Is two years too soon to call something an “annual holiday tradition”? For our readers who like to give such gifts for Christmas, here’s a list of some of the history books to have appeared on the “Best of 2013” lists that I first examined in a recent post on academic historians achieving success with … More The Best History Books of 2013?
Track this and tell me that God doesn’t work in mysterious ways: 1. When I was hired to come to a Baptist/Pietist/evangelical college as the new European historian, I was expected to teach an upper-level course on the Reformations. The last time I had studied this chapter in history was… oh, the first week of … More Why I’m Almost a Lutheran
Sixty-five years ago yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly gathered in Paris’ Palais de Chaillot to approve the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. Australia’s Herbert Evatt, presiding over the General Assembly, called the moment “an epoch-making event in the development of international law” and enthused that the UN was … More This Day in History: The Birth of Human Rights Law
I have larger misgivings about moving more and more of higher ed online (which I’ll explore soon), but this talk given earlier this fall found me beginning to explore its costs and benefits in light of my experience teaching a fully online Western Civ course last summer. This past summer my colleague Sam Mulberry and … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: A Field Report from the Digital Frontier
Here… • Rest in peace, Nelson Mandela. • Would Pietists have embraced C.S. Lewis as much as evangelicals, Catholics, Mormons, and others have? • Can Christian churches (and colleges) tackle the challenge of becoming multi-ethnic if they haven’t learned to bridge differences within racially similar communities (e.g., class and gender)? (See also Ed Stetzer’s reflection … More That Was The Week That Was
November 22, the day that marked the passing of that strange threesome of JFK, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley, is now itself history. Here at Grace College, we marked the occasion with a symphonic concert of 1960s pop music (strange as that may sound) as well as a more academic event for which well-known C.S. … More Would Eighteenth Century Pietists Have Embraced C.S. Lewis?
As you’ve likely heard by now, the South African statesman Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela died earlier today at the age of 95. The reaction has been overwhelming; I’ll just sample a few responses. “Our nation has lost its greatest son,” lamented South African president Jacob Zuma. F.W. de Klerk paid tribute to the man whom was … More RIP Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
If we haven’t learned how to be a healing station for the people who are racially similar, then we’re never going to learn how to be a healing station for the people who are racially dissimilar. (Christena Cleveland) Even if it means that I don’t catch up on the reading in European and diplomatic history that I should … More “Beyond Multiethnic” Church – and Christian Colleges?
‘Tis the season for media old and new to trot out their “best of” lists for the soon-to-conclude year. As I did in 2012, I’ve been working on collating some such lists into a Christmas gift-giving guide for history buffs. In the process, I’ve been heartened to find a few academic historians garnering praise for … More Academic Historians On (and Off) Year-End “Best of” Lists
If you want to sound like you’re a serious, forward-thinking educator these days, you’d best master a couple of facile cliches: (1) speak derisively of the “sage on the stage” in order (2) to exhort colleagues to embrace “student-centered, active learning.” To help yourself convey the proper degree of disdain for the lecture, think back … More The Value of the “Sage on the Stage”
The Pietist Schoolman 