Aside from sharing part of my Pietist Option for Baptists class (on reading the Bible) and being interviewed for a new podcast by a Covenant pastor, I spent most of the week preparing for the start of the academic year. Here’s some of what was happening elsewhere in the realms of Christianity, history, and education: • Rest … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • Why I think that women, African Americans, and other Christians can help to “evangelize evangelicalism.” • It’s not much to look at, but my faculty office is actually important to me. …There (Anxious Bench)… • Like millions of others around the world, I watched the royal wedding live. Unlike all of them, I … More That Was The Week That Was
While I was busy passing the plate and celebrating a miraculous Vikings win, others were writing about Christianity, history, education, and other things I find interesting: • I’m not sure I’ve ever willingly read a book by a current, former, or would-be U.S. president. That might change. • I missed this last week: the most … More That Was The Week That Was
I’d love to disagree with the thesis of historian Neil Young’s piece in Religion Dispatches, but he’s probably right that …the bulk of white evangelicals’ political efforts have always veered to the right, often to the extreme. From Civil Rights to Vietnam to abortion to gay rights, from national defense to tax policy to climate change … More White Evangelicalism Has Been Politically Conservative… But Must It Remain So?
Here… • As always, the 2016 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History planted the seeds for lots of posts. A first reflection took on CFH president Jay Green’s question: will historians who themselves feel rather ambivalent about evangelicalism contend for evangelical identity? • Registration opened for the 2016 Bethel Colloquium on Pietism, coming December 13th. • … More That Was The Week That Was
Last week my Anxious Bench colleague John Turner drew our attention to America’s Public Bible, a new project by Lincoln Mullen. A leading digital historian who works (like John) at George Mason University, Lincoln describes APB in this way: America’s Public Bible uncovers the presence of biblical quotations in the nearly 11 million newspaper pages in the Library of Congress’s … More Following Up: Micah 6:8 in American Rhetoric
Come back in a couple days for an exciting announcement about a new blogging gig of mine… but first, here’s some of what was blogged about last week. Here… • How should the Church respond to Donald Trump? By “telling it like it is.” • Are historians and other humanists leaning too heavily on “utilitarian” apologetics? Yes (not that I’m going to stop trying … More That Was The Week That Was
Earlier this fall what would have been the 100th birthday of Clarence Jordan was celebrated with a two-day symposium whose participants included former president Jimmy Carter and my recently-retired (down to a mere three classes, from seven) Bethel colleague G.W. Carlson, who provided us with an introduction to Jordan back in August. Fall grades now … More Reflections on the Clarence Jordan Symposium (G.W. Carlson)
“Is this the end” of the losing party, asked a journalist in the aftermath of a decisive election day, “and perhaps even the end of the two-party system in the United States? “Be of good cheer, ye of little faith,” he advised the losing side. “Things don’t work that way in this remarkable country, with … More “The end of the two-party system in the United States?”
The Pietist Schoolman 