God, give me an uncomplicated faith — if only for a moment. That’s what I prayed this morning as I attended the annual Minnesota Prayer Breakfast, a now 59-year tradition whose participants “gather to work and pray for unity so that they can come to know [God] and have their lives transformed by his love.” … More On Prayer, Death, and Resurrection
Aside from sharing part of my Pietist Option for Baptists class (on reading the Bible) and being interviewed for a new podcast by a Covenant pastor, I spent most of the week preparing for the start of the academic year. Here’s some of what was happening elsewhere in the realms of Christianity, history, and education: • Rest … More That Was The Week That Was
The Bethel community lost one of its most brilliant members this week. Adam Johnson, a neuroscientist who taught in our Psychology department, had first been diagnosed with cancer in 2010. After initial treatment, doctors discovered more tumors and told him his condition was terminal. Six years later, Adam finally died on Tuesday morning. In Bethel’s … More RIP Adam Johnson
Here… • Five of my Bethel colleagues joined dozens of other Christian theologians to issue a modern-day version of the Barmen Declaration. Dean Pamela Lightsey and Dr @ccollinswinn draft the #BostonDeclaration at Boston University School of Theology #aarsbl17 pic.twitter.com/ZdnNuujexD — Peter Heltzel (@PeterHeltzel) November 18, 2017 • How prayer sustained two of the most famous … More That Was The Week That Was
Author and activist Shane Claiborne calls on Christians to “practice resurrection” and get in the way of death. Here’s how Christian historians do just that. … More To Be a Historian Is To Practice Resurrection
“The [Pietistic] tradition still lives,” theologian John Weborg once reassured his friend, Glen Wiberg. “But to new people the word Pietism is an unknown word. Pietism is the way the pastor does things.” So while I appreciate having the chance to write a book on Pietism with my pastor, I wish that anyone interested in Pietism could just spend … More “Pietism is the way the pastor does things”: Glen Wiberg (1925-2017)
This past Tuesday, I wrote about the importance of All Saints’ Day, a prime example of how Christians can engage in “stewardship of the past.” Then as I actually took part in an All Saints’ observance this morning, it struck me that I’ve written a number of posts in recent years about dying, death, and how we … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: All Saints
If you missed it in my Saturday wrap-up, Leah Libresco’s analysis of the unrelenting cheeriness of contemporary Christian music (CCM) is well-deserving of your attention. Looking through the last five years’ worth songs to wind up Billboard’s year-end Christian Top 50 charts, she found striking lyrical imbalance: There were 2.5 times as many mentions of “grace” as “sin” in … More Three of My Favorite Un-Cheery Christian Songs
The texts, tunes, and traditions of Easter Sunday are so powerful that I sit in the pew and wonder how anyone could not at least take a chance on believing in the Resurrection. But this Easter, like every other, it took hardly any time at all to be confronted with the reality that our risen King … More The Resurrection Sunset
Here… • I realized the nerdiest dream any Christian scholar could dream: being published in Books and Culture. • Is Lamentations one of the Bible’s “most neglected” books? What other texts are in that category? • As I inched closer to the beginning of the semester, I had much less to say about Christian higher ed per se… … More That Was The Week That Was
The Pietist Schoolman 