Our podcast is in the middle of its early summer vacation, but it will return a week from today with a set of three or four episodes to wrap up Season 1.
In the meantime, this is a great time to catch up on what you might have missed so far on The Pietist Schoolman Podcast. You can subscribe or download episodes on iTunes and follow the podcast on Facebook. The links below will lead you to show pages at The Christian Humanist, our host for the podcast.
Episode 0 – The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education
My brief preview to this first season of the podcast, explaining how it’s meant to extend and expand the conversation that started with our book, The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education: Forming Whole and Holy Persons (IVP Academic).
Episode 1 – Christ-Centered and Person-Centered
Theologian Roger Olson was our first guest. He talked about his book with Christian Collins Winn, Reclaiming Pietism, what he means that Christ-centered education ought to be person-centered, Pietism and seminaries, and the future of evangelicalism.
Episode 2 – Hope for Better Times
Then Roger’s co-writer on Reclaiming Pietism showed up for our second episode. Christian revisited his chapter in our book — on civil discourse, reflected on the overlap and tension between Bethel’s Pietist and Baptist heritages, and shared his love of the Blumhardts.
Episode 3 – Borderlands and Bridges
Our only three-person conversation (so far) found me talking with philosopher Sara Shady and historian Amy Poppinga about their work bringing interfaith dialogue and service into a Christian college setting.
Episode 4 – Virtues and Vices
Philosopher Ray VanArragon explained the place of intellectual virtues and vices in Christian higher education, why Pietism might promote certain examples of each category, and how Reformed and Pietist models of higher ed compared.
Episode 5 – Sciences and Arts
In this two-part conversation, physicist Dick Peterson and artist Ken Steinbach helped me think about the place of their disciplines within the Christian liberal arts, and reflected on their (award-winning) approaches to teaching.
Episode 6 – Body and Soul
With this episode, we moved away entirely from talking with people who had contributed to the Pietist Vision book and really sought to fill holes in it: volleyball coach Gretchen Hunt on the intersection of athletics and academics in a Christian college; and exercise physiologist Seth Paradis on a whole-person understanding of well-being.
Episode 7 – A Cord of Three Strands
We sometimes describe a Bethel education as consisting of a “cord of three strands”: academics, campus ministry, and student life. Joining us in this episode to talk about the second and third strands (and the relationship between the college and communities beyond campus) were campus pastor Laurel Bunker and student development dean Leah Fulton.
Episode 8 – All Tribes and Nations
Why do Christian colleges struggle to grow as communities that reflection the multi-ethnic, multi-cultural vision of Revelation 7:9? Ruben Rivera offered his insight as a historian and chief diversity officer — and helped me to process my own failings.
