The latest review of Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of America’s Most Infamous Pilot is also one of the most generous: Any Lindbergh biographer faces a challenge: to tell the truth about the past, both the good and the bad, with both empathy and unflinching honesty. Christopher Gehrz, a history professor at Bethel University in … More The Christian Century Reviews My Lindbergh Bio
Yesterday a few of us at The Anxious Bench suggested a few books and trinkets that might make good gifts for the history buffs in our readers’ lives. That list already included a biography about a not-infamous person, so I wasn’t tempted to hawk my own wares. But today is another day, and this is … More How to Have a Very Lindbergh Christmas
Reading my friend Beth Allison Barr’s response to 9Marks editor Jonathan Leeman this morning at The Anxious Bench, I found it hard to avoid her conclusion: Complementarianism is a small world. But Christianity is a big world, far more diverse, complicated, and interesting than what you’ll find in the center of the Venn diagram where … More It’s a Big, Big Christian World
“I’ve never quite been persuaded that the Anabaptist way of following Jesus is the right one,” I wrote in my response to this month’s lead essay in the Following Jesus conversation, “but it always leaves me feeling like my own way is to follow the path of compromise and safety.” So I’m grateful to Michael … More Following Jesus: The Anabaptist Tradition
As a Pietist who now worships within a Lutheran congregation, I’ve been eagerly awaiting this month’s installment of our year-long, ecumenical conversation about Following Jesus. Church historian Mark Ellingsen didn’t disappoint, offering a reflection on what he called Lutheranism’s “Evangelical Catholic” way of following Jesus. At least, that’s how he saw his more “confessional” branch … More Following Jesus: The Lutheran Tradition
Our sports podcast, The 252, returned to today with a new episode that looked back, at what’s happened since our Tokyo Olympics preview, and ahead, to the coming NBA season. In segment one, Chris, Sam, and I reviewed some favorite Olympic events and talked about what to expect in Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024. We … More Tuesday’s Podcast: The Ministry of an NBA Chaplain
One benefit of participating in the Following Jesus conversation this year is that I’ve been prompted to dig back into a variety of sources from what we’re calling “The Pietist Tradition.” One that recently arrived in my mailbox is From Head to Heart: A Compendium of the Theology of Philipp Jakob Spener. Edited by K. … More “Antipathy to authoritarian forms”: An Interpretation of Pietism from Mid-1950s Bethel
This month’s round in the Following Jesus conversation is a bit unusual. First, while it’s broadly about “The Roman Catholic Tradition,” the author of our lead essay, Christina Wassell, is a former Protestant who now identifies as a “traditional” Catholic and devoted almost all of her original essay to the importance of the Traditional Latin … More Following Jesus: Traditional Catholicism
If only because it means that I can do more than talk about Charles Lindbergh, I’m happy to announce that I’ll be teaching a four-week adult class on an even more contentious topic: the meaning of the word “evangelical.” Even better, it’s being taught at the church I attended for fifteen years: Salem Covenant in … More My Upcoming Adult Class on Evangelicalism
As I mentioned earlier this summer, one of my projects for the next year is to represent the Pietist tradition in an online, ecumenical conversation about how different Christians understand what it means to “follow Jesus.” Each month starts with a lead essay from one conversation partner, then each of the other eleven contributors writes … More Following Jesus: The Orthodox Tradition
The Pietist Schoolman 