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?
Before the beginning of the semester last fall, I wrote a post on the challenges (or, as I called them in the post title, “blessings”) of teaching the same course (Modern Europe) year in and year out. Today, the start of our spring semester at Bethel, brings a different kind of problem: teaching a course … More Human Rights in International History
Here • Two more posts on how World War I has been commemorated in western Europe, the first focused on German military cemeteries in Belgium and France and the second on memorials in two large German cities. • And for good measure, a link to an op-ed piece in the New York Times about why … More That Was The Week That Was
Like I said in my very first post… I’m not exactly an early adopter. But however late to the party this makes me… I am just now getting into word cloud generators! Here’s how I belatedly learned of this toy… In place of a final exam this week in our Christianity and Western Culture class, … More Fun with Word Clouds
It’s a pretty uninteresting “week in history,” so I’m going to let that feature take some time off and come back reinvigorated next week. But one event this day in history prompted some reflection: October 24, 1945 – The United Nations comes into being When the five members of the Security Council (USSR, US, Britain, … More This Day in History: Peace vs. Justice
Some highlights from the past week at this and other blogs and publications. Here We paid tribute to one of my favorite hometown bands as they returned to putting out albums after a prolonged absence. Not a huge fan of the new CD, though the documentary mini-features (including an early, early video of a sound … More That Was the Week That Was
Yesterday I posted a response to the debate over Dominion theology, which holds that Scripture mandates that Christians control secular institutions, including political ones. There have been several sources for the revival of a debate whose roots go back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, but probably the most important was Ryan Lizza’s profile … More Evangelicals and “Dominion” (part 2)
Fifty years ago today, the government of the German Democratic Republic (the GDR, or simply East Germany) cut off its own citizens’ ability to move to the west. Before August 13, 1961, such a journey simply required crossing into West Berlin, then an enclave of the western Federal Republic, surrounded by the Communist GDR and Warsaw … More The Berlin Wall, Fifty Years Later
Brainstorming possible August holidays last week made me think that some of my readers might appreciate the occasional excuse to declare their own personal celebration and take a day off. So let us commence a new, recurring feature here at The Pietist Schoolman, with the rarely-before-used title, “This Week in History”! August 8, 1988 – … More This Week in History
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