If you offered me fifteen minutes to share what’s at the heart of my belief as a Christian and how that shapes my understanding of education, I think this is the best answer I could give. It’s the text of the convocation address I delivered yesterday in the opening chapel of the 2015-2016 academic year at Bethel University. Thanks to … More The Body of Christ
I couldn’t quite maintain the standards of academic decorum when I saw that the newest issue of Books & Culture included my first piece for the best Christian cultural review around. The sports expression “Act like you’ve been there before” comes to mind… But hey, it’s the 20th anniversary issue! And my name is even on the cover! And they … More Look Who’s in Books and Culture!
So there’s a quotation I’ve been thinking about all summer: At the end of his life, Jesus declared his disciples his friends, meaning they shared with him a common passion for his mission in the world (John 15:13-15). Covenanters, as Mission Friends, have broadly understood mission to be the befriending of others, and all that God has … More Mission as Friendship: A Call to Deeper Unity for Christian Colleges
As one Baptist member abruptly withdraws from Christian higher ed’s leading organization and a Wesleyan school threatens to do so if Goshen and Eastern Mennonite are not expelled from the CCCU by August 31st, I hope many in the Christian college world will join Spring Arbor professor John Hawthorne in supporting the people of those two Anabaptist institutions: I don’t think … More Why I Hope Goshen and Eastern Mennonite Stay in the CCCU
I don’t normally write blog posts in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, but I made the mistake of checking Twitter before bed and couldn’t sleep after reading this from John Mark Reynolds, the former provost of Houston Baptist University: Christian Higher Ed: years of drift, grifters, and failure to change bringing a crisis. … More A Hopeful Vision for Christian Higher Education
The first season of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast was meant to extend and expand the conversation that started with our book The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education, so it’s fitting that the season finale features the same woman who wrote the book’s preface: Janel Curry, provost of Gordon College. For today’s episode, Janel and I talked about … More Thursday’s Podcast: The Future of Christian Higher Education
Our penultimate episode in season 1 of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast features Dan Hanson offering a Lutheran (and a student’s) perspective on higher education. About to start his final year at Luther Seminary, Dan reflects on the difference between a “college of the church” and a Christian college, explains why vocation and “faithful criticism” are central to Lutheran higher education, and … More Thursday’s Podcast: A Lutheran Perspective
Public historian Devin Manzullo-Thomas (director of the Sider Institute for Anabaptist, Pietist, and Wesleyan Studies) joins me for episode #10 of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast. (You can find it on iTunes or via The Christian Humanist). Drawing on his experiences with Messiah College and the Brethren in Christ Church, Devin reflects on history and higher education at the … More Thursday’s Podcast: An Anabaptist Perspective
If you have any interest in the future of Christian higher education — and especially if you’re an employee, alumnus, student, or friend of Bethel University — let me point you to my article in the Summer 2015 issue of Bethel Magazine. (You can click here, or turn to p. 24 in the embed below.) Entitled “Faith-Filled Tradition, … More A Pietist Vision for a Christian University
At the end of June I had the chance to spend a few days at Rathbun Lake in southern Iowa, joining my wife’s extended family for a reunion. Of course, even on vacation I couldn’t escape my research. In a part of Iowa most famous in religious history for being part of the Mormon Trail, I turned … More Pietism as Instincts, or It’s More Than Old Churches in Rural Iowa
The Pietist Schoolman 