Yesterday afternoon I had the pleasure of visiting a new member of our church. At one point in the conversation, I looked over and noticed that she had a copy of Pietisten sitting open next to her couch. And that reminded me that I’ve failed to do my bit to publicize the release of that estimable journal’s Spring/Summer 2014 … More Now Available: The Spring/Summer 2014 Issue of Pietisten
So what’s this small but fast-growing denomination called the Evangelical Covenant Church? When I asked Facebook friends from the Covenant to suggest a sentence or two, I received several suggestions. I won’t repeat them all, but two common themes emerged. Most everyone appealed to figures or slogans from European history, and they described the Covenant as a group of people, … More What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church? “Missional Pietists”
6/30/14 – Having spent the weekend with hundreds of fellow members of the Evangelical Covenant Church at our annual meeting, I’m excited to take up last week’s question of how I’d explain what’s distinctive about our denomination to others. But before I launch that series (probably tomorrow), let me encourage my readers to check out a … More Check Out Theoloqui!
Tomorrow I’ll be taking an early morning flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul to Chicago, where I’ll represent my congregation at Gather ’14, the annual meeting of our denomination, the Evangelical Covenant Church. “What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church?” at least one person just asked. (“Why would anyone attend a denominational annual meeting?” asked someone else — or maybe the … More What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church?
5/13/14 – Readers who are members or friends of the Evangelical Covenant Church — or just interested in its history — should check out Friends of Covenant History, a group that seeks “to gather, connect, and equip people interested in Covenant history and heritage.” You can like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. To learn … More Friends of Covenant History
Ten minutes after I pressed “Publish” on Monday’s post about my struggle to find a way to blog well about the World Vision controversy, I found myself lecturing on the Catholic Reformation and Wars of Religion in Bethel’s Christianity and Western Culture class. While the fracturing of the Church into tens of thousands of denominations didn’t start or … More “That They May Be One”: Evangelical Unity after World Vision
4/10/14 – Thanks to G.W. Carlson for drawing my attention to the recent passing of a fellow Covenanter in higher education: Robert T. Sandin. An alumnus of Bethel College and Seminary who went on to earn a PhD in philosophy from the University of Minnesota, Sandin served as an administrator at Northwestern (MN), North Park, Mercer, … More RIP Robert Sandin (1927-2014)
In part because it only happens twice a year, but mostly because I appreciate its aims and quality, the arrival of the Fall/Winter 2013 issue of the newsletter Pietisten made for a good start to finals week. As always, there’s a lot of diverse content to savor in this issue, let me just note a … More In the Fall/Winter 2013 Issue of Pietisten…
Track this and tell me that God doesn’t work in mysterious ways: 1. When I was hired to come to a Baptist/Pietist/evangelical college as the new European historian, I was expected to teach an upper-level course on the Reformations. The last time I had studied this chapter in history was… oh, the first week of … More Why I’m Almost a Lutheran
The actual anniversary date isn’t for a few weeks, but yesterday our congregation celebrated its quasquicentennial: 125 years of mission and ministry that began with a handful of Swedish immigrants gathering for a Bible study in Northeast Minneapolis and now involves a thousand or so people who are members of a suburban church in New … More Everything the Same, Everything Different: A Quasquicentennial Reflection
The Pietist Schoolman 