If you want to understand Pietism, read our forthcoming book — or just visit one of the diverse congregations of the Evangelical Covenant Church. … More The Pietist Option in Practice: The Evangelical Covenant Church
A tribute to my grandfather, who died Saturday night at age 94, leaving behind a legacy of faith, hope, and love. … More Grandpa Peterson
Over the past couple of years, I’ve been happy to cheer on fellow Covenanters Mark Safstrom and Michelle Clifton-Soderstrom as they worked with filmmaker Tim Frakes on a documentary entitled God’s Glory, Neighbor’s Good: The Story of Pietism. Here are a couple of short clips, from filming at the Hauge Museum in Norway and at the Copenhagen … More Pietism on Amazon Prime!
Last Friday I took issue with Vice President Mike Pence’s commencement address at the U.S. Naval Academy, in part because he exhorted graduates to “Follow the chain of command without exception. Submit yourselves, as the saying goes, to the authorities that have been placed above you.” His allusion to Romans 13:1-2 (or 1 Peter 2:13-14) got … More Public Uses of Romans 13 in American History
My first byline for Christianity Today is one of many new essays on the complicated meaning of Memorial Day. … More Memorial Day Reflections
I noticed the other day that Donald Trump’s name now appears in the list of this blog’s most popular tags. That’s disappointing on all sorts of levels, one of which is that I’ve tried hard this year to focus on the stated themes of this blog and not write as much about politics as I … More Two Problems with Mike Pence’s Naval Academy Address
If your image of Christian higher education is a Donald Trump commencement address or a scandal-plagued football team, let me share a sample day in my life as a professor at Bethel University. Yesterday was atypical in a sense (no classes, since it was the study day that breaks up our final exam week), but it still provided … More A Day in the Life of a Christian College Professor
If you didn’t notice it over the weekend, do yourself a favor and read John Fea’s heartfelt “Confessions of a Lonely Christian Historian.” It begins: I think all of us who pursue a life of the mind are, to some degree, lonely people. We live in the world of ideas. We spend a lot of … More The Loneliness (and Solitude) of a Christian Historian
Next month I’ll be teaching a four-week adult Sunday School at Elim Church in Minneapolis, on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. (If you can’t make it in June, I’ll be doing a six-week version of that topic starting late September at Calvary Church in Roseville, MN.) Now, I teach Luther et al. for a couple … More Alec Ryrie on “The Pietist Adventure”
Okay, let’s try this again: the college lecture is neither obsolete nor fool-proof. Like anything, it can be done badly, but rightly understood, it’s still a highly important mode of teaching. Two reasons I’m thinking about a topic I’ve addressed several times before: First, Wired just offered another of its biennial critiques of the lecture. Entitled “The Traditional … More The Lecture Lives. I Would Know — I’m a Professor.
The Pietist Schoolman 