A relatively short links post, as I’m spending Friday afternoon and Saturday morning at the annual meeting of the Northwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Here… • “Hey, Pietist Schoolman, can you tell me what percentages of colleges to open each decade since 1900 failed to survive it? Oh, can you throw in a … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • What’s the greatest Christian book of all time? Cast your vote today. • Why Augustine of Hippo might be a useful model for Pope Francis. (But if you’re more interested in the new pope’s namesake, stop by Salem Covenant Church for adult Sunday School next month.) • The narcissism of “spiritual, but not … More That Was The Week That Was
“Mission Friends.” That’s what my ancestors in what’s now the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC) originally called themselves, and it’s a winsome phrase I’ve always enjoyed. It reflects our foundational understanding that Christians are called “to reach out with the good news of Jesus Christ – evangelizing the lost, ministering to those in need, and seeking … More Covenant Kids Congo
Every one of the now nine years I’ve taught at Bethel University, I’ve led a section of our department’s capstone course, HIS499 Senior Seminar. In it, our majors conduct a significant project of original historical research on any topic of their choice, which leaves me to act more as facilitator and editor than lecturer. We … More Bethel’s History Senior Seminar Presents…
In yesterday’s links post, I mentioned the “Kony 2012” film recently released by the group Invisible Children, and the strong criticisms it received. I linked to a couple of particularly thoughtful posts by one of my former students, a development worker now living in Uganda, where Kony first came to infamy. Brief overview: Joseph Kony … More The Kony Kerfuffle
In my first and second posts about Africa in this series blogging through Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (InterVarsity Press), we’ve seen African Christians relating to colonial authorities and Western culture in a variety of ways: Bernard Mizeki, so closely aligned with British Anglican leaders that … More Clouds of Witnesses: Politics and Protest in Postcolonial Africa
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
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
Six previews of The Pietist Impulse in Christianity down, two to go… Today we have Dick Pierard, Christoffer Grundmann, and Victor Ezigbo examining the “Pietist impulse” in the history of Christian missions — together providing yet another response to the commonly-held stereotype that Pietists are “too heavenly-minded to be earthly good.” As their narratives overlap … More The Pietist Impulse: Missions
The Pietist Schoolman 