Not just Boxing Day, Return Unwanted Gifts Day, or Two Turtle Doves Day, the second day of Christmas has enormous theological importance: It reminds us that when the angels returned to the realms of glory and the shepherds to their fields, Mary and Joseph still had a child to parent. What does it imply that … More “What Child Is This?”
The most important historian in my life is the one who described his research project in this way: Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the … More Merry Incarnation
Today’s post is the second in a new, occasional series on the role of Pietism in the history of Bethel University and its parent denomination, the Baptist General Conference (now going by its “missional name”: Converge Worldwide). Rather than give my own take on these topics, I’m going to summarize the work of some earlier … More Pietism, the BGC, and Bethel University: G.W. Carlson
More fun with word clouds to get us started this morning: At least when I first came to Bethel, I was most surprised how few students agreed that Christians should seek to CONTROL culture, given the prevalence of “America is” or “America ought to be a Christian nation” rhetoric among some of our students. That … More Christians and Culture
12/14/11 – Earlier this fall I had the honor of being invited to write a brief appreciation of longtime Covenant pastor and editor Jim Hawkinson for the newsletter Pietisten. That piece appears on p. 15 of the Fall/Winter 2011 issue, now available (not online, but you can find out how to get that and earlier … More Article in Pietisten
Yesterday ended up being an unusually frenetic Sunday in our household. My brother and sister and their families came over to celebrate our twins’ birthday. Before that, we had to clean the house in a hurry — what our mom calls a “white tornado.” Before that, there was waiting at the pharmacy to pick up … More God as Semicolon
About two years ago I was invited to give a talk to our faculty in recognition of having been awarded Bethel’s 2009 Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching. In part one of this (slightly updated) version of the talk, I described my experiences integrating podcasts into two courses and evaluated them in light of the “No … More A Different Significance: Online vs. F2F Education (part 2)
For a blog called The Pietist Schoolman, there’s been surprisingly little posted here about Pietism in recent weeks. So today I’m starting a new series on the role of Pietism in the history of Bethel University and its parent denomination, the Baptist General Conference (now going by its “missional name”: Converge Worldwide). Rather than give … More Pietism, the BGC, and Bethel University: Virgil Olson
12/7/11 – Looking for a Christmas present for the hymn-loving Pietist near and dear to you? Order a copy of Glen Wiberg’s new book, Singing the Story: Sightings in Christian Music. If you’re not already familiar with Glen (he helped edit the last two hymnals of the Evangelical Covenant Church and writes a regular column … More Singing the Story
Feels like the blog’s been a little too focused on history of late, so I’m dwelling a bit more on current events and popular culture this week. And, at the risk of my least favorite of the four major professional team sports showing up in this blog’s tag cloud, that attitude seems to beg a … More Tebow
The Pietist Schoolman 