So look what showed up on my doorstep this morning! We’re still about four weeks away from The Pietist Option hitting bookstore shelves, but getting author’s copies from InterVarsity Press made it feel so much closer. Even more so than when I wrote this kind of post two years ago, it’s hugely gratifying to see and hold actual … More Acknowledgments from The Pietist Option
If anyone in the world is predisposed to appreciate the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact, it’s me. As a parochial Minnesotan, I’m happy to claim one of our native sons as both U.S. Secretary of State and Nobel Peace Prize winner. My undergraduate honors thesis featured Frank Kellogg’s co-laureate, French foreign minister Aristide Briand, who went on … More Did Outlawing War Actually Work?
So much for the idea that Americans don’t care about their past. One of the hashtags trending today on Twitter complained about the dangers of #ErasingHistory: Is it wrong if I watch these morons kicking a statue & wish they'd break a toe or two? 😒#HeritageNotHate#DurhamNC#Durham#ErasingHistory https://t.co/LRGqDYXml6 — 🐸 RedPills4All 🇺🇸 (@RedPills4All171) August 15, 2017 … More How History Is Actually Erased
We’re still several weeks away from our October 3rd publication date, but I’m happy to report that The Pietist Option: Hope for the Renewal of Christianity is now available for pre-order from several major retailers: Amazon Barnes & Noble Christianbook.com And you can still pre-order directly from the publisher, InterVarsity Press. As an appetizer, here’s a two-and-a-half-minute … More Now Available from Major Retailers: The Pietist Option
While I’ve skimmed through Charles Lindbergh’s most famous memoir, I’m actually intimidated to read The Spirit of St. Louis. A popular and critical hit, SoSL won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for its inventive, gripping narrative. Any would-be biographer needs to live up to the high standard set by Lindbergh himself (with considerable editing assistance from his wife, Anne). … More The Spiritual Spirit of St. Louis
So I stumbled across this T-shirt on Amazon last month and quickly snatched it up: I’ve worn it in public a couple of times. At some level, I think I even convinced myself that it could provide subtle (subtle?!?) publicity: that people would see a word they didn’t recognize, Google it, and be led to … More The Pietist Option Is Not a Quick Fix
I like to think of myself as a pretty loyal person. I’m wary of loyalty to imagined communities like nations, but when it comes to family members and close friends, I’d even say that I’m fiercely loyal. But one of the many consequences of the Trump presidency is that I’ve been reconsidering the moral status … More Is Loyalty a Virtue?
One of my favorite things about blogging is that it gives me excuses to go far outside my fields of supposed expertise, to read widely about other disciplines and other fields within history. For example, his recent death from liver cancer made me realize how little I’d read from Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese dissident who … More “The Miraculous Triumph of Jesus Over Caesar”
Thanks to everyone who commented (here, on Facebook, by email) on yesterday’s post! I quoted from recent posts by historians Neil J. Young and Thomas Kidd, both of whom drew on research and personal experience with evangelical churches to argue that evangelicals are far less concerned with partisan politics than media coverage (and a recent … More Counterpoint: How Evangelicals Are Politicized
This will push into next week my long-gestating post on whether it’s possible to write persuasively for an evangelical audience, but I wanted to think aloud about one question that’s probably bigger than that post: Just how much do politics matter to evangelicals? That first came to mind last month, while I was reading Alec Ryrie’s Protestants: … More How Much Do Politics Matter to Evangelicals?
The Pietist Schoolman 