For Holy Week I’d like to share a unique devotional experience from Central Baptist Church in St. Paul, MN: “An Invitation on the Pathway” by Mike Widen and G. W. Carlson is a Baptist version of the Stations of the Cross, blending fourteen original works of art with fourteen original reflections. You can walk these stations … More Baptist Stations of the Cross (G.W. Carlson)
“…you are dust and to dust you shall return.” (Gen 3:19b, NRSV) I heard this sobering verse twice this week within the space of eighteen hours, in two different churches and as part of two different types of worship services. First, at our church’s Ash Wednesday service, from our senior pastor as he imposed ashes … More Dust and Beauty: A Lenten Meditation
I said it this morning on my Pietist Schoolman Facebook page, but it bears repeating for the larger audience that reads the blog itself: Within the evangelical world it’s hard to overstate the importance of this critique of David Barton, coming as it does from the president of the Conference on Faith and History and chair of the History … More Tracy McKenzie on David Barton: “What’s Really at Stake”
It was a day into Epiphany — the Christian season of light, when Jesus is revealed in many and various ways as God — when I began my J-term class on World War II. So I started out with a meditation on Isaiah 60:1-2, one of the staple texts of the season. But rather than … More “Thick Darkness”: Further Thoughts on Looking Too Quickly for Light
Here… • Having to teach a new course on the history of WWII for three hours each afternoon during Bethel’s J-term has definitely made it a challenge to find time for blogging. But getting ready for that course also yielded this meditation for Epiphany, on finding light in the “thick darkness” that covered the earth … More That Was The Week That Was
If it weren’t for the fact that the wind chill is nearing fifty below Fahrenheit here in the Twin Cities and Bethel has joined other colleges and schools in closing for the day, this afternoon I would be kicking off my new course on the history of World War II. Since today is also the … More “Thick Darkness”: An Epiphany Meditation on Teaching WWII
Here… • Playing Santa for someone who loves to read about history? A few gift suggestions… • Then one more (if that someone is interested in the Jesus People, or just likes well-written religious history). • Choral music, corporate confession, and comfort with paradox… Why I’m almost a Lutheran. • And I celebrated Human Rights … More That Was The Week That Was
Is two years too soon to call something an “annual holiday tradition”? For our readers who like to give such gifts for Christmas, here’s a list of some of the history books to have appeared on the “Best of 2013” lists that I first examined in a recent post on academic historians achieving success with … More The Best History Books of 2013?
Here… • I learned several important blogging lessons last week. First, if you want to drastically increase your traffic, then write about Millennials and/or Rachel Held Evans… then do it again… • …or question whether New York really is all that important to the future of evangelicalism… • …or whether research is actually the “coin … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • Pride and Prejudice, going strong after 200 years. • Re: my post on the music of Monty Python… Did I mention that I was such a devoted fan in high school that I convinced a group of friends to come over to the house for a marathon viewing party that took us through … More That Was The Week That Was
The Pietist Schoolman 