It’s a busy time of year, but it was good to get away and spend the weekend at Covenant Pines, two hours north of the Twin Cities, where my church holds an annual “family camp.” I was invited to teach three hour-long sessions with the adults while their kids were off doing Bible study, crafts, … More Covenant Pines and the Desert Road
As this gets posted, I’ll be driving north from the Twin Cities to McGregor, MN, where I’m giving a series of talks as part of our church’s annual “family camp” at Covenant Pines. (I’ll post an outline next week.) Preparing for those talks left me with less blogging time than usual this past week, so … More That Was The Week That Was
I haven’t imposed many blogging rules on myself, but here’s one I think I’ll honor more in the observance than the breach… “Any sanctimonious post must be followed by one that embarrasses the blogger” So, having spent yesterday’s post up on my high horse defending denominations less by pointing to their virtues than by decrying … More Guilty Pleasures
In his scathing review (“pretty much an adventure in missing the point”) of Randall Balmer’s scathing review of Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, philosopher Jamie Smith took particular exception to Balmer’s observation that “institutions, in my experience, are remarkably poor vehicles for piety.” My post that follows isn’t actually … More Anti-Anti-Denominationalism
There are times when I weary of having to defend the value of a liberal arts education — to prospective students and their parents, to history majors about to graduate and dreading the prospect of working at Starbucks, and perhaps even to administrators and trustees (not yet ours, thank God). But fortunately the case is … More “Increasing the Value of a Liberal Education”
Not many Americans share my last name — a few dozen, if that — and yet it sometimes feels like I can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone for whom the name Gehrz rings a bell. That’s partly because it’s a distinctive name: people can’t spell Gehrz (no, it’s not Gerhz, Gehrtz, or Gertz) or … More Uncle Jim
Here • The death of Levon Helm had me thinking about one of my favorite Martin Scorsese movies, the concert film The Last Waltz. • I continued my series on Confessing History, a promising collection of essays rethinking how Christians do history, with a post on three chapters dealing with “Identity.” • Former North Park … More That Was The Week That Was
Today I’ll continue my series on Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s Vocation, eds. John Fea, Jay Green, and Eric Miller (University of Notre Dame Press) with a look at the book’s first part: a set of three chapters on what Miller (in his introduction) calls “that preeminently postmodern category and concern, … More Confessing History: Identity
I’ll come back to our Pietism studies colloquium later today or tomorrow with a concluding set of reflections, but let me interrupt that series briefly to encourage its readers to look at something Jay Phelan wrote yesterday on his blog, Additional Markings. His post begins: I had reason again this week to be thankful that … More Pietism vs. the “Imperial Church”
Last Friday Bethel hosted its inaugural Colloquium on Pietism Studies. I’ve earlier posted summaries of Scot McKnight’s keynote address (on Anabaptism, Pietism, and evangelicalism) and Jon Sensbach’s post-lunch talk (on Afro-Moravian Christianity in the mid-18th century). This afternoon: a few highlights from the roundtable discussion that I moderated. In 2009, we hosted a research conference … More Pietism Colloquium Recap: Roundtable on Pietism’s “Usable Past”
The Pietist Schoolman 