It’s been a long weekend teaching and preaching, but a rewarding, exhilarating one. Thanks again to the people of Bethlehem Covenant Church for making me feel so welcome as the guest speaker for their Winter Seminar! I’m particularly grateful to their senior pastor, Ryan Eikenbary-Barber, for extending the invitation and for being an active participant … More Further Reading on Pietism
Next weekend those of you who live in the Twin Cities can put a voice to the words you’ve read on this blog by coming to Bethlehem Covenant Church in Minneapolis, where I’ll be leading the annual Winter Seminar. In classes Friday night (Feb. 8) and the following morning, then during Bethlehem’s Sunday School hour, … More The Pietist Impulse in the 21st Century
While you hear much about Pietism here at Bethel University, most of what’s said comes from faculty and administrators. So it’s been interesting to encounter students exploring that tradition as well. Last spring I had the pleasure of talking about Pietism with Jesse Phenow (’14), a Communications Studies major, while he was taking a course … More A College Student Reflects on Pietism (Jesse Phenow)
I’m very pleased to welcome this guest post from my colleague Christian Collins Winn: the text of his address yesterday morning in Bethel University‘s year-opening chapel service, in which he appealed to Bethel’s roots in Pietism to help us start a year-long conversation about what church historian Martin Marty has called “convicted civility.” Christian is … More Pietism and Civil Discourse (Christian Collins Winn)
Earlier this week I got a nice comment from Jeff Hochstetler, a student at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, who asked a great question: Do you think that for a Pietistic vision to be successful, it must be rooted in institutional expressions, as the Anabaptist vision was/is? Jeff had been reading my summer 2011 series on … More Where Would a Pietist Vision Come From?
In the first preview of chapters from our new book, The Pietist Impulse in Christianity, I made much of our volume’s affinity for expansive definitions of the “Pietist impulse,” by implication rejecting the “strict constructionist” take that Pietism properly construed was a certain segment of German Lutheranism in the early modern period. So it’s only … More The Pietist Impulse: Germans
This week I’m launching a new series previewing the chapters in our newly released book, The Pietist Impulse in Christianity. Where better to start than with the deceptively simple question, “What is Pietism?” As we point out rather obviously in our editors’ introduction, that question “is not easily answered” (xxi). Some scholars prefer a “strict … More The Pietist Impulse: Definitions
The Pietist Schoolman 