After a busy start to the New Year, I gave The Pietist Schoolman a week off and worked on syllabi for the spring semester. But elsewhere, I reviewed a new Winston Churchill biography for Christianity Today and convened a group of Anxious Bench contributors to suggest books that serve as important artifacts and analyses of … More That Was The Week That Was
Every once in a while, the readings from the daily lectionary just line up perfectly. See if you can spot the theme: • Today starts with the author of the longest psalm — whose “hope is in [God’s] ordinances” — pledging to keep God’s “law continually, for ever and ever” (Ps 119:43-44). • In case the people … More The With-God Life: “If you wish to be perfect…”
This week I started a new series of devotional reflections on the daily lectionary and considered how evangelicals might react to President Trump’s reportedly dim view of military service. Elsewhere: • Ron Sider, Rich Mouw, John Perkins, Brenda Salter McNeil, Joel Hunter, and Richard Foster were just some of the pro-life Christians who this week endorsed … More That Was The Week That Was
Earlier this year, as COVID forced Bethel online and Minnesotans sheltered in place, I spent about four weeks writing daily Lenten devotionals. Spurred by a midweek sermon from my brother-in-law, the series was meant to help me focus on spending time each day encountering God in Scripture. I called the series “The With-God Life,” the … More The With-God Life: Part Two
Since Isaiah 42:1-9 starts Holy Week, I came to it prepared to read today’s lection as an oracle about Jesus: Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen; in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry or lift … More The With-God Life: “How shall I call upon my God?”
I blogged about Harry Potter and history and podcast about the reading list for our new sports history course. Elsewhere… • Next up on my personal reading list is Kate Bowler’s The Preacher’s Wife. One finding she previewed for New York Times readers: “…conservative women gain considerable influence without institutional power, and liberal women gain institutional … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I started a small business and compared my Charles Lindbergh biography to a sitcom. Meanwhile, here’s what some other people were writing: • I was happy to take a week off from Anxious Bench in order to let Elesha Coffman wonder if historians make too much of empathy and too little of disgust and lament. … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • I found some more evidence of the Pietist impact on American religious history. • Indexing the Bible verses cited in our new book made me wonder again about the place of the Old Testament in Christian theology. • One particular Hebrew scripture has been especially formative for Christians living in exile, from 16th … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • America has changed a lot since the last time the Cubs won the World Series. • As I finished one book project and contemplated others, I found myself asking a big mid-career question: “What comes next?” • Evangelicals — and especially those of us in Christian higher ed — ought to pay attention … More That Was The Week That Was
A list, but it can’t be click-baity with this kind of bait, right? So this past Tuesday my friend Sam Mulberry and I got to co-host a special presentation in the Bethel University Library: a walk down memory lane for GES130 Christianity and Western Culture, a staple of Bethel’s gen ed curriculum for three decades now. While it was … More 6 Reasons to Watch a 40-Minute Tribute to a 30-Year Old Western Civ Course
