The Pietist Schoolman

So, what’s this blog about? Well, I’m not about to to reject advice from anyone who can write a book about sabermetric analysis compelling enough to be turned into a Brad Pitt vehicle. Alas, another geeky guy who watches The Office mostly because of Jenna Fischer already has an incredibly well-written, long-established blog on baseball, especially as played by the Minnesota Twins.

So instead I’ll (mostly) confine myself to blogging about the following topics near and dear to my heart:

1. Christianity: especially Pietism and the Evangelical Covenant Church (my denominational home), but not usually in isolation, since the Church has no need for another amateur theologian spouting off. More, how Christian practice and belief intersect with #2 and/or #3 below.

2. History: for example… book, film, museum, and website reviews, discussions of the methodology and philosophy of history — including what difference (if any) Christian faith and practice might make for studying history, and my perspectives on historiographical debates pitched to a non-professional audience (since I do hope that one of my main audiences will be current and former students who are passionate about studying the past but have no plans to add a PhD after their name). And maybe some posts on the history of baseball…

3. Education: expect pre- and post-class reflections on lectures, readings, discussions, activities, etc., previews of upcoming courses and courses being planned/dreamed, and assorted ruminations on scholarly virtues, the state of the liberal arts, and the purposes of higher education — especially as those topics have been understood historically by Christians in general and Pietists (an underrepresented group in such conversations — this will take me into sharing my ongoing research) in particular.

4. Wilco, American foreign policy, Apple vs. Microsoft, and The Simpsons: because I’m pretty sure no one else has had much of anything to say about any of those things.