Today we continue to consider why, for most historians and leaders of colleges and universities founded by Pietist denominations, Pietism seems not to provide a “usable past,” a living history capable of sustaining a distinctive mission and identity. In the first part of this post, I suggested, first, that this might be a byproduct of … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 2)
As we continue in this series blogging through Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (InterVarsity Press), we’ll start to consider just how Christianity grew so dramatically in 20th century Africa. Today the stories of three Africans who led different sorts of revivals: William Wadé Harris, Simeon Nsibambi, … More Clouds of Witnesses: Revivals in Africa
If I could do it all over again, I might be a sports historian. Growing up, I was an indifferent athlete but an inveterate fan: able to play just about every sport, but none of them well (though I did manage to letter twice in baseball, which tells you a lot about my alma mater‘s … More Beyond Muscular Christianity
September 12, 1977 – My brother is born While this indirectly leads (through a combination of rough-housing and my lack of coordination) to my visiting the emergency room at least half a dozen times in our shared childhood, it’s still worth celebrating. Happy Birthday, Jon! September 13, 1916 – Mary the elephant is executed See, … More This Week in History
In the second (full) post in this briefly interrupted series, I went through the rather lengthy list of American denominations founded by Pietists, and the colleges and universities those churches went on to establish. Having said nothing in two weeks to develop that history (except to provide a few quick facts about those schools in … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 1)
In my introduction to this new series blogging through Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (InterVarsity Press), I noted that the authors had made a point of selecting men and women not yet widely known by Christians in the West, and that they faced the challenge of … More Clouds of Witnesses: Africans and Empire
A couple of years ago I was asked to give three talks as part of our church’s mid-spring “family camp,” at Covenant Pines in northern Minnesota. There weren’t many stipulations, not even a suggested topic, but I was encouraged to be “inspiring.” Now, as a trained scholar who studies some pretty awful episodes in human … More Clouds of Witnesses: Introduction
9/6/11 – Fascinating story in the Detroit Free Press about Covert Township, MI, which has had racially integrated schools since African-American settlers first arrived, the year after the end of the Civil War. (H/T to my friend Mark Totten.) Not nearly as remarkable, but kind of fun: we stopped in Covert during our vacation in … More Ahead of Its Time
Labor Day Edition September 5, 1882 – New York City hosts America’s first Labor Day parade Here’s how the New York Times began its report on the proceedings: The parade of the working men yesterday, although not so large as its organizers had predicted, was conducted in an orderly and pleasant manner. Those who rode … More This Week in History
Last month I felt like I was living a John Denver song: country roads taking me to a colleague’s farm near St. Cloud, Minnesota, to the Washington County Fair in Lake Elmo, MN, and then last week to the Minnesota State Fair. (Well, a couple of city streets took me there.) Then last week my … More “God Made the Country”
The Pietist Schoolman 