One of these days I’m going to have to write a series trying to explain what the Evangelical Covenant Church is. My denomination is a small one (fewer than 200,000 members in the US), hard to understand if you didn’t grow up in it, and yet growing fast. (More than half the current denominational membership … More Feed My Starving Children
Today we continue to consider why, for most historians and leaders of colleges and universities founded by Pietist denominations, Pietism seems not to provide a “usable past,” a living history capable of sustaining a distinctive mission and identity. In the first part of this post, I suggested, first, that this might be a byproduct of … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 2)
We’ve rounded the bend and are more than halfway home in our preview of The Pietist Impulse in Christianity. Today: part five examines four manifestations of the Pietist impulse among Swedish and Norwegian Christians (both in the Old World and New). For many, this would seem an obscure chapter in the history of Pietism. But … More The Pietist Impulse: Scandinavians
Today we come to the end of a series that has looked at 20th century (neo)Anabaptist critiques of Pietism, starting with Harold Bender‘s influential “Anabaptist Vision” speech and Robert Friedmann‘s famously anti-Pietist “thesis.” After a pause to sum up that critique and look at its continuing influence, we examined how revisionist and post-revisionist Anabaptist historians … More What Pietists Can Learn from the Anabaptist Vision
My friend Jim Hawkinson passed away two months ago today. In that time, he’s been honored by two memorial services (the one at our church, where he served as visitation pastor, drew something like 700 people) and several excellent essays. And while I promised my own appreciation a few weeks ago, I wasn’t sure that … More J. Hawk
7/6/11 – I’ll have my own appreciation to post later in the summer, but for now, I’d encourage anyone who knew or simply knew of Jim Hawkinson to read the July 2011 issue of The Covenant Companion. If you don’t subscribe, you can find him remembered in pieces by Jane Swanson-Nystrom (who quotes Jay Phelan … More Jim Hawkinson
I’m in Colorado today (6/29/11) through Friday, serving as a delegate to the annual meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Worship on Wednesday and Thursday (AM + PM) will be streaming live.
I don’t know anyone who writes who enjoys coming up with a title. Even the bountifully gifted writing staff of the underappreciated sitcom NewsRadio simply gave up and started copping titles from Led Zeppelin albums twenty episodes into the show’s run. Part of me suspects that we shouldn’t seek to improve on the example of … More What’s a Pietist Schoolman?
The Pietist Schoolman 