Every one of the now nine years I’ve taught at Bethel University, I’ve led a section of our department’s capstone course, HIS499 Senior Seminar. In it, our majors conduct a significant project of original historical research on any topic of their choice, which leaves me to act more as facilitator and editor than lecturer. We … More Bethel’s History Senior Seminar Presents…
For a college professor/baseball fan like myself, this news was hard to hear: As of Wednesday morning, 917 players had appeared in at least one big-league game this season, according to STATS LLC. Of that group, only 39 — or 4.3 percent — were confirmed by their teams of MLB as having obtained four-year college … More The Thinking Man’s Game?
The ten most popular posts in the last month here at The Pietist Schoolman: Tolkien, Lewis, and the Memory of War Pietism Colloquium on iTunes U Pietism Colloquium Recap: Scot McKnight In Celebration of Students My MTV Unplugged Moment “Do college professors work hard enough?” The Best National Anthems: Introduction Gladness, Need, and Calling: Frederick … More The Big Ten
Here • My unplugged concert for student teaching assistants in Bethel’s Western Civ course, caught on film by my trusty friend Sam. • Jazz, Nazi-style. • The third and final part of my series recasting church history as family history looked at the disenchanting process of engaging in remembrance. • My students and I had … More That Was The Week That Was
One of my favorite blogs is Past Imperfect, produced by the Smithsonian Magazine and featuring terrifically well-written stories about a fascinating array of historical subjects. (A piece on female pirates won one of the last Cliopatria awards for historical blogging before Cliopatria closed down.) Well-researched but accessible, I’ve taken to recommending several of its best posts … More Nazi Jazz
Today I’ll recap the third of my three talks delivered on May 5-6 for Salem Covenant Church’s annual family camp, in the northern Minnesota woods at Covenant Pines Bible Camp. The overriding theme was to encourage Christian non-historians to approach church history with the same zeal that many of them apply to family history. I … More Church History as Family History (part 3)
I don’t even know how to begin to explain this: Okay – first, I’m co-coordinator of GES130 Christianity and Western Culture (CWC), a course on Western Civilization, church history, philosophy, and theology that about two-thirds of Bethel students take in their first year. In addition to a team of 8-10 professors, the course is taught … More My MTV Unplugged Moment
5/14/12 – If you weren’t able to attend the Inaugural Bethel Colloquium on Pietism Studies last month, you can now listen to the three main sessions on iTunes U! The talks by Scot McKnight and Jon Sensbach, plus the roundtable discussion of Pietism in churches today, are all available for free download in podcast format. … More Pietism Colloquium on iTunes U
Today I’ll come back to my series on Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s Vocation, eds. John Fea, Jay Green, and Eric Miller (University of Notre Dame Press). I should reiterate that I read the book alongside my students in HIS499 Senior Seminar, the capstone course for History majors at Bethel University. … More Confessing History: Theory and Method
Here • The great Frederick Buechner helped me (via a 1969 sermon) talk to my students about the meaning of vocation. • Reflections on a weekend spent in the woods of northern Minnesota and (imaginatively) on the desert road where Philip encountered an Ethiopian eunuch. • Parts one and two of my recent series of … More That Was The Week That Was
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