Earlier this month I took a break from blogging about history, teaching, and theology in order to share my love of Sherlock Holmes — most recently as the character was embodied by Benedict Cumberbatch in a BBC show that will have its second series of episodes premiere Stateside next year. Until that premiere, I’ve tried … More More Sherlock!
We’ve been floating this news for a little while now, but for those who haven’t yet heard… Please mark your calendars: Bethel University will be hosting a colloquium on Pietism on Friday, April 20, 2012. Coordinated by Christian Collins Winn and myself, it will be a kind of sequel to the 2009 research conference that … More Save the Date: Pietism Colloquium at Bethel
With the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire’s primary only one and two weeks away, respectively, more and more newspaper editorial boards, political activists, religious leaders, and other powerful individuals and groups have been weighing in with their endorsements of Republican candidates vying to face off against President Obama next November. As an opinion-shaper myself, I … More Jon Huntsman, for Candidate
Not just Boxing Day, Return Unwanted Gifts Day, or Two Turtle Doves Day, the second day of Christmas has enormous theological importance: It reminds us that when the angels returned to the realms of glory and the shepherds to their fields, Mary and Joseph still had a child to parent. What does it imply that … More “What Child Is This?”
The most important historian in my life is the one who described his research project in this way: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the … More Merry Incarnation
Ah, Christmas memories from childhood… Playing elf to my pediatrician father’s Santa at the Children’s Hospital party. Honoring my Swedish heritage by choking down one bite of lutefisk every Christmas Eve. Getting a pile of Reader’s Digest books about topics like natural disasters and true crime from Grandpa Gehrz the next morning… Good times. And … More A Very Nazi Christmas!
12/21/11 – With grades due tomorrow night and Christmas travels this weekend, I don’t expect to post much new material here for a few days. And generally, the next three weeks will find this blog fairly quiet. But expect me to come back in mid-January with plenty to say after spending two weeks in Europe … More Christmas Semi-Break
Ordinarily, this is the day when I post the most popular posts from the preceding month. That list follows at the bottom of the post, but since December 20th also marks the half-birthday of The Pietist Schoolman, I’ll also include the six most popular posts from the first six months of this blog. Thanks to … More Six Months
Okay, my last word clouds for 2011 — I promise! It’s probably obvious that the first has to do with Kim Jong-il and the second with Vaclav Havel. While the North Korean dictator was reported to have died on Saturday and the Czech playwright-president passed away on Sunday, their obituaries happened to appear side by … More Kim and Havel
Today’s post is the second in a new, occasional series on the role of Pietism in the history of Bethel University and its parent denomination, the Baptist General Conference (now going by its “missional name”: Converge Worldwide). Rather than give my own take on these topics, I’m going to summarize the work of some earlier … More Pietism, the BGC, and Bethel University: G.W. Carlson
The Pietist Schoolman 