Here… • Five of my Bethel colleagues joined dozens of other Christian theologians to issue a modern-day version of the Barmen Declaration. Dean Pamela Lightsey and Dr @ccollinswinn draft the #BostonDeclaration at Boston University School of Theology #aarsbl17 pic.twitter.com/ZdnNuujexD — Peter Heltzel (@PeterHeltzel) November 18, 2017 • How prayer sustained two of the most famous … More That Was The Week That Was
Fake news. Alternative facts. Post-truth. When those are the catch phrases of the moment, this portion of my employer’s statement of core values can seem both quaint and urgently needed: As learners, we are critical thinkers and problem-solvers committed to academic excellence and intellectual rigor. At the same time, we are truth-seekers, recognizing that all truth-scientific, artistic, philosophical, … More How Christian Scholars Seek Truth in a “Post-Truth” World
Here… • Why historians “need to get in the way of death and practice resurrection.” • Once again, the rumors of the lecture’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. • According to one British historian, German Pietism “[rekindled] the love affair with God that had been Protestantism’s beating heart since Luther.” …There and Everywhere • Oddly, the firing of an FBI … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • Bethel hosted another colloquium on Pietism (if you missed it, you can watch everything here), which made me think again about the notion of a “usable past.” • What happens when historians have too much evidence? • The War on Christmas is over. • I’ve decided to stick with Twitter and Facebook, but only for certain purposes. … More That Was The Week That Was
One of the benefits of working at a place like Bethel is that I get to learn from brilliant colleagues like Adam Johnson, who teaches cognitive neuroscience in our psychology department. Adam’s research focuses on memory, decision-making, and moral psychology and has been supported by grants from BioLogos and the National Institutes of Health. In this guest post, he draws on insights … More Moral Psychology and Politics: Why Is the Trump Tape Such a Revelation to Evangelicals? (Adam Johnson)
So is Messiah College history professor John Fea correct that “Enrollments in humanities fields — history, philosophy, literature, theology — at evangelical colleges have experienced a precipitous decline over the last decade”? Last week I looked at my own institution to begin to offer an answer to that question. But I admitted that I didn’t … More Quantifying the Crisis in Humanities at Christian Colleges
Aside from sharing a new, hopeful episode of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast, this week I left blogging to others: • One reason this blog was on hiatus was that I was trying to write a eulogy for G.W. Carlson. I’ll be delivering it this Sunday afternoon, at a kind of service that Carl Truman really wishes we wouldn’t call a … More That Was The Week That Was
Cross-posted from AC 2nd At last night’s GOP presidential debate several candidates used our friends in the discipline of philosophy as a punch line. Most memorably, Sen. Marco Rubio (FL) claimed that “Welders make more than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.” Or as he put it today at an event in Iowa: “You deserve … More How about Historians and Welders?
Troubling news from Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, where twelve faculty spots are at risk of disappearing, including tenure-track positions in art, English, and ethics and open positions in French, philosophy, and theater. While a college spokesman pointed to a $3.7 million budget deficit and persistent decline in enrollment (down from over 1800 four years … More When Does a Liberal Arts College Cease to Be a Liberal Arts College?
From April 9… Having spent a couple of posts last week unpacking Liberty University’s ambition (and the older one of Baylor University) to become “the Protestant Notre Dame” — and asking just what that meant, I’m surprised it took almost four days to see this comment appear: The question isn’t so much whether Liberty is a … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Notre Dame and the Idea of the Catholic University
The Pietist Schoolman 