If you don’t normally read Roger Olson’s blog, check it out: he’s on a roll. I’ve probably got three or four posts to write that have been inspired by something Roger’s written, but let me start with the most recent topic: denominations. I know this will shock many people, but my attitude toward denominations is … More Roger Olson on Denominations and Christian Unity
10/12/12 – Thanks to my recent CFH co-panelist Jared Burkholder for publishing a three-part interview with David Swartz, on his important new history of the “evangelical left,” Moral Minority. Here’s a taste from part one: Swartz explained that, for evangelical readers like myself, he wrote the book “to offer a sense of context. Just about … More The Moral Minority
Yesterday Conor Friedersdorf of The Atlantic extended his critique of what he sees as “epistemic closure” among many conservatives, chastising them for having abandoned genuine engagement in order to shelter inside of their own institutions: For decades, conservatives have complained about liberal control of academia and the media, often with good reason. Diversity of thought … More Close-Minded Christian Colleges?
I’m afraid that fundamentalism didn’t come off so well at our “Pietism and Christian Colleges” session this past Saturday at the Conference on Faith and History. Both in Jared Burkholder’s paper on Pietism and scholarly virtues and Kurt Peterson’s on the Evangelical Covenant Church in the 1950s, fundamentalism showed its least attractive face: suspicious, uncharitable, … More You Can’t Spell Fundamentalism without Fun
Over at AC 2nd, the blog of the Bethel University History Department, we’re in the middle of what my fellow blogger-department chair John Fea might call a “membership drive.” The blog’s been in business for about eight months now, and on the heels of Bethel’s Homecoming we just sent out an e-mail inviting all of … More Checking In with the Bethel History Department Blog
“Daddy, can you play the rabbit song?” I’ve heard this from my nearly-three year old daughter at the beginning of every car trip the past week or two, ever since I bought The Carpenter, the new album by the North Carolina folk-rock band The Avett Brothers, and she heard the second track, known outside our … More The Challenge of Making Good Folk-Pop Music
Here • My usual weekend links wrap-up got pushed back a day because I spent Friday and Saturday in Boston, at the biennial meeting of the Conference of Faith and History. I posted some thoughts on Friday morning/afternoon panels, plus Tracy McKenzie’s monumentally important (I think) presidential address. Then one more on the Saturday sessions, … More That Was The Week That Was
Before I get on a plane back to the Twin Cities, let me share some thoughts on the Saturday sessions from the 2012 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, plus some more general observations: The early session featured three papers on “Christology in History: Three Perspectives from the Trenches.” All took off from … More Thoughts from CFH 2012: Saturday
Once I deliver my paper on Pietism at Bethel University tomorrow morning, my attention will shift to a different kind of writing project: an essay on the integration of learning and Christian faith in support of an application for promotion in faculty rank. I long ago decided that I was going to write my promotion … More Thoughts from CFH 2012: Tracy McKenzie’s Presidential Address
I missed Carlos Eire’s address last night, so today was my first taste of the 2012 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History. I missed the 2010 version, but my sense is that this gathering is larger than the one in 2008 at Bluffton University. Some highlights from some of the papers I heard … More Thoughts from CFH 2012: Friday
The Pietist Schoolman 