Here • This is a blog that seeks to explore “Christianity, history, education, and how they intersect.” So naturally the most popular post of the week had to do with thinking through how Americans in a not-too-distant might replace pro football. (Thanks again to my friends and colleagues Sam Mulberry and Chris Moore for doing … More That Was The Week That Was
By almost any measure, the National Football League is the most popular and profitable professional sports league in the United States, and likely in the world. Popular? In 2011 all but two of the top 25 most watched telecasts in this country were NFL games, and a Harris poll earlier this year found that 36% … More Replacing the NFL: A Thought Experiment (with Chris Moore and Sam Mulberry)
At some point in my life, it was bound to happen: I would be asked to teach Sunday School. And not the adult kind, which I’ve done several times and isn’t all that different from teaching college students — except that the audience is much more likely to have been awake more than ten minutes … More 4 Things I’ve Learned Teaching 4th Grade Sunday School
Yesterday I lauded a variety of conservative writers whom I encouraged my left-leaning friends to include in their regular reading rotation. One reason I recommended many of them is that they possess the rare ability to engage in critical reflection on their own movement. To wit, David Brooks’ New York Times column this morning and … More Two of My “Conservatives for Progressives” Reflect on the State of Conservatism
In the shadow of the Mall of America and Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport stand two very different kinds of memorials to Minnesotans’ participation in the two world wars and other conflicts: one the product of design, the other the victim of neglect. First, Fort Snelling National Cemetery, the final resting place of over 180,000 men … More Commemorating WWI in Minnesota: Fort Snelling
In the wake of the 47% fiasco, I very much hope that Republican readers took seriously Michael Gerson’s critique of the “libertarian nonsense” too commonly escaping the lips of GOP politicians these days, and David Brooks‘ conclusion that Romney “has lost any sense of the social compact” and joined other Republicans in shifting “from the … More Rejecting Epistemic Closure: Conservatives for Progressives to Read
Here • One last burst of rating college ratings focused on the use of “comparison groups” by colleges and universities. • In their own return to publishing, Douglas and Rhonda Jacobsen examined another return: that of religion to higher education. • It wasn’t a long post, but struggling to pick just nine favorite Bob Dylan … More That Was The Week That Was
The ten most popular posts in the last month here at The Pietist Schoolman: “All have sinned”: The U.S.-Dakota War of 1862 Pietism and Civil Discourse (Christian Collins Winn) Tolkien, Lewis, and the Memory of War “I could use some help with Leviticus” Veep-Stakes “What’s another word for Pietist?” A College Student Reflects on Pietism … More The Big Ten
On October 30, 1793, the French National Convention — having repeatedly declined to recognize women’s right to vote — abolished women’s debating clubs and other political societies. It may be tempting to dismiss this as a little-remembered moment of misogyny by revolutionaries five weeks into their Reign of Terror. Except that the Jacobins and other … More Women, Virtue, and Politics: From 1793 to Today
Spending too much time thinking or worrying about college rankings seems like a clear path to insanity, so I’ll make this my last of three posts (plus one re-post) on the subject for this season… In previous posts I’ve joined, well, almost everyone who looks at these things and criticized U.S. News for basing as … More Ranking Christian Colleges (part 2)
The Pietist Schoolman 