Author: Chris Gehrz

Hawthorne, A First Step Into a Much Larger World

Thursday’s Podcast: A Wesleyan Perspective

July 16, 2015

The Pietist Schoolman Podcast returns this morning with sociologist John Hawthorne sharing a Wesleyan perspective on Christian higher education and faith-learning integration. (In an interview done a few days before the Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, John also offered a thoughtful, non-alarmist take on how Christian colleges might respond to such a decision.) You can find my conversation with … More Thursday’s Podcast: A Wesleyan Perspective

Town sign for Moravia, Iowa (est. 1851)

Pietism as Instincts, or It’s More Than Old Churches in Rural Iowa

July 14, 2015

At the end of June I had the chance to spend a few days at Rathbun Lake in southern Iowa, joining my wife’s extended family for a reunion. Of course, even on vacation I couldn’t escape my research. In a part of Iowa most famous in religious history for being part of the Mormon Trail, I turned … More Pietism as Instincts, or It’s More Than Old Churches in Rural Iowa

WordPress Themes page

Help Me Pick a New Look for The Pietist Schoolman!

July 13, 2015

Ever since this blog started in June 2011, it has used the same WordPress theme. Described as “a classic and popular magazine-style theme that has withstood the test of time,” I liked The Morning After because it squared with my preference for a multi-column, magazine-like look that would make it easy for readers to find posts other than the … More Help Me Pick a New Look for The Pietist Schoolman!

"Why Study History?" Wordle

Is the History Major Dominated by the Upper Middle Class?

July 10, 2015

Here are two top-five lists of college majors. What factor determines the ranking? Law Enforcement & Firefighting 1 English Education 2 History Psychology 3 Visual and Performing Arts Computer Science 4 Economics Medicine and Nursing 5 Sociology, Political Science, and Anthropology On the left, the five college majors whose students come from families with the lowest mean household income; … More Is the History Major Dominated by the Upper Middle Class?

The rebuilt Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino

The Benedict Option

July 7, 2015

The conflict of the Present and the Past, The ideal and the actual in our life, As on a field of battle held me fast, Where this world and the next world were at strife. For, as the valley from its sleep awoke, I saw the iron horses of the steam Toss to the morning air their plumes of smoke, And woke, as one awaketh from a dream. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “Monte Cassino“ Almost fifteen hundred years ago a hermit in flight from Rome — “disgusted,” wrote Longfellow, with that city’s “vice and woe” — settled on a mountain in the Abruzzis, forming a community and writing a rule that would make him the father of Western monasticism. … More The Benedict Option

Dimnent Chapel, Hope College

Two Christian Colleges Change Policy after the Obergefell Ruling

July 6, 2015

In the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling late last month in the Obergefell case, there was much speculation that religiously-affiliated schools and universities could feel pressure to change their policies vis-à-vis LGBT individuals. For a calm, well-informed consideration of potential issues facing Christian colleges and universities after Obergefell, I recommend John Hawthorne’s response to an earlier post from Philip Bethancourt of the … More Two Christian Colleges Change Policy after the Obergefell Ruling