Here… • It’s not really the most important thing that happened this week, but nothing was more exciting for me than for season 2 of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast to premiere! We seem to have had good listenership so far… but we’ve yet to receive any comments. If you listen, please do take the time to respond … More That Was The Week That Was
This 4th of July weekend I’m feeling more patriotic than I have in years, thanks to two speeches by Pres. Obama. First, his speech this past March at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. Obama remembered the civil right activists who fifty years earlier had been brutally attacked during their peaceful march to Montgomery: As … More Patriotism, Love, and Grace: An Independence Day Meditation
Over the weekend I had the pleasure of taking five Bethel University students to Mankato, Minnesota, where Bethany Lutheran College hosted the second annual Minnesota Undergraduate History Symposium. (#1 was at the University of Northwestern – St. Paul; #3 will be at Bethel next spring.) Thanks to @RyanCMacPherson and @BethanyLutheran for hosting a great #muhs2015! pic.twitter.com/PWQfixivkp … More Christianity and Western Civ
A century ago today, one of the great crimes in modern history began to unfold in the ancient city of Istanbul. In the middle of that Saturday night, Ottoman police rounded up the leading figures of their capital city’s Armenian community. One of them, an influential bishop named Grigoris Balakian, survived to leave behind this account: We arrived … More The 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
Here… • The Pietist Schoolman Podcast debuted, as Roger Olson joined me to talk Pietism, evangelicalism, Jesus, seminaries, and more. • The newest issue of Fides et Historia included my article calling for more of an international or transnational turn in evangelical historiography — an article that I needed to update a bit. • Jared reported from the Cushwa Seminar … More That Was The Week That Was
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
Here… • “Here I stand, I can do no other… That’s how Playmobil designed me!” • Remembering a dear friend reminded me why I love the church. • The American freshman of 2014: less religious, more likely to go to grad school, but otherwise a lot like her counterparts of 2004, 1994, 1984, and 1974. • This … More That Was The Week That Was
Just a few of the more interesting history-related posts and articles that appeared during my month off from blogging: • Christopher Columbus, Captain Cook, and nine other explorers to know. • The Charlie Hebdo shootings have rocketed Voltaire’s Treatise on Tolerance — published in 1763 — to the top of French bestseller lists. (Lots of important … More That Was The Month That Was: History
I’ve always been particularly fond of the virtue of hope. Here in the Christian academy it tends to be overshadowed by faith (that’s what we integrate with learning, after all), and while hope too abides, the “greatest” of the three is love. But it was hope that was at the center of two of the most influential books in … More A Week of Listening: Allan Boesak on Hope and Her Daughters
As you’ve likely heard by now, the South African statesman Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela died earlier today at the age of 95. The reaction has been overwhelming; I’ll just sample a few responses. “Our nation has lost its greatest son,” lamented South African president Jacob Zuma. F.W. de Klerk paid tribute to the man whom was … More RIP Nelson Mandela (1918-2013)
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