This week I remembered the death of a friend and colleague and celebrated the release of a COVID vaccine by revisiting the story of the polio vaccine. Elsewhere: • With unemployment still high and new stimulus still being negotiated, more Americans are stealing food and other necessities. • Add Dave Ramsey to the list of prominent evangelicals … More That Was The Week That Was
I know this title sounds absurd. It certainly did to many people in my feed when Union Seminary tweeted this on Tuesday: Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too … More Should Christians Confess Sins to Plants?
Earlier this month I had the honor of delivering the keynote address at the 2019 Twin Cities Undergraduate Theology Conference, a joint effort of four evangelical colleges: Bethel University, Crown College, North Central University, and the University of Northwestern St. Paul. I decided to use the occasion to think in public about another kind of … More A Sacramental Vision of the Liberal Arts
It’s probably getting harder to believe my earlier claim that I rarely sign petitions, now that I’ve gone ahead and done so three times since last February. But please believe me that I don’t add my name lightly to documents like this “Statement of Confession and Commitment,” signed by a growing group of “Confessing Faculty” and inspired by … More Confessing Faculty: Why I Signed (and Why I Hesitated)
Let me talk to pastors for a moment. (Though their congregants might want to listen in.) Sisters and brothers – Now that candidate Trump has become president-elect Trump, I know that many of you are struggling with how you’re going to preach tomorrow morning. Unsettled yourselves, you know that you’ll soon look out at the expectant faces of people feeling … More “Tell It Like It Is”: How Pastors Can Respond to Election Day
During our travels over the holiday weekend, we visited a church and witnessed an odd, telling moment. Looking for a negative sermon illustration at one point, the pastor spontaneously mentioned “the presidential candidate who says he doesn’t need God’s forgiveness.” As best I can recall, the pastor didn’t even say Donald Trump’s name, but he clearly thought he had crossed … More “Tell It Like It Is”: How the Church Should Respond to Trump
Here… • Welcome back to blogging, Jared Burkholder! • If you read Jared’s return post, you’ll notice a plug for a Pietist Vision event coming up… I gave less subtle plugs on behalf of myself for an April visit to Messiah College and my appearance on the podcast Christian Humanist Profiles • Our newest Past & Presence webisode inspired a … More That Was The Week That Was
During the Conference on Faith and History (CFH) meeting late last month, I had the honor of chairing a session on the role that historians can play in helping institutions during seasons of change. Despite the early start time (8:00 on a Saturday morning), we had a nice crowd show up to hear a terrific set of … More Six C’s of Writing Institutional History
Today’s “best of” post comes from late April. It came to mind because I’ll be spending today and tomorrow doing exactly the kind of work that puts me at risk of what Parker Palmer called “functional atheism… the unconscious, unexamined conviction that if anything decent is going to happen here, we are the ones who must make it … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: When I’m a “Functional Atheist”
I’m as convinced a theist as you’re going to find. I’m a Christian who teaches at a Christian college and serves as chairperson of his church. I have a book coming out later this year on Christian higher education. This is the 434th post at this blog in the category “Christianity.” And yet I increasingly … More When I’m a “Functional Atheist”
The Pietist Schoolman 