As longtime readers know, I love Christian hymnody, especially that of my own tradition, Scandinavian Pietism. So I was happy for the excuse to revisit those songs as I kicked off a new Anxious Bench series today: on looking beyond books to other types of Christian writing. It’s a kind of belated response to the top 25 Christian writings list that Christian … More Beyond Books: Hymns as Christian Writing
Like Jared, I think it’s evident that David Barton struggles to understand what historians do and how we do it. That’s especially true whenever he gets to the intersection between faith and learning. Consider his recent mini-tirade against John Fea: He [Fea] said the founding fathers didn’t want ministers–the founding fathers were ministers in office [sic]. So they’re doing this … More What David Barton Doesn’t Understand about Graduate School and Christian Scholarship
Here… • I realized that my sabbatical had temporarily relocated me to a bastion of Donald Trump support. (At least during my sabbatical, I’m planning to move my week-in-review posts from Saturday morning to Sunday afternoon.) • Our friend Jared Burkholder was back with an open letter to David Barton about primary sources. I’ll have my … More That Was The Week That Was
If you had asked high school or college Chris to name his favorite TV show, Star Trek would have been near the top of the list. I watched Star Trek: The Next Generation right from its 1986 beginning, and in the process worked my way back to “The Original Series,” which debuted on NBC fifty years ago tonight. I’ve enjoyed … More Religion in Star Trek
For the first half of my fall sabbatical in Virginia, my primary goal is to finish the manuscript for the book I’m writing with Mark Pattie: Hope for Better Times: Pietism and the Future of Christianity, which should come out from InterVarsity Press next year. Mark is primarily responsible for writing the chapter on how Pietists read the … More “We read Scripture to do God’s Word”
Last week my family completed a rambling journey and arrived safely in the Blue Ridge Mountains, where we’ll be spending my fall sabbatical as I continue work on a couple of writing projects. Believe it or not, this will be my workspace until December: As we passed through Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, and West Virginia, I was … More Dispatches from Trump Country
There’s a guest post up at The Anxious Bench today (on St. Ephrem the Syrian), so I’ll instead use this space to announce that I’m taking a break from Pietist Schoolman for a while. As some of you may remember, I’m spending my fall sabbatical living in the Blue Ridge Mountains, and that transition is only a couple weeks away. So I … More Taking Some Time Off…
Here… • I surveyed the religious history of the modern Olympic Games for my weekly Anxious Bench post… also reflecting briefly on the Olympics as religion (a theme I developed a bit more when invited to rewrite that post for The Gospel Coalition). • After a year of enormous division, could the games help bring Americans together? • And for no … More That Was The Week That Was
In case you missed it yesterday morning, The Gospel Coalition featured a reworked version of my Anxious Bench post on the religious history of the modern Olympics. They asked me to conclude with a bit more application for Christian readers, so here’s what I came up with: So how should Christians respond to an event whose website still defines Olympism as “a philosophy of … More Can the Olympics Bring Americans Together?
It’s all Olympics, all the time this week at The Pietist Schoolman! In case you want to bone up before Rio 2016 gets going in earnest, I thought I’d update my 2012 response to this question: Which countries (and continents) are most dominant in each summer Olympic sport? (And yes, there’s a winter version.) I’ve … More Which Country (and Continent) Dominates Each Olympic Sport? (Updated)
The Pietist Schoolman 