On the day this nation honors the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr., let me repost something I wrote last year on the anniversary of his death. You’ll find similar points made this morning by Derek Rishmawy. Martin Luther King, Jr. has been much on my mind of late. And not just because yesterday marked … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: The Letter from a Birmingham Jail
Here… • Having to teach a new course on the history of WWII for three hours each afternoon during Bethel’s J-term has definitely made it a challenge to find time for blogging. But getting ready for that course also yielded this meditation for Epiphany, on finding light in the “thick darkness” that covered the earth … More That Was The Week That Was
If we haven’t learned how to be a healing station for the people who are racially similar, then we’re never going to learn how to be a healing station for the people who are racially dissimilar. (Christena Cleveland) Even if it means that I don’t catch up on the reading in European and diplomatic history that I should … More “Beyond Multiethnic” Church – and Christian Colleges?
Didn’t know that this blog had a foreign correspondent, did you? Yes, today we’re happy to share an update on what’s been happening at the 10th Assembly of the World Council of Churches, courtesy of our “man in Busan,” my colleague Christian Collins Winn. As always, I’ll disclaim that opinions of guest-posters are their own, … More A Report from the 10th Assembly of the WCC (Christian Collins Winn)
One final follow-up to some of the comments on my open letter on churches and Christian higher education. In part two of this mini-series, I took up the argument that churches and denominations might not give as much to Christian colleges because the latter tend to be poor stewards of the former’s funds. Today I … More Are Christian Colleges Poor Spiritual Stewards?
The first of three posts following up on comments on last Tuesday’s open letter asking churches to support Christian higher education… Today let me start with a thread running through several comments: the argument that if Christian colleges are not receiving as much financial support from denominations and churches, it’s because the colleges themselves have … More Are Christian Colleges Too Detached from Churches?
Chris, a Christian college professor and church chairperson, To the pastors, lay leaders, members, and friends of the churches and denominations that founded and still sponsor the Christian colleges and universities of this country: Before today is done, no small number of faculty members at the Christian college where I work will be asked to … More An Open Letter to American Churches: The Crisis of Christian Higher Education
This morning I gave the second in a series of talks at the Bethel University Library that will preview chapters from our forthcoming Whole and Holy Persons: A Pietist Approach to Christian Higher Education. My topic was “Pietism from the High Sierra to the Somme: Holistic Education in the Ecclesiola of Off-Campus Study.” This is … More My Talk on Pietism and Off-Campus Study: In Tweet Form
One of my favorite recent books is The Activist Impulse: Essays on the Intersection of Evangelicalism and Anabaptism, eds. Jared Burkholder and David Cramer. It helps me better understand my own interest, as a rather pietistic evangelical, in the Anabaptist tradition, and my reservations about it. While the contributors don’t shy away from the tensions … More The Church at the Intersection of Anabaptism and Evangelicalism
Today’s normally the day that I post a bunch of links, but since many of them had to do with the Rachel Held Evans’ piece on Millennials leaving Christianity anyway (critiqued here on Thursday), and since she just followed up on that with a post on why Millennials need the Church, I’ll put off “That … More A Few More Thoughts on Millennials and the Church
The Pietist Schoolman 