Wondering how to celebrate the 495th anniversary of Martin Luther posting his 95 theses? Well, if you happen to study or work at Bethel University (or live in the area), you could stop by my office for our department’s “Reformation ‘PUN’ Day” (10:00-12:00) and enjoy a diet of (gummy) worms. Otherwise… Remember that the original … More Reformation Day Reflections from Around the Web
While I catch up on grading some overdue midterms… Enjoy one of the reflections I wrote after reading Lauren Winner’s Still: Notes on a Mid-Faith Crisis this past summer. As you might guess from the title, Lauren Winner spends plenty of time alone with her thoughts in Still, but it doesn’t usually take more than … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: The Potluck Church
10/26/12 – Readers interested in Pietism and how that term continues be used in the larger evangelical and Protestant world should read Scot McKnight’s response to Tim Keller‘s argument (in Center Church) that the influence of pietism led 20th century evangelicals to “ignore culture and put all stress on conversions and on the spiritual growth … More Scot McKnight: “After Pietism”
Ten years ago today, Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-MN), his wife Sheila, his daughter Marcia, and five others died when their small plane crashed en route to Eveleth, MN. Running for a third term in the Senate, Wellstone was scheduled to debate Republican challenger Norm Coleman later that night. It was less than two weeks before … More Paul Wellstone: The Conscience of a Liberal (G.W. Carlson)
I may play the role, but I’m not a historian of Christianity, or any other religion. I edit books, write articles, give papers, and blog about Pietism, and I teach courses on Christianity and Western Culture and The Reformations, but my graduate education was overseen by this guy and this guy; I somehow never took … More Matthew Bowman’s The Mormon People
On Sunday night this blog received its 50,000th visit. Which both got me feeling profoundly grateful to all of those who take the time to read my digital scribbling, and in a mood to reflect on the blog’s founding. The choice of name, for example. As I wrote in an early post, “The Pietist Schoolman” … More The Pietist as a “Catholic Evangelical”
I don’t have all that many memories of the former senator and presidential candidate — I was only five when he was voted out of the Senate in 1980, after three terms representing South Dakota — but as a historian I know enough to find interesting what’s being remembered, and what’s being forgotten, as journalists … More Remembering (and Forgetting) George McGovern
Congratulations to Shirley Mullen, president of Houghton College (the first woman to hold that office), for being named one of the “50 Women You Should Know” by Christianity Today in its October 2012 issue. In that article (not yet online just posted by CT), fellow historian Mark Noll writes of Shirley that, “In evangelical higher … More Congratulations, Shirley Mullen!
In the space of four days I’ve blogged about two events marking their 50th anniversaries this year: the Second Vatican Council (which started October 12, 1962) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Oct. 16 of the same year). In different ways, they were among the most important events of the 20th century, but I’d never thought … More Peace on Earth: Connecting the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vatican II
While I work on another post for Tuesday, enjoy this post from last fall prompted by the collision of a couple of discussions in one of my signature courses at Bethel. In the last two weeks of my Modern Europe course, we’ve twice run headlong into the hardest question historians ask: Why? First, I had … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Terror, Secularization, and “Imaginative Understanding”
The Pietist Schoolman 