I can put up with almost every other inconvenience, but not getting to sing as part of a group for the duration of COVID has been a tough pill to swallow. Whether in a choir or as part of a congregation, I love to sing the songs of the church with the people of the … More The With-God Life: The Song of Moses
As I’ve restarted this series of daily devotionals, I find myself drawn more to the Old Testament selections from the lectionary than the gospel and epistle texts. Maybe that’s because I’m in the middle of reading Separated Siblings: An Evangelical Understanding of Jews and Judaism, by former North Park Seminary president Jay Phelan. Growing out … More The With-God Life: Commandments
So they took Jesus; and carrying the cross by himself, he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which in Hebrew is called Golgotha. There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them. (John 19:16b-18) As a historian, everything I do hinges on the conviction … More The With-God Life: Were You There?
A couple days before Bethel announced its new president, I wrote about the risk of Christian colleges like ours closing. Elsewhere: Important piece from @cgehrz @anxious_bench. Hoping that institutions like Bethel thrive in the years ahead. Religious colleges and universities are a key piece of America's intellectual diversity and vibrancy. https://t.co/h7yODegP8b — John Turner (@JohnGTurner2020) … More That Was The Week That Was
On Monday we officially announced our Summer 2020 Pietist Schoolman Travel tour: “Sports in American History” (June 28 – July 5). You can find more details (plus the application form) in the trip brochure. But since the three guides for that tour happen to be the three hosts of our sports history podcast, The 252, we thought it’d … More Wednesday’s Podcast: A Sports Fan’s Dream Trip
About thirty years ago, I got to know a fellow middle schooler named Kimberly Weaver. She was both smarter and funnier than me, and while we went to different schools, I was glad that church gave us twice-weekly opportunities to connect. But she went to college at Bethel, while I headed east. Coincidentally, I joined … More RIP Kimberly Weaver Olson
“[T]he most distinctive feature of history as an academic discipline,” I once argued, “is the relative paucity of the sources available. All we’ve got to go on are whatever artifacts survive the passing of time, and most of those sources erode. Past supporting preservation and archival efforts (including oral history projects), there’s not much historians can do … More Why We Can Remember the Holocaust
Since today is a particularly significant Reformation Sunday, I’m going to forego my usual weekend links wrap and instead repost an updated version of my most recent piece for The Anxious Bench. “A red-letter date looms,” wrote Tal Howard in one of his many recent books, “31 October 2017, the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation, the widely recognized … More 3 Ways to Remember the Reformation
If Beyoncé and Wilco can drop surprise albums, I can drop a surprise podcast season… After taking some time off to turn our second season into this book, I’m happy to announce the sudden return of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast for a special third season: six or seven episodes clustered around the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. That is: … More Season 3 of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast: The Reformation at 500
As usual, things get quiet around here in mid-to-late August as I gear up for the start of another academic year. (Those scintillating syllabi won’t write themselves!) So while I managed to dash off a few thoughts on what happened in Charlottesville, I’ve not had a chance to reflect in any depth on the question … More How Historians Can Teach from Memorials
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