It happened only a week ago, but for the life of me, I can’t remember just why I ended up interrupting a lecture on fascism to share with my Modern Europe students these details from my childhood: One day in 3rd grade French class, the story goes, Mme. Conway let me take over class. I … More When I Knew I Wanted to Teach History
November 16, 1632 – Gustavus Adolphus is killed at the Battle of Lützen It’s a strange thing as a 21st century American (and a trained historian who should really know better) to feel any stirring of pride in the military and political exploits of a 17th century king who aggrandized his own kingdom at the … More This Day in History: The Lion of the North
11/15/11 – Last March historical theologian Roger Olson (formerly of Bethel, now of Baylor’s Truett Seminary, and one of the contributors to our Pietist Impulse book) delivered two talks on Pietism at Luther Seminary in St. Paul, MN: “The World We Have Lost” and “A World We Need to Find Again.” Luther Sem has now … More Roger Olson on Pietism
I’ve already posted something for November 11 as Remembrance/Veterans Day, but given that it’s also one of the twelve days each century when the numbers of the month, day, and year (in mm/dd/yy format, or dd/mm/yy for our European readers) are identical, I thought I’d list the most important events in history for each such … More 11/11/11
On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month in the year 1918, the guns of the Western Front finally fell silent. And Susan Owen of the English town of Shrewsbury received a telegram informing her that her son Wilfred had died one week before, while leading his men in battle in … More Remembrance Day
I wish I had something much more impressive to offer for this, my 200th post at The Pietist Schoolman, but the week being as busy as it’s become, I’m going to punt a bit and devote a post to asking a question: What’s your favorite World War II film (or TV series, or episode of … More WWII in Film
11/8/11 – Last month I moderated a discussion about the role of Pietism in the history of Bethel University, asking questions of my Pietist Impulse in Christianity co-editors G.W. Carlson and Christian Collins Winn and sharing a few of my own observations. You can now watch a video recording of that conversation at this link.
November 8, 1923 – The Beer Hall Putsch in Munich November 8, 1937 – The “Eternal Jew” exhibition opens (also in Munich) It’s an important week for Nazi-related anniversaries. I’ve blogged earlier about the Putsch (on the 16th anniversary of which — November 8, 1939 — Georg Elser failed in his attempt to assassinate Hitler). … More This Day in History: The Worst of Sinners
Here at Bethel we’re going through the early stages of a master campus plan, and one of the first things our lead consultant told us Wednesday was that we need to get past the self-effacing reserve that comes with our Swedish, Midwestern, “pietistic” (he thought to add, to my joy and irritation) heritage and engage … More Some Blatant Self-Promotion
This hasn’t been the kind of blog where posts often consist of extended quotations from other blogs framed by some brief comments of my own. But today I’ll break with that pattern, since (a) sermon prep (still can’t believe I’m writing those words) is proving a welcome but time-consuming distraction from blogging, and (b) John … More History and Civic Virtue
The Pietist Schoolman 