Recently I concluded a series elaborating on a talk I gave last spring at Bethel University: “In Search of a ‘Usable Past’: Pietism in the Historiography of Christian Colleges and Universities.” If you missed some or all of the series, you can find the entries indexed here, with sample quotations: 1. The Usable Past of … More The Usable Past: An Overview
Today I’m going to wrap up a series of posts on the notion of Christian colleges looking to a “usable past” for guidance as they consider their missions and identities. Thus far, we’ve mostly found that schools founded by denominations originating (at least in part) in Pietism have not found such utility in that tradition. … More The Usable Past: Pietism and Bethel University
What you might have missed this week, here and elsewhere: Here Why Pietism may have been an obstacle to the development of higher education in some American Christian traditions, plus one exception. Three stories of Africans who led revivals in the 20th century. The problematic legacy of “muscular Christianity,” plus contemporary Christian ambivalence about athletic … More That Was the Week That Was
That collective exhaling you heard this morning came from the chancellors, presidents, provosts, and other leaders of the 1378 colleges and universities that participate in the U.S. News Best Colleges ranking process, results of which were released today. As someone who indirectly participates in this process (by teaching at one of those institutions and so … More On College Rankings
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)
Probably the best comment I ever got back from a peer reviewing one of my manuscripts was the one suggesting that I should put the educational philosophies of Karl Olsson and Carl Lundquist in conversation with the one articulated by philosopher James K. A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom. I was familiar with DtK before … More “You say pietism, I say Pietism”
One of the most unlikely hot topics of the past month has been a kind of political theology that, to the extent it achieved any real popularity, peaked in the early 1980s: Dominion theology, or as New Yorker correspondent Ryan Lizza calls it in his now famous profile of Michelle Bachmann, Dominionism. It contends that … More Evangelicals and “Dominion” (part 1)
Our series on models of Christian higher education inspired by a “usable past” is treading water a bit this week while I gear up for classes. In the most recent post, I surveyed American denominations with roots in Pietism, plus the colleges and universities that they founded. Next week I hope to have a more … More Pietist Colleges: Quick Facts
At The Pietist Schoolman I think I pretty much beat everyone to the punch in posting something on Rob Bell’s Love Wins. A summer spent, in part, shooting the breeze over overpriced coffee drinks with former students produced this celebration of alumni. My series on employing a “usable past” to define the mission and identity … More That Was the Week That Was
We’re less than a week away from Bethel’s faculty retreat, which means that the summer is rapidly coming to a close, along with all of my plans for how I’d spend it. One of the many things I’ll miss most about this summer, as every summer, is that it’s the time I reconnect with former … More In Celebration of Alumni
The Pietist Schoolman 