When I first started teaching Bethel’s Christianity and Western Culture class, we went all the way from ancient Athens through the 20th century. We’ve since decided that that might be two or three too many centuries for one semester, but I do miss the week where we read through three 19th century Christian responses to … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: The Love of Libraries
When we walk out of a class, how do we know it was a good one? That question opened my friend David Williams’ talk at our “Pietist Idea of a Christian College” workshop last week. In the end, he concluded that it had little to do with content and everything to do with passion: there’s … More What Is Good Teaching?
As I mentioned in passing here, I spent last Wednesday and Thursday facilitating a workshop at Bethel University: “The Pietist Idea of a Christian College.” Twelve current Bethel colleagues, two former faculty back as guest speakers — theologian Roger Olson (Baylor University’s Truett Seminary) and philosopher David Williams (Azusa Pacific University’s High Sierra Program) — … More Thoughts on The Pietist Idea of a Christian College
6/12/13 – I’ll be away from the blog today and tomorrow while I lead a workshop: “The Pietist Idea of a Christian College: Bethel University” (made possible by a grant from the Lilly Fellows Program National Network of Church-Related Colleges and Universities). We’ll spend Wednesday exploring the history of Pietism and its influence on Bethel … More Workshopping Pietism and Higher Education
I’m not sure they have such celebrations in heaven, but at least down here, there should be some recognition that today marks what would have been the 100th birthday of the late, multi-talented Karl A. Olsson: writer, preacher, teacher, literature scholar, decorated veteran of World War II, former president of what’s now North Park University, … More Happy 100th Birthday, Karl Olsson!
This isn’t really how I’d like to come back to blogging after some time off, but… I’m sad to pass on the news that Virgil Olson, an important figure in the history of Bethel University (seminary professor, 1951-1968; college dean, 1968-1974) and the leading historian of its sponsoring denomination, Converge Worldwide (Baptist General Conference), died … More RIP Virgil Olson
I’ll be going back on break tomorrow, while we spend a week with my parents in Virginia. But first, let me briefly return to a series I started earlier this month: blogging through some of the excellent questions I was asked via Skype by Mr. Ferda’s 8th grade history class in Kalispell, Montana. The first … More Good Questions: How Do You Become a Historian?
I originally composed a draft of this devotion for the final meeting of Bethel’s Christianity and Western Culture course last Friday, but what I shared as a benediction to a group of first-year students — from a text I first prayed over students ten years ago, at the end of my first semester at Bethel, … More A Benediction for the Class of 2013
5/21/13 – Let me interrupt my blogging break for a moment to engage in some wanton self-promotion… Tomorrow afternoon, my colleague Sam Mulberry and I will be hosting West by Midwest, what we hope will become an annual event at Bethel dedicated to sharing innovative teaching ideas. We’ll preview our new online version of Bethel’s … More West by Midwest 2013
Just two days after announcing via his Twitter feed that he had stage 4 cancer, Dallas Willard died yesterday. At the end of this post, I’ll offer my own small contribution to the collection of tributes that is already proliferating, but first a few words from people who knew him well: • Richard Foster wrote … More RIP Dallas Willard (1935-2013)
The Pietist Schoolman 