Let’s dip into the imaginary mailbag, shall we? Dear Chris, It seems like you’ve got endless amounts of free time to fill. Have you ever considered engaging in some actual scholarship? Or, writing for another blog? Cordially, All those who invested time and money in your decades of education Excellent questions. I’ll defer the first … More Our New Blog!
When I take students to Europe next January to study the history of World War I, we’ll close the journey (as my wife and I did this month) in Munich — primarily to consider how WWI led to the rise of fascist movements and thence to World War II and the Holocaust. But we’ll also … More Commemorating WWI: Munich
While the British commissioned architects like Reginald Blomfield and Edwin Lutyens to construct towering monuments whose significance would endure throughout eternity and their Dominions (e.g., Australia and Canada) used commemoration to help establish their claims to distinct nationhood, the Germans generally tacked in the opposite direction, preferring simple, dignified symbols of quiet mourning. Ironically, it was … More Commemorating WWI: German Subtlety
Regular readers of The Pietist Schoolman might have noticed a new “widget” along the right-hand side of each page: a countdown to April 20, when Bethel University will host a colloquium on Pietism. I’ve already shared some initial details and, last week, a follow-up about our afternoon roundtable discussion on Pietism and contemporary churches and … More Update: Scot McKnight’s Talk at Our Pietism Colloquium
I’m taking a day or two off from my series on how the First World War has been commemorated in western Europe. But I’ll tread water a bit by encouraging those interested in the topic to read this essay by writer William Boyd, published in yesterday’s New York Times. He begins in a place similar … More “Why World War I Resonates”
It’s good to be back blogging full-time after a quiet December and a total hiatus the first half of January. Somehow we kept getting a steady number of hits during that period, to the point that we’ll actually be welcoming our 15,000th visitor sometime today! Thanks to everyone for reading!! What you might have missed … More That Was The Week That Was
A series of posts inspired by my recent trip to Europe, scouting a January 2013 travel course on the history of World War I. Today continues a series-within-the-series on how WWI was commemorated. Yesterday I showed the image of an Australian soldier’s gravestone, its epitaph asking “Have I died in vain?” Immediately above those words … More Commemorating World War I: Post-Christian Memory?
In a field outside the Belgian town of Ieper (or Ypres), one comes across a curious but moving sight: a wooden cross, with soccer balls piled at its base. The cross is carved to read: 1914 The Khaki Chums Christmas Truce 1999 85 Years Lest we forget It stands in what used to be No … More Commemorating World War I: “Lest We Forget”
In my über-links post yesterday, I noted how the holiday that honors Martin Luther King, Jr. became an occasion for several writers to invoke King in support of their own positions on a variety of issues. One version of the phenomenon that I didn’t mention came from actor-director George Clooney, speaking about same-sex marriage during … More A Common Moral Inheritance?
A year from now my colleague Sam Mulberry and I will lead a group of twenty Bethel University students on a three-week journey that will take us from London to Paris to Munich, plus a few days on the ground of what was, from August 1914 to November 1918, the Western Front of World War … More In the Footsteps of WWI
The Pietist Schoolman 