Here • This is a blog that seeks to explore “Christianity, history, education, and how they intersect.” So naturally the most popular post of the week had to do with thinking through how Americans in a not-too-distant might replace pro football. (Thanks again to my friends and colleagues Sam Mulberry and Chris Moore for doing … More That Was The Week That Was
I wrote this last year for the United States’ Independence Day. Still seems right… Though, for a slightly different take — one more amenable to a celebration of American independence by Christians — see the new Christianity Today interview with Os Guinness and Catholic philosopher Gary Gutting’s most recent post at The Stone. Both contend that … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Pledging Allegiance
In his scathing review (“pretty much an adventure in missing the point”) of Randall Balmer’s scathing review of Ross Douthat’s Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics, philosopher Jamie Smith took particular exception to Balmer’s observation that “institutions, in my experience, are remarkably poor vehicles for piety.” My post that follows isn’t actually … More Anti-Anti-Denominationalism
Last week I mentioned that I was preparing to preach a sermon for the first time, at Salem Covenant Church of New Brighton, MN on All Saints’ Sunday. Despite my fears, it seemed to go well yesterday, and I thought I’d post my text in case anyone who wasn’t there was interested in reading it. … More A Stretched People
Here The beginning of a new series working through Mark Noll and Carolyn Nystrom’s new book, Clouds of Witnesses: Christian Voices from Africa and Asia. The introduction noted the inherent tension between doing history and doing historiography. The first set of stories came from two African Christians responding differently to the “new” imperialism of the … More That Was the Week That Was
Probably the best comment I ever got back from a peer reviewing one of my manuscripts was the one suggesting that I should put the educational philosophies of Karl Olsson and Carl Lundquist in conversation with the one articulated by philosopher James K. A. Smith in Desiring the Kingdom. I was familiar with DtK before … More “You say pietism, I say Pietism”
I don’t know quite what to feel on the 4th of July. On the one hand, I’m a sucker for Americana. We’re spending the holiday with my wife’s family, in a small farming town in Iowa. We’ll dress our kids in red, white, and blue, grab a seat on the curb of Main Street to … More Pledging Allegiance
The Pietist Schoolman 