – Engaging Religious Adversaries”

This essay explores a critical reaction to the turbulence born out of the debate on Quietism at the end of the 17th century. Caspar Exner (1627–1704), a minister and sub- scriber to Lutheran Orthodoxy, wrote a report in 1689 on the recent outburst of what in his view was misleading theological assumptions. His refutation of so-called false doctrines turned out to be an ambiguous road for engaging religious adversaries. Urged to assess a specific and contested topic, Exner developed a method that confronted religious renewal in general. It is the aim of this essay to demonstrate how rectification was a means for appropriating and moderating contested ideas and surpassing confessional boundaries.