Dear members and friends of the Covenant Church, Tomorrow our denomination will begin its 2018 annual meeting — one that many expect to be a landmark event, as delegates vote on new leaders amid intensifying debate about the ECC’s position on human sexuality and marriage. Part of me wishes that I were on the floor … More My (Love) Letter to the Covenant Church
Thanks to Cheryll Fong, Joyce Denham, Pastor Matt Kennedy, and all my other wonderful hosts this past weekend at Minneapolis’ Bethlehem Covenant Church. We discussed the Pietist Option on Friday night and Saturday morning, then I preached this sermon on 2 Kings 2:1-15 at worship services on Sunday. Don’t let anyone tell you that God … More Set Down Your Mantle
We’re into the last week of our countdown to October 3rd, when The Pietist Option: Hope for the Renewal of Christianity hits shelves. So let me offer one more glimpse into the pages of our book: having shared the acknowledgments, let me now show everyone the book’s dedication. If you didn’t know Jim and Glen and had … More The Pietist Option Is Dedicated to…
So look what showed up on my doorstep this morning! We’re still about four weeks away from The Pietist Option hitting bookstore shelves, but getting author’s copies from InterVarsity Press made it feel so much closer. Even more so than when I wrote this kind of post two years ago, it’s hugely gratifying to see and hold actual … More Acknowledgments from The Pietist Option
“The [Pietistic] tradition still lives,” theologian John Weborg once reassured his friend, Glen Wiberg. “But to new people the word Pietism is an unknown word. Pietism is the way the pastor does things.” So while I appreciate having the chance to write a book on Pietism with my pastor, I wish that anyone interested in Pietism could just spend … More “Pietism is the way the pastor does things”: Glen Wiberg (1925-2017)
As I begin work on a book with one of its pastors about its theological heritage, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Evangelical Covenant Church. So with delegates from its congregations gathering in Phoenix, Arizona for our denomination’s annual meeting, I thought I’d share a few quotations from a few of my favorite Covenanters, clustered around our denomination’s … More Glad Hearts: Some of My Favorite Voices from the Covenant Church
The church is never more the church than at a funeral. Or so I decided last week, as the members and friends of Salem Covenant joined five families in paying final respects to five saints of the church. I didn’t know all five well, but I am glad that I was able to attend last Friday’s memorial service for Alyce Hawkinson … More Alyce’s Song: Reflections on a Funeral
In my day job as a history professor, I’ve spent a lot of time in the past week investigating the experience of immigrants during World War I. And since most of the faculty and students at Bethel in 1917-18 were either born in Sweden themselves or the children or grandchildren of such immigrants, I’ve also been thinking about my own … More What’s the Evangelical Covenant Church? “An Immigrant Church”
I’m not quite as excited about this announcement as the one I blogged about earlier today, but that’s just me being selfish, since it’s great news for lots of people, including the central figure… Rev. Efrem Smith will be leaving his position as superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference of my denomination, the Evangelical Covenant … More Efrem Smith to Head World Impact
12/14/11 – Earlier this fall I had the honor of being invited to write a brief appreciation of longtime Covenant pastor and editor Jim Hawkinson for the newsletter Pietisten. That piece appears on p. 15 of the Fall/Winter 2011 issue, now available (not online, but you can find out how to get that and earlier … More Article in Pietisten
The Pietist Schoolman 