I’m not sure they have such celebrations in heaven, but at least down here, there should be some recognition that today marks what would have been the 100th birthday of the late, multi-talented Karl A. Olsson: writer, preacher, teacher, literature scholar, decorated veteran of World War II, former president of what’s now North Park University, … More Happy 100th Birthday, Karl Olsson!
Unless you limit its definition to that relatively small group of German Lutherans inspired by Philipp Jakob Spener and then led by August Hermann Francke in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, Pietism is a tremendously diverse movement within Christianity — spanning centuries, oceans, languages, and confessions. So what do Pietists have in common? … More Pietism, Resurrection, and the Virtue of Hope
About two years ago I was invited to give a talk to our faculty in recognition of having been awarded Bethel’s 2009 Faculty Excellence Award for Teaching. In part one of this (slightly updated) version of the talk, I described my experiences integrating podcasts into two courses and evaluated them in light of the “No … More A Different Significance: Online vs. F2F Education (part 2)
During my Thanksgiving hiatus I’m reprising some older posts: one each from June/July, August, September, and October. This one was originally posted on August 18: as the summer neared its end, I reflected on conversations with former students. If you like what you see, please consider nominating this blog at the Cliopatria Awards, recognizing excellence … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: In Celebration of Alumni
Today we continue to consider why, for most historians and leaders of colleges and universities founded by Pietist denominations, Pietism seems not to provide a “usable past,” a living history capable of sustaining a distinctive mission and identity. In the first part of this post, I suggested, first, that this might be a byproduct of … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 2)
We’re less than a week away from Bethel’s faculty retreat, which means that the summer is rapidly coming to a close, along with all of my plans for how I’d spend it. One of the many things I’ll miss most about this summer, as every summer, is that it’s the time I reconnect with former … More In Celebration of Alumni
We’ve rounded the bend and are more than halfway home in our preview of The Pietist Impulse in Christianity. Today: part five examines four manifestations of the Pietist impulse among Swedish and Norwegian Christians (both in the Old World and New). For many, this would seem an obscure chapter in the history of Pietism. But … More The Pietist Impulse: Scandinavians
The banner image running across each screen of this blog is cropped from a 1601 painting by the Italian Baroque artist Caravaggio, “Supper at Emmaus.” (Congratulations to Rachel Neiwert for winning yesterday’s challenge!) The story of the risen Jesus’ encounter with the two disciples traveling to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) has special meaning for me, in … More Emmaus Education
I don’t know anyone who writes who enjoys coming up with a title. Even the bountifully gifted writing staff of the underappreciated sitcom NewsRadio simply gave up and started copping titles from Led Zeppelin albums twenty episodes into the show’s run. Part of me suspects that we shouldn’t seek to improve on the example of … More What’s a Pietist Schoolman?
The Pietist Schoolman 