The Pietist Schoolman

A busy Friday at work bumped my last regular post of the week to Saturday, which is why I’m posting a rare Sunday installment of my weekly links wrap-up, featuring items you might have missed both here at The Pietist Schoolman and elsewhere at sites that might interest my readers.

Here

• Two series continued after being on hiatus for some time: first, Carolyn Weber came to the story of her conversion experience in Surprised by Oxford; and before Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom tell three stories of Indian Christians in their Clouds of Witnesses, I queried their choice to focus on a region with such a proportionately small Christian population (while they ignore other regions with higher percentages of Christians, like Latin America and Southeast Asia).
• Two other books generated one-off posts: an appreciation for my friend Mark Choate’s study of Italy as a “global nation”; and differing responses to Steven Pinker’s rather optimistic reading of the history of violence.
• Then two more posts largely focused on soliciting your comments: a wrap-up of my series on the best national anthems asked for alternative rankings, criteria, and nominees; and wondering what other people thought was especially distinctive of Bethel University and other Christian colleges.
• And I played the role of music critic in a conversation with Michial Farmer of The Christian Humanist Blog, reviewing the new albums by The Jayhawks and Wilco. And I promise that’ll be all I write about those bands for, oh, two weeks.

Elsewhere

• Perhaps no one is more responsible for restarting the conversation about Christian higher education (at least among evangelicals) than philosopher Arthur F. Holmes, author of The Idea of a Christian College and Building the Christian Academy, who died last Saturday. Even though I sometimes find myself disagreeing with his emphases or conclusions, all of us who research and reimagine Christian higher education stand on his shoulders. Holmes taught for more than four decades at Wheaton College, whose library posted a brief obituary that links to an earlier post on Holmes and one of his most memorable chapel talks. (H/T Christianity Today)
• Efrem Smith reviews John Piper’s Bloodlines; thumbs up to the first half; the second half, well…
• Ken Carter on why churches (often) need denominations. (H/T CCBlogs Network)
• It’s been a while since I’ve passed on anything from the good folks at The Scriptorium Daily, but I highly recommend Fred Sanders’ primer on Vatican II and two posts from John Mark Reynolds: one on the value of asking good questions and a second explaining why presidents like Barack Obama ought not be overly vilified or praised.