Here… • I started the week by reflecting on the idea that education might serve primarily to teach us how to pray. So it seemed appropriate that I ended the week by leading my European history students in praying for our enemies, having just read a book about late 19th century terrorism. • A World War I memorial was … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • Jared and biblical scholar D. Brent Sandy dug into what “The Lost World of Scripture” has to teach evangelicals about hermeneutics and inerrancy. • A good week for people who treasure the history of Swedish-American Pietist denominations: the archives of the Baptist General Conference won an award, and those interested in the history of … More That Was The Week That Was
Aside from posts on John Le Carré and the history of college closures, it was a mostly quiet week here at The Pietist Schoolman. But other writers more than picked up my slack: • Two more essays on Le Carré: Emma Hogan analyzed the spy novelist’s writing style; Dwight Garner profiled him for the New … More That Was The Week That Was
Seven score and nine years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln ascended the dais at the dedication of the National Cemetery in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the sleepy town that had hosted the bloodiest battle in American history just over four months before. Word for word, I can’t imagine a discourse more powerful than the two-minute speech Lincoln … More This Day in History: The Gettysburg Address
In the wake of the 47% fiasco, I very much hope that Republican readers took seriously Michael Gerson’s critique of the “libertarian nonsense” too commonly escaping the lips of GOP politicians these days, and David Brooks‘ conclusion that Romney “has lost any sense of the social compact” and joined other Republicans in shifting “from the … More Rejecting Epistemic Closure: Conservatives for Progressives to Read
I’m a PhD-holding history professor myself who will likely never write any book with sales approaching even quadruple figures, but I cringe when fellow guild-members like Louisiana State University professors Andrew Burstein and Nancy Isenberg write things like the following, in Salon this past Sunday: Frankly, we in the history business wish we could take out … More Who Owns History?
Actually, “Those Were The Weeks That Were,” as I’m backtracking over ground left uncovered during my days off… Here I’m weary of things “being meta,” but this is my version of it: watching on YouTube as someone sings along to my own voice singing in another YouTube video visible in the background. Of course, me … More That Was The Week That Was
A pretty heavy blogging week here at The Pietist Schoolman, partly because it was my first real week off for the summer and partly because I know my writing output will drop next week while my family travels to Virginia for a vacation. Here • My summer reading list is heavy on World War I, … More That Was The Week That Was
Not many Americans share my last name — a few dozen, if that — and yet it sometimes feels like I can’t go anywhere without bumping into someone for whom the name Gehrz rings a bell. That’s partly because it’s a distinctive name: people can’t spell Gehrz (no, it’s not Gerhz, Gehrtz, or Gertz) or … More Uncle Jim
In yesterday’s links post, I mentioned the “Kony 2012” film recently released by the group Invisible Children, and the strong criticisms it received. I linked to a couple of particularly thoughtful posts by one of my former students, a development worker now living in Uganda, where Kony first came to infamy. Brief overview: Joseph Kony … More The Kony Kerfuffle
The Pietist Schoolman 