I considered a Twitter controversy about plants, the notion of “comfort colleges,” and the impact of the First World War on Native American identity. Elsewhere: • “America is at an awkward age,” began Elizabeth Stice’s thoughtful essay on history and heritage. “We are old enough to be embarrassed by our parents, but not mature enough … More That Was The Week That Was
Classes are up and running, so it felt like a good time to start podcasting again. This morning Chris Moore, Sam Mulberry, and I recorded the season 2 premiere for The 252, our podcast previewing themes from Chris and my new course on the history and politics of sports. Last spring we put out weekly podcasts. … More Wednesday’s Podcast: The Best Sports Years Ever
This week The 252 welcomes sports historian Paul Putz of Messiah College. We asked Paul about the history of “Sportianity” — Frank Deford’s term for the fusion of sports with evangelical piety, plus the role of faith in recent protests by African American NFL players, Paul’s experience teaching undergraduate courses like the one our podcast previews, and … More Wednesday’s Podcast: Sportianity
It’s March, and that means it’s time for The 252 to devote most of an episode to college basketball! With the help of guest philosopher/Indiana booster Sara Shady, we nominated eight players and coaches for a college hoops Mount Rushmore. You can vote for your four favorites in the poll below. Before we wrapped up that segment, … More Wednesday’s Podcast: College Basketball
So you’ve been in London teaching the history of World War I for a week and are getting ready to head to the former Western Front and have some down time while you catch up on laundry. What do you do? Record a podcast on a pair of iPhones, of course! Yes, Sam Mulberry and … More Live from London: Nothing Rhymes with Gehrz
It’s all Olympics, all the time this week at The Pietist Schoolman! In case you want to bone up before Rio 2016 gets going in earnest, I thought I’d update my 2012 response to this question: Which countries (and continents) are most dominant in each summer Olympic sport? (And yes, there’s a winter version.) I’ve … More Which Country (and Continent) Dominates Each Olympic Sport? (Updated)
Here… • Fortunately, blog readership plummets during Easter weekend, but in case you want to revisit them, I did post reflections on the vigil of Holy Saturday and the “resurrection sunset” of Easter evening. • Lesson learned: any supposed list of “indispensable Christian academic Twitter users” is itself quite dispensable. (Though you could do worse than to follow these seven.) … More That Was The Week That Was
Sharp-eyed followers of this blog might have noted a recent addition to my speaking schedule. This November I’ll be one of many scholars giving a paper at The Spirit of Sports, the 2015 Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture at Baylor University in Waco, Texas. I’ll be part of a session organized by Baylor grad student/blogger Paul Putz, speaking on “Anabaptist … More Anabaptist Visions of Sport
Here… • As if I needed any more proof that I’m Minnesotan: I’m still blushing from the superlatives lavished on our Pietism/higher ed book by its endorsers. Thanks, Amos, Jake, John, John, Rhonda, and Shirley! • GW Carlson on Glen Stassen: “Stassen’s calm but passionate presentations suggested that we need to take seriously the Sermon on the … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • I didn’t dislike the new college rankings from MONEY magazine, but as I considered how Bethel and other Christian colleges fared, I remained convinced that “no system that needs to rank public institutions and avowedly secular private ones is going to properly assess the value of Christian colleges and universities.” • We reached the 100th anniversary of the … More That Was The Week That Was
