Let’s end the week on a high note — with one more sneak peek at the working draft of our book on Pietism and the future of Christianity: Mark’s chapter on the Pietist instinct to “hope for better times.” (If no one else needs to read this, I do.) We’ll dive right in with this excerpt from early in … More Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: Hoping for Better Times
For today’s sneak peek at the working draft of Hope for Better Times: Pietism and the Future of Christianity, I’m happy to share an excerpt from my co-author Mark Pattie. Following the lead of Philipp Jakob Spener, we’ll start by encouraging Christians to listen more attentively to the Word of God. In this excerpt from early in ch. … More Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: The Transformational Power of Scripture
Of the all chapters that I’m primarily writing for our book on Pietism and the future of Christianity, none has been harder to write than the one that will lead things off. Here’s how it currently starts: We’re going to have a lot to say about “hope for better times” in this book, just as Pietist … More Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: What’s Wrong with Christianity?
One of the distinctive features of how we’re writing about Pietism and the future of Christianity is that Mark and I have sought out feedback from potential readers long before the book is sent off to InterVarsity Press. (As with my previous Pietism project, I’d like to think of this book as letting people listen in on a small group … More Sneak Peeks of Our Pietism Book: The Common Priesthood for the Common Good
For the first half of my fall sabbatical in Virginia, my primary goal is to finish the manuscript for the book I’m writing with Mark Pattie: Hope for Better Times: Pietism and the Future of Christianity, which should come out from InterVarsity Press next year. Mark is primarily responsible for writing the chapter on how Pietists read the … More “We read Scripture to do God’s Word”
I’ve occasionally used this blog to write about my mom and her family, my dad and his family, and my children. But today I’m going to break with longstanding tradition and devote an entire post to my wife Katie. (But knowing how much this will embarrass her, I’ll try to keep it short. Just over a … More For My Wife, on Our Tenth Wedding Anniversary
Before I write too many posts for The Anxious Bench, I thought I ought to explain “what I mean by ‘Pietist’ — and why I associate myself with a term that tends to inspire blank looks or antipathy.” A lot of what I have to say in that post should be familiar to readers of this blog, and to … More What It Means to Say “I’m a Pietist” in 2016
As I begin work on a book with one of its pastors about its theological heritage, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Evangelical Covenant Church. So with delegates from its congregations gathering in Phoenix, Arizona for our denomination’s annual meeting, I thought I’d share a few quotations from a few of my favorite Covenanters, clustered around our denomination’s … More Glad Hearts: Some of My Favorite Voices from the Covenant Church
If you missed it in my Saturday wrap-up, Leah Libresco’s analysis of the unrelenting cheeriness of contemporary Christian music (CCM) is well-deserving of your attention. Looking through the last five years’ worth songs to wind up Billboard’s year-end Christian Top 50 charts, she found striking lyrical imbalance: There were 2.5 times as many mentions of “grace” as “sin” in … More Three of My Favorite Un-Cheery Christian Songs
One of the pleasures of being (almost) done with grading is that I can start to catch up on reading. A summer book list will come another day, but this week, I want to mention two articles in the Easter issue of The Cresset, starting with a review essay that makes kind mention of our book, The Pietist Vision … More Searching for Jerusalem: A New Review of Our Pietist Vision Book
The Pietist Schoolman 