One of the most unlikely hot topics of the past month has been a kind of political theology that, to the extent it achieved any real popularity, peaked in the early 1980s: Dominion theology, or as New Yorker correspondent Ryan Lizza calls it in his now famous profile of Michelle Bachmann, Dominionism. It contends that … More Evangelicals and “Dominion” (part 1)
“You mean, like ‘CWC: The Radio Show’?” So asked my friend Stacey one June morning in 2006. It was our annual faculty workshop for the team-taught, multidisciplinary, 1st year course Christianity and Western Culture (CWC), and we had asked one of Bethel’s faculty IT consultants, Bob Kistler, to take us through some of the new … More CWC: The Radio Show, Season 11
A very special week in history, since we start with… August 29, 2011 – I make my 100th post at The Pietist Schoolman Namely, this one. How to properly assess the historical significance of this moment as compared to the other landmarks we’ll be commemorating today? Well, only time will tell, but I think we … More This Week in History
Here at The Pietist Schoolman This Week in History included the birthdays of an anthropologist and a singer-songwriter, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, and two low moments in Italian military history: the sack of Rome in 410, and Brazil’s declaration of war in 1942! Wrapping up eight posts on The Pietist Impulse in … More That Was the Week That Was
8/26/11 – Coming up next week… Michelle Bachmann and “Dominionism,” the allure of the farm, my return to academic podcasting, why Pietism seems “unusable” for Christian colleges, and my 100th post!
The other day I mentioned that I was in the middle of writing my syllabus for HIS354 Modern Europe, one of the staples of my courseload at Bethel University. As any teacher reading this knows, offering the same class year in and year out can be the bane of one’s existence. It can become numbing … More The Blessings of Teaching the Same Course Again and Again
8/25/11 – This’ll be all I post today as I take a break from course prep and blogging to join my family in attending Day 1 of the Minnesota State Fair. (All together now: “Our State Fair is a great state fair / Don’t miss it / Don’t even be late!”) But I’ll have pictures … More The Great Minnesota Get Together
Our series on models of Christian higher education inspired by a “usable past” is treading water a bit this week while I gear up for classes. In the most recent post, I surveyed American denominations with roots in Pietism, plus the colleges and universities that they founded. Next week I hope to have a more … More Pietist Colleges: Quick Facts
Today I’ll be joining a couple hundred fellow Bethel professors for the first day of our annual pre-semester retreat. We’ll hear inspiring words from our leaders, take part in thought-provoking discussions, bask in the late summer sun, and generally enjoy renewing friendships put on pause during our break. All in all, a great way to … More This is the End
Last week I concluded an eight-part series previewing The Pietist Impulse in Christianity, the new book I co-edited with Christian Collins Winn, G. William Carlson, and Eric Holst. If you kept up with the series and/or have started to read the book yourself, I’d be curious to hear your reactions in the Comments section: How … More The Pietist Impulse: An Overview
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