4/10/15 – A special sneak preview (or “Episode 0”) of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast is now available! You can download episodes or subscribe through iTunes, and learn more about each episode from my show page at The Christian Humanist. Stop back on April 16th for episode 1, featuring theologian Roger Olson.
Having spent a couple of posts last week unpacking Liberty University’s ambition (and the older one of Baylor University) to become “the Protestant Notre Dame” — and asking just what that meant, I’m surprised it took almost four days to see this comment appear: The question isn’t so much whether Liberty is a Protestant Notre Dame, … More Notre Dame and the Idea of the Catholic University
If not, this week is a great time to check in with Past & Presence, the weekly webisode series that Sam Mulberry and I have been producing with our colleagues and students in the Bethel University History Department. Today’s episode — #9 — is just packed with good stuff: As usual, I moderate everything with interstitial clips in … More Have You Seen Our Department Webisode Yet?
“We celebrate Jesus’ resurrection as a message about our future with him in heaven,” wrote Roger Olson at his blog for Easter Sunday, “but we too often neglect the other dimension of Easter: that a new life can be experienced now even in the face of inevitable death.” (Hey, have I mentioned that Roger will be … More Expectation and Joy: A Benediction for Easter Monday
Several members of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU) appeared on a recently-released list of 560 institutions of higher learning whose federal aid has been restricted by the U.S. Department of Education, in many cases because of financial concerns. Under secretary of education Ted Mitchell explained that what the department calls “Heightened Cash Monitoring is not necessarily … More Christian Colleges among Those Named by Department of Education for Financial Scrutiny
Just what would make Liberty University — or Baylor University or any other claimant to the title — “the Protestant Notre Dame“? Among other fine responses to my post on this topic yesterday, Aaron Morrison suggested that Liberty president Jerry Falwell, Jr. “needed to clarify what he meant by ‘Notre Dame’” before deeming his school … More Further Thoughts on the “Protestant Notre Dame”
Last month I spent spring break visiting my parents in southwestern Virginia. Thanks to bad weather in Roanoke, our plane was diverted to nearby Lynchburg, where I walked out of the terminal and saw a sprawling university campus a stone’s throw away: Liberty University. Liberty’s president — Jerry Falwell, Jr. — has ambitious goals, reports Slate staff writer Betsy Woodruff: “Falwell … More Is Liberty University the “Protestant Notre Dame”?
4/1/15 – This week’s eighth episode of Past & Presence starts a two-part conversation about Christian approaches to the discipline of history — starting with George Marsden’s Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship. (I’ll have a post next week on that conversation after the second half airs.) Plus I get to indulge my interest in commemoration by visiting war (and … More Past and Presence: Christian History, Part I
Here… Thanks to everyone who responded to our “comment drive” questions: • Which movies are most historically accurate? (And how important is that?) • What’s your favorite biography? • Why is the Civil War so fascinating, 150 years later? …There and Everywhere • One source sustaining my fascination with that conflict is the New York Times‘ Disunion blog, which recently pointed … More That Was The Week That Was
I suspect that I’ve blogged long enough that I’m running out of mildly embarrassing self-revelations, but here’s one oddity I might not have shared: I like to relax by reading about the American Civil War. How European/international historians relax on their spring breaks. pic.twitter.com/JIIUFen4J7 — Chris Gehrz (@cgehrz) March 16, 2015 Yes, while others spend spring break on … More Comment Drive: Why’s the Civil War So Fascinating?
The Pietist Schoolman 