Here… • One Baptist political scientist paid tribute to another, as G.W. Carlson celebrated the legacy of Walfred H. Peterson. • Even more interesting than anything that I put in my post about changes in Winter Olympic records over time was this nugget passed along by a former student: when Dutch speed skater Sven Kramer … More That Was The Week That Was
I recently had the opportunity to hear Tim Challies speak at one of our local churches here in Winona Lake, IN. Challies is a (Neo-Calvinist) pastor, writer, and a keen thinker who has helped his audiences wrestle with issues related to faith, technology, and our ubiquitous digital devices. Many of Challies’ points were what one … More Technology and Faith: A Perennial Dilemma
I’ve sometimes dreamed of having a holodeck-like classroom in which the walls were massive screens that could be changed to make it seem like we were suddenly sitting in the middle of the same physical environment we were discussing. To teach the French Revolution while sitting in the middle of Paris’ Place de la Concorde, … More What Did History Smell Like?
The day the 2012 Summer Olympics opened in London, I wrote a post exploring how Olympic records had changed over time. Over the course of a century (from the 1908 London Olympics to 2008 in Beijing), I found that athletes in track and field and swimming had significantly improved performance. While that’s not surprising, it … More Olympic Records Over Time (Winter Edition)
Today G.W. Carlson concludes his tribute to Baptist scholar Wally Peterson, who helped found the political science program at Bethel during his time there (1950-1965). In part two G.W. turns to Peterson’s time with the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs (now, Religious Liberty) and his productive tenure on the faculty of Washington State University. … More Walfred Peterson: Champion of Religious Liberty (G.W. Carlson) – part 2
Having previously written tributes to Clarence Jordan, Virgil Olson, and Will D. Campbell, our own favorite Baptist, G.W. Carlson, returns to celebrate another noteworthy Baptist: political scientist Walfred “Wally” Peterson, who served at the Baptist Joint Committee for Religious Liberty in between teaching stints at Bethel College and Washington State University. (G.W. previously wrote about … More Walfred Peterson: Champion of Religious Liberty (G.W. Carlson) – part 1
Here… • From France (soft power of, as developed through funding of language immersion schools)… • …to Germany (stereotypes in, as rooted in Pietist frugality)… • …to the Ukraine (starvation of, by Stalin and Hitler), The Pietist Schoolman is your source for all things European! • Then, for variety’s sake, some advice for Christian parents looking to … More That Was The Week That Was
When I write about books on this blog, they’re usually academic or semi-academic works of history or theology. But for the end of the week, I thought I’d share a rather different kind of book that my wife and I are reading — both as parents and as teachers of a 4th grade Sunday School … More Spiritual Disciplines for Children
Today’s must-read article comes from Anne Applebaum, pointing to a perhaps underreported dimension of the crisis in Syria: mass starvation brought about by the policies of Bashar al-Assad. While the international community is haggling over [Assad’s] chemical weapons, the stuff of modern nightmares, he is following the example of his medieval and his 20th-century predecessors and … More Starvation as a Weapon
After nearly three years of blogging, you’d think that I’d have exhausted my ability to reveal semi-embarrassing details of my life. But I’m not sure I’ve yet mentioned that, in the summers after 3rd and 4th grades, I spent a week at French camp. It was called Lac du Bois. I lived in a cabin … More The French Are Coming! Language Immersion as Soft Power
The Pietist Schoolman 