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)
In the second (full) post in this briefly interrupted series, I went through the rather lengthy list of American denominations founded by Pietists, and the colleges and universities those churches went on to establish. Having said nothing in two weeks to develop that history (except to provide a few quick facts about those schools in … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 1)
Today I’m starting a new series that builds on a talk I gave at Bethel last spring. It takes up the thesis that Pietism has a “usable past” capable of distinctively and beneficially shaping Christian higher education. Pages and pages have been written on Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Anabaptist, and other Christian traditions and how their … More The Usable Past of Christian Colleges
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
Whenever I felt like I was getting overly excited about new media, I could always say, “At least I’m not blogging.” That crumbled a month ago, but after ignoring my family for an hour to work on some post about Caravaggio or English music halls, I could always plead, “At least I’m not on Twitter.” … More That Was the Week That Was
This afternoon we’ll pick up our series examining the critique of Pietism bound up in the “Anabaptist vision” promoted by Harold Bender and like-minded Mennonite scholars in the mid-20th century. Last time I noted that Bender’s critique (as substantially developed by Robert Friedmann) continued to influence neo-Anabaptist scholars like the young Mennonite Brethren professors who … More The Anabaptist Revision
Part two of my new series on (neo)Anabaptist critiques of Pietism. See the first entry, on Harold Bender’s “Anabaptist Vision” here. Pietism in the larger sense is a quiet conventicle-Christianity which is primarily concerned with the inner experience of salvation and only secondarily with the expression of love toward the brotherhood, and not at all … More The Friedmann Thesis
Now that our series on teaching the history of World War I in Europe (“Over There”) is well underway, I’m starting a new (though somewhat less frequently updated) series stemming from my research into Pietism and higher education, in which we consider some significant (neo)Anabaptist critiques of Pietism. Growing up in suburban evangelical churches, I … More The Anabaptist Vision
Did you know? The members of the NHL champion Boston Bruins will have three full months between their Game 7 triumph and the beginning of training camp in which to play golf, go to the beach, and do silly things with the Stanley Cup. (Of course, members of my Minnesota Wild and the league’s thirteen … More My Summer Vacation
The Pietist Schoolman 