Here • The death of Levon Helm had me thinking about one of my favorite Martin Scorsese movies, the concert film The Last Waltz. • I continued my series on Confessing History, a promising collection of essays rethinking how Christians do history, with a post on three chapters dealing with “Identity.” • Former North Park … More That Was The Week That Was
I’ll be back tomorrow with my usual Saturday links post, then expect more new posts next week as we return from Bethel’s Spring Break. Today, one more reprised post from recent months: my meditation on the mysteries of the Christian sacrament known as Communion, Eucharist, the Lord’s Supper, etc. There are few things I understand … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: The Mystery of Communion
At the end of last week, I had students in my Human Rights in International History course read and respond to an article by Joel A. Nichols, “Evangelicals and Human Rights: The Continuing Ambivalence of Evangelical Christians’ Support for Human Rights” (published in the Journal of Law & Religion in 2009). Nichols teaches law at … More Are Evangelicals Ambivalent about Human Rights?
There are few things I understand as little and love as much as the sacrament of Communion. That’s something I’ve realized more in the past few years, since, as a lay leader in our church, I’m regularly asked to serve Communion. (A genuinely important example of that terribly overused cliche, “servant-leadership,” I think.) Depending on … More The Mystery of Communion
During my Thanksgiving hiatus I’m reprising some older posts: one each from June/July, August, September, and October. This one was originally posted on October 7, when I asked who people used to think of as the “worst person in history” before Adolf Hitler came along to seize that title. If you like what you see, … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: The Worst Person Before Hitler
He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8, TNIV) Let me say right off the bat: I believe Christians ought to seek social justice. We follow a Savior who opened … More Micah 6:8 in Christian Rhetoric
After a multi-week hiatus, I’ve finally got a chance to return to our series blogging through Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia (InterVarsity Press). If you’re just joining the conversation, you can find the beginning of the series here. We’re moving from Africa to India, which will … More Clouds of Witnesses: “Failure” in India
In 1911, the country of Italy celebrated its 50th birthday as a unified nation-state. The Italian government marked the occasion with a special census that revealed, among other things, that one out of every six Italians lived outside of Italy. Between 1880 and 1914, thirteen million Italians emigrated to the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, … More Italy as an “Emigrant Nation”
Hank Williams, Jr. stirred up a fracas this past week by likening Barack Obama playing golf with Speaker of the House John Boehner to Adolf Hitler playing golf with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (Not following the analogy? From the Bocephus SAT Prep Guide answer section… Obama:Hitler::Boehner:Netanyahu.) (On overly facile Nazi analogies, check out the … More The Worst Person Before Hitler
September 19, 1945 – “Lord Haw Haw” is sentenced to death One of the courses I teach at Bethel University is the capstone of our major program, Senior Seminar, in which students spend the spring semester conducting original research on a topic of their choosing, produce an article-length paper, and close the year by giving … More This Week in History
The Pietist Schoolman 