If you dare, complete the sentence: “The Bible makes it abundantly clear that __________.” There are few phrases that frustrate me more than, "The Bible makes it abundantly clear…" — Rachel Held Evans (@rachelheldevans) October 23, 2013 Rachel Held Evans’ tweet last night preceded a series of conversations about Reformed megachurch pastor Mark Driscoll’s contention … More “The Bible makes it abundantly clear…”
How’s this for a college recruitment slogan? “Bethel University: you might not come back, but you will not be the same” No? What if we had Sir Ian McKellen intone it, as in the first part of Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit trilogy, when Martin Freeman’s Bilbo is being encouraged by McKellen’s wizard Gandalf to go … More The Christian Liberal Arts as Tolkienesque Quest
While I read it regularly on Feedly, The Atlantic is not exactly my go-to source for reporting on Christianity in America or elsewhere. And yet this morning it featured a hugely interesting, informative post with the surprising headline, “Is Immigration Reform Dead? Not If Evangelicals Can Do Anything About It.” FYI – I don’t normally … More Evangelical Leadership on Immigration Reform
As mentioned here last week, Virgil Olson, a longtime professor at what’s now Bethel University and the leading historian of what used to be the Baptist General Conference, died last Tuesday at age 96. His friend G.W. Carlson offered to share this two-part tribute with readers of this blog. (Previously, GW has contributed essays on … More Virgil Olson: A Faithful Disciple of Jesus Christ (G.W. Carlson) – part 1
I originally composed a draft of this devotion for the final meeting of Bethel’s Christianity and Western Culture course last Friday, but what I shared as a benediction to a group of first-year students — from a text I first prayed over students ten years ago, at the end of my first semester at Bethel, … More A Benediction for the Class of 2013
A relatively short links post, as I’m spending Friday afternoon and Saturday morning at the annual meeting of the Northwest Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church. Here… • “Hey, Pietist Schoolman, can you tell me what percentages of colleges to open each decade since 1900 failed to survive it? Oh, can you throw in a … More That Was The Week That Was
It’s a testament to the power of Jesus’ parables that you can hear one for what seems like the millionth time and still find something new in it to ponder. For example: the parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), which was our lectionary text earlier this month. As familiar as it is, I sometimes … More The Prodigal Father
In yesterday’s post, I mentioned singer-songwriter Marcus Mumford’s desire to follow Jesus but distance himself from “the culture of Christianity,” a combination critiqued by UCC pastor Lillian Daniel, author of When “Spiritual but Not Religious” Is Not Enough, in a recent op-ed. She might have added that Jesus himself was deeply religious, so bound up with … More “Religious, but Not Spiritual”: Jesus and the Pharisees
Yesterday’s picture of a plum pudding is easily the best image that’s ever been on the cover of this blog, so I’ll just leave it up while I offer a second straight Christmas-y post… Fun seasonal facts about myself: I’m horrible at coming up with creative Christmas gift ideas But if I do have an … More Some E-Stocking Stuffers for My Readers
Before I get on a plane back to the Twin Cities, let me share some thoughts on the Saturday sessions from the 2012 meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, plus some more general observations: The early session featured three papers on “Christology in History: Three Perspectives from the Trenches.” All took off from … More Thoughts from CFH 2012: Saturday
The Pietist Schoolman 