Before spending most of the week enjoying a holiday trip with family, I reflected on the recent annual meeting of my home denomination, explained what’s been called the “honest patriotism” of abolitionist Frederick Douglass, and shared some reflections from my parents and two others who joined us last month on our World Wars in Western … More That Was The Week That Was
This week I paid tribute to my boss, reflected on Charles Lindbergh’s interest in primitive societies, and talked about college basketball and athletic labor. Elsewhere: • David Brooks offered one of the rarest spectacles in 21st century American political discourse: a pundit who was convinced by others’ arguments to change his mind on a controversial … More That Was The Week That Was
Yesterday was a surreal day at Bethel University: In the morning, a couple hundred employees crowded into a room in our student commons to hear our president explain significant cuts and restructuring in academic programs and co-curricular/administrative staffing, necessary to avoid the multi-million dollar deficits projected for the next two fiscal years. In the evening, … More “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how”
A rather difficult week at work kept me from blogging at The Pietist Schoolman. I’ll be back to my usual schedule in a day or two, but in the meantime, here’s some of what I was reading elsewhere: • What little writing time I had went into an Anxious Bench piece on the religious history of the world’s … More That Was The Week That Was
It’s one of the four instincts that we think defines the Pietist ethos: to trust that Christians are better together than apart. Around Bethel, it shows up as an “irenic [or peaceable] spirit” that leads us to avoid needless controversy and try to reach decisions by consensus; in the Evangelical Covenant Church, it results in our affirmation of having the … More Thursday’s Podcast: A Peaceable Spirit
Here… • I returned from a couple weeks of little to no activity here with some reflections on my principles for blogging. • I guessed that some share of Christians who are done with the label “evangelical” might actually embrace “Pietist” as an alternative. • And I argued that Christian unity is a task for Christian formation, … More That Was The Week That Was
“We live in a political world,” Bob Dylan once sang, “Where mercy walks the plank.” It’s a world, after all, where even a democratic socialist promises a “merciless” response to a vicious attack. Where a leading Republican presidential candidate can be criticized by a leading conservative columnist for engaging in a kind of discourse “marked by what you … More Oh Mercy
Here… • The Pietist Schoolman Podcast returned from its early summer break with an enlightening conversation featuring sociologist John Hawthorne. • If you agree that it feels like it might be time for this blog to get a makeover, it’s not too late to suggest a new theme! (We’ll start voting next week.) • Is Pietism a set of instincts … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • The Pietist Schoolman Podcast debuted, as Roger Olson joined me to talk Pietism, evangelicalism, Jesus, seminaries, and more. • The newest issue of Fides et Historia included my article calling for more of an international or transnational turn in evangelical historiography — an article that I needed to update a bit. • Jared reported from the Cushwa Seminar … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • A tour of memorial sites got me thinking about how to teach a new course on World War II, and prompted two new series: one on the commemoration of WWII started by asking why “living memorials” were so popular among architects, artists, and others in the 1940s; then a second looked chapters in … More That Was The Week That Was
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