The Activist Impulse

4/13/12 – Hot off the press from Wipf & Stock, publisher of our The Pietist Impulse in Christianity, is another book about an “impulse” in Christianity. Edited by Jared S. Burkholder and David C. Cramer, The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism brings together chapters by John Roth, Steven Nolt, John … More The Activist Impulse

Glen Scorgie: Why Pietism Still Matters

In the newest issue of the Baptist Pietist Clarion, I was especially struck by Glen Scorgie‘s article, “Religion of the Heart: The Enduring Value of Pietism,” in which he asks “whether Pietism should still matter to the Baptist General Conference—to Converge Worldwide.” Even beyond that particular denomination, I think it’s a valuable question for several churches … More Glen Scorgie: Why Pietism Still Matters

Educating for Wisdom

For someone who both works in a Christian university and researches the history and theory of Christian higher education, it’s been exciting to see a national publication make that model of formation the cover story of an issue, as Christianity Today has done for March. I already posted a brief mention of the CT article … More Educating for Wisdom

Are Evangelicals Ambivalent about Human Rights?

At the end of last week, I had students in my Human Rights in International History course read and respond to an article by Joel A. Nichols, “Evangelicals and Human Rights: The Continuing Ambivalence of Evangelical Christians’ Support for Human Rights” (published in the Journal of Law & Religion in 2009). Nichols teaches law at … More Are Evangelicals Ambivalent about Human Rights?

Apolitical Churches

I was struck at the end of last week by a pair of quite different articles that shared two themes: church growth and decline, and conclusions relating those trends to how political or apolitical a church is. First, historian Thomas Kidd’s Patheos column on “The Rise and Fall of American Methodism.” Kidd begins by recapping … More Apolitical Churches

Pietism, the BGC, and Bethel University: G.W. Carlson

Today’s post is the second in a new, occasional series on the role of Pietism in the history of Bethel University and its parent denomination, the Baptist General Conference (now going by its “missional name”: Converge Worldwide). Rather than give my own take on these topics, I’m going to summarize the work of some earlier … More Pietism, the BGC, and Bethel University: G.W. Carlson

Tebow

Feels like the blog’s been a little too focused on history of late, so I’m dwelling a bit more on current events and popular culture this week. And, at the risk of my least favorite of the four major professional team sports showing up in this blog’s tag cloud, that attitude seems to beg a … More Tebow