What Is Bethel? The Moments That Make Up Our History

Earlier this week I was invited to talk about Bethel’s history at a dinner celebrating the university’s 150th anniversary. For once I spoke without notes, but here’s the best I can do to reconstruct what I said: my attempt to make our history more personal for more people, rather than focusing on the stories of … More What Is Bethel? The Moments That Make Up Our History

Following Jesus: The Wesleyan Tradition

“If Lutheranism is the parent of Pietism,” I began my response this month in the Following Jesus conversation, “then surely the Wesleyan Tradition is the closest cousin to my own.” Started by English Protestants who had been profoundly shaped by their encounters with Pietism, Methodism and the other Christian movements that originated with John Wesley … More Following Jesus: The Wesleyan Tradition

Why Go to College?

My new podcast with Sam Mulberry, College for Christians, launched last week, with the two of us sharing our stories of college admissions. But if you missed the debut, today’s new episode is a great place to start — in fact, I think we’ll come back to it in virtually every other episode we record … More Why Go to College?

That Was The Week That Was

This week: a Bethel colleague and I launched a new podcast meant to help Christians thinking about college, and I recorded an hour-long conversation about Ukraine with two other Bethel colleagues. Elsewhere: • Here’s a historical analogy I didn’t muse about in our Ukraine podcast: is Volodymyr Zelensky the 21st century version of Lajos Kossuth? • I … More That Was The Week That Was

The Debut of Our Newest Podcast: College for Christians

Tonight I’m happy to announce the debut of our newest podcast: The latest in many collaborations between Sam Mulberry and me, College for Christians is a weekly series of half-hour conversations meant to help Christian high school students and their parents navigate the incredibly complex world of higher education: not just picking a college, but … More The Debut of Our Newest Podcast: College for Christians

That Was The Week That Was

This week I checked in on responses to my essay about how Pietists follow Jesus and considered some history of how Americans have used the imprecatory psalms. Elsewhere: • The latest story of workplace sexual harassment is set in the offices of evangelicalism’s flagship publication: Christianity Today (as reported in CT itself). • Religion journalist Jack Jenkins … More That Was The Week That Was