From our friend and occasional guest-blogger Jared Burkholder, associate professor of history at Grace College (IN)… Dear David (and now Tim) Barton, Maybe you can clarify something for me. Why do you continue to insist that because you read primary sources you have a unique voice when compared to professional Christian historians like me, who you say … More An Open Letter to the Bartons
Today I’m happy to welcome Grace College professor Jared Burkholder back to the blog for a timely guest-post. With shootings in Michigan, Kansas, and Washington this past week, we are again confronted with moral dilemmas about responding to violent threats. In the wake of the mass shooting in San Bernardino back in December and the debate over Falwell’s … More There’s Nothing New about the Moral Dilemmas Raised by Violence… Just ask 18th Century Moravian Missionaries
The first of two guest posts this week comes from our friend Jared Burkholder, chair of the History and Political Science Department at Grace College. The rhetoric that has surrounded the recent controversy in the CCCU and the departure of Goshen College and Eastern Mennonite University has underscored, at least for me, the way Anabaptist … More How Peacemaking Helps Frame the Context of Anabaptism, Sexuality, and Higher Education
Even if you don’t have any personal connection with Grace College or Seminary, there are lots of topics that emerge in Becoming Grace that may pique your interest, especially if you’re interested in American religious history or the trajectory of Christian colleges and universities. Here are a few prominent themes and tensions in the book. They … More Why you’ll be interested in our new book about Grace College and Seminary
Last month I posted an excerpt from Shirley Mullen’s foreword to Becoming Grace, a volume I helped to edit about the history of Grace College and Theological Seminary. Today I offer the book’s second foreword, written by Jeff Bach, in its entirety. Jeff is an accomplished historian of Pietism and is best known for his landmark book … More Jeff Bach on Becoming Grace
Duke Divinity School historian Grant Wacker’s new book on Billy Graham was the focus of this spring’s Cushwa Center Seminar in American Religion at the University of Notre Dame, which met this past Saturday. Although Wacker has been teaching at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill since 1977, I first remember hearing about him … More Grant Wacker on Billy Graham: Cushwa’s Spring Seminar
Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to Bridgewater College, which is located in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, just outside Harrisonburg, Virginia. The occasion, spearheaded by Steve Longenecker, was a symposium on the history of the (Schwarzenau) Brethren tradition’s relationship with evangelicalism. The intersection of evangelicalism with Pietist and Anabaptist groups is a topic that has … More Recent Conversations on Evangelicalism and Pietist-Anabaptist Identity
As I mentioned in a former post, I just wrapped up a class on the history and politics of the Middle East, a class I have taught for a number of years now. One of its goals is for students to wrestle with the complexities of revolutionary movements in the Middle East, the most recent and particularly … More How to Spark Islamic Revolution
I mentioned a few weeks ago that I have been co-editing a book on the history of Grace College and Theological Seminary and now I am happy to announce that Becoming Grace: Seventy-Five Years on the landscape of Christian Higher Education in America is available for preorder! I’ll be writing more about what you’ll find in … More Becoming Grace… Now Available for Preorder!
Recent months have seen increased coverage of Muslim radicals in the Middle East, presidential statements about what is and what is not “real” Islam, and new articles on where groups like ISIS fit in the Muslim faith, if at all. I have also just finished teaching a class called “Islam, Politics, and the Middle East.” So this … More Why We Need to Stop Trying to Identify “True” Islam
The Pietist Schoolman 