This week in our department’s Intro to History course, we’re talking about history as a form of literature. Wanting to point students to some of my favorite writing historians, I started with Jill Lepore, the Harvard professor who also writes regular essays for The New Yorker. (“All historians are coroners,” she began a 2019 piece … More Jill Lepore on History
If nothing else, this is a wonderful time for all of us to catch up on our reading. To that end, let me encourage you to check out the April e-book sale at Eerdmans, which has discounted 300+ titles to prices as low as $1.99. (Most are under $4.) The sale runs through the end … More Time to Load Up on E-Books
Tonight HBO premieres the first episode of a six-part adaptation of Philip Roth’s 2004 novel, The Plot Against America. Since its alternate history premise centers on the subject of my current writing project, I thought some of my readers might be interested in my response to Roth’s book — originally published at The Anxious Bench after … More Charles Lindbergh and The Plot Against America
Today I’d like to revive a kind of holiday tradition from the early years of The Pietist Schoolman: going through some “best of” lists to curate a list of histories and biographies that might make for good Christmas presents for my readers. This year I’ll draw on year-end recommendations from the New York Times (NYT), Publishers Weekly … More The Best History Books of 2019?
Having spent an energizing Reformation Sunday morning at an Evangelical Covenant church, I’m looking forward to visiting a Lutheran church this coming Sunday to teach the history of evangelicalism If you’re in the Twin Cities, join us at Incarnation Lutheran in Shoreview, MN for the Kairos Forum — offered both 8:45am and 10:05am. Here’s the … More Next Sunday’s Adult Class: Who’s an Evangelical?
On today’s new episode of The 252, Chris Moore and I talked through some of the books and articles we’ll be assigning next spring in our History and Politics of Sports course at Bethel University. Our basic text will be Richard Davies’ Sports in American Life, but Chris also suggested adopting Victor Cha’s analysis of the politics of … More Wednesday’s Podcast: A Sports Reading List
Back in the fall of 2016, while my family was on sabbatical in Virginia, an editor’s suggestion that I write a religious biography of Charles Lindbergh made him the unnamed center of a three-part series on biography that I wrote for The Anxious Bench. If I did write such a book about Lindbergh, I mused … More “An Honest Witness”: The Diaries of Anne Morrow Lindbergh
I have to admit: I’d never heard the name Ernst Lohmeyer before I reviewed James Edwards’ new biography of that German theologian and biblical scholar for the current issue of Christianity Today. But the more I read Between the Swastika and the Sickle (Eerdmans, $30.00 in hardcover), the more I could see how Lohmeyer could … More Between the Swastika and the Sickle
For a post that was dashed off around 8pm on a Friday night, my explanation of how the Covenant Church taught me that “I’m a Pietist” got a remarkably strong readership. Clearly, it struck a chord with others who cherish that heritage — but perhaps also some who are new to it. Perhaps some who … More So You Want to Learn More about Pietism…
God, give me an uncomplicated faith — if only for a moment. That’s what I prayed this morning as I attended the annual Minnesota Prayer Breakfast, a now 59-year tradition whose participants “gather to work and pray for unity so that they can come to know [God] and have their lives transformed by his love.” … More On Prayer, Death, and Resurrection
The Pietist Schoolman 