How important is St. Augustine, bishop of Hippo? Let’s put it this way… I don’t write and perform parody rap videos for just any theologian-philosopher: Six years later, that lyric and video don’t seem quite as awesome as they did in the moment. But I stand by this couplet as containing some of my finest … More Happy Birthday, Augustine of Hippo!
In our Christianity and Western Culture program at Bethel, we refer frequently to the biblical image of being surrounded by “so great a cloud of witnesses.” In my experience, few witnesses have been greater than the Dutch-born writer known as Erasmus (1466?-1536). In class yesterday I mostly presented Erasmus as exemplifying how the “Catholic Reformation” … More The Education of a Christian President
Courtesy of three of my colleagues at Bethel University’s Department of History… We’ve been taking turns posting our summer reading lists at the department blog, AC 2nd. I’ve already posted my list on this blog as well; now here are a few of the titles listed by my more widely-read colleagues G.W. Carlson (GWC), AnneMarie … More Some (Mid)Summer Reading Suggestions
That’s the question asked by political scientist Tony Gill on his podcast, Research on Religion, of three Christian scholars familiar with religion and politics in 18th century America: Gregg Frazer (The Master’s College), Jonathan Den Hartog (Northwestern College, MN), and Mark David Hall (George Fox University). More specifically, he asked each: “As a Christian in … More Should Christians Have Fought in the U.S. War of Independence?
In a field outside the Belgian town of Ieper (or Ypres), one comes across a curious but moving sight: a wooden cross, with soccer balls piled at its base. The cross is carved to read: 1914 The Khaki Chums Christmas Truce 1999 85 Years Lest we forget It stands in what used to be No … More Commemorating World War I: “Lest We Forget”
During my Thanksgiving hiatus I’ll be reprising some older posts: one each from June/July, August, September, and October. The following comes from July 22, near the end of my series taking readers day-by-day through a proposed travel version of my course HIS230L World War I. You can see an overview/index of the whole series here. … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: A War of Words
A series of posts taking you day-by-day through a proposed travel version of my course HIS230L World War I. Read the introduction to the series here, or the previous post here. Friday, January 25, 2013 – to Minneapolis-St. Paul This is it: the last day of term; the day we fly home from Munich. I’ve … More Loving War, Seeking Peace
A series of posts taking you day-by-day through a proposed travel version of my course HIS230L World War I. Read the introduction to the series here, or the previous post here. Monday, January 21, 2013 – to Munich In a mere six hours, a TGV high-speed train traveling upwards of 200 miles per hour will … More A War of Words
Kind of a slow blogging week, what with the long weekend and a heat-induced torpor slowing down us hard-summering intellectuals. But here’s what you might have missed at The Pietist Schoolman and elsewhere. Here I revealed the Baroque painting that lends a sliver of visual flair to the top of this otherwise text-heavy blog—along the … More That Was the Week That Was
Now that our series on teaching the history of World War I in Europe (“Over There”) is well underway, I’m starting a new (though somewhat less frequently updated) series stemming from my research into Pietism and higher education, in which we consider some significant (neo)Anabaptist critiques of Pietism. Growing up in suburban evangelical churches, I … More The Anabaptist Vision
The Pietist Schoolman 