I’m mildly proud of myself for getting almost all the way through a twelve-day Christmas devotional series before even mentioning the song “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” But here on day eleven, I’ve been thinking about the apocryphal story that the song originated as a kind of catechism for English Catholics to teach their children … More Twelve Days: Pipers Piping
They were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was walking ahead of them; they were amazed, and those who followed were afraid. He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them what was to happen to him, saying, “See, we are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will … More The With-God Life: Messiahship and Discipleship
Recently, Devin Manzullo-Thomas guest-blogged about Myron Augsburger, who as president of what’s now Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) and then as president of what’s now the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU), brought an Anabaptist perspective to evangelical higher education. Augsburger retired from the CCCU just over twenty years ago, but just weighed in at Mennonite World Review on Eastern Mennonite’s decision … More Myron Augsburger on Same-Sex Marriage and the CCCU
As one Baptist member abruptly withdraws from Christian higher ed’s leading organization and a Wesleyan school threatens to do so if Goshen and Eastern Mennonite are not expelled from the CCCU by August 31st, I hope many in the Christian college world will join Spring Arbor professor John Hawthorne in supporting the people of those two Anabaptist institutions: I don’t think … More Why I Hope Goshen and Eastern Mennonite Stay in the CCCU
One of my favorite recent books is The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism, eds. Jared Burkholder and David Cramer. It helps me better understand my own interest, as a rather pietistic evangelical, in the Anabaptist tradition, and my reservations about it. While the contributors don’t shy away from the tensions … More The Church at the Intersection of Anabaptism and Evangelicalism
Just two days after announcing via his Twitter feed that he had stage 4 cancer, Dallas Willard died yesterday. At the end of this post, I’ll offer my own small contribution to the collection of tributes that is already proliferating, but first a few words from people who knew him well: • Richard Foster wrote … More RIP Dallas Willard (1935-2013)
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned singer-songwriter Marcus Mumford’s desire to follow Jesus but distance himself from “the culture of Christianity,” a combination critiqued by UCC pastor Lillian Daniel, author of When “Spiritual but Not Religious” Is Not Enough, in a recent op-ed. She might have added that Jesus himself was deeply religious, so bound up with … More “Religious, but Not Spiritual”: Jesus and the Pharisees
Last Friday Bethel hosted its inaugural Colloquium on Pietism Studies, a one-day gathering that I hope to see become a biennial or triennial event. (It came three years after we hosted an international research conference on “The Pietist Impulse in Christianity.”) Thanks to our generous and supportive deans (Deb Harless and Barrett Fisher, in particular) … More Pietism Colloquium Recap: Scot McKnight
There haven’t been a lot of reader comments in the last couple of weeks, probably because I’ve been bloviating so much about disparate topics. So this afternoon I’ll (mostly) keep my opinions to myself and invite responses to questions relating to this big one: Does your church value church history? This question occurs to me … More Does Your Church Value Church History?
A series of posts taking you day-by-day through a proposed travel version of my course HIS230L World War I. Read the introduction to the series here, or the previous post here. Thursday, January 24, 2013 – Dachau Tomorrow we’ll hop a plane back to the States, but as a last experience of post-WWI Europe, we’re … More Pretending
The Pietist Schoolman 