Almost from the moment I got to Bethel University (sixteen years ago!), I started dreaming about developing two new courses. The one on World War II launched five years ago, with its fourth iteration starting next week. But aside from one independent study, I’ve never quite been able to follow through with a History of … More Coming Soon… The History and Politics of Sports
Here… • I surveyed the religious history of the modern Olympic Games for my weekly Anxious Bench post… also reflecting briefly on the Olympics as religion (a theme I developed a bit more when invited to rewrite that post for The Gospel Coalition). • After a year of enormous division, could the games help bring Americans together? • And for no … More That Was The Week That Was
In case you missed it yesterday morning, The Gospel Coalition featured a reworked version of my Anxious Bench post on the religious history of the modern Olympics. They asked me to conclude with a bit more application for Christian readers, so here’s what I came up with: So how should Christians respond to an event whose website still defines Olympism as “a philosophy of … More Can the Olympics Bring Americans Together?
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)
With the 2016 Summer Olympics just days away, let’s test your knowledge of the religious history of the games: Who banned the ancient Olympics in AD 393, and for what religious reason? What 1935 initiative had the joint support of Reinhold Niebuhr, the first Catholic to be a major party nominee for president, and the … More Religion in The Olympics… And The Olympics as Religion
By all rights, I should be thrilled that Unbroken, the biopic about Olympic athlete-turned-WWII POW Louie Zamperini, is coming to theatres this week. I always celebrate turning in my grades by going to the movies, and this one has been on my radar ever since I read Laura Hillenbrand’s remarkable book about Zamperini during my trip to California earlier … More Unbroken: The Challenge of Biography
Ever since I wrote it in the summer of 2012, one of the “greatest hits” of this blog has been a post asking which countries dominate which Olympic sports. (Clearly the current Olympiad has revived interest: that post made the “Big Ten” for the last month and, as I write this, sits atop the “Top … More Which Country Dominates Which Olympic Sport? (Winter Edition)
The day the 2012 Summer Olympics opened in London, I wrote a post exploring how Olympic records had changed over time. Over the course of a century (from the 1908 London Olympics to 2008 in Beijing), I found that athletes in track and field and swimming had significantly improved performance. While that’s not surprising, it … More Olympic Records Over Time (Winter Edition)
Here • My colleague G.W. Carlson shared his appreciation for Clarence Jordan, subject of an upcoming symposium at which GW will speak (along with some other guys). For more on Jordan’s legacy a century after his birth, read this post by Kirk Lyman-Barner of the Fuller Center for Housing, which will host the symposium. (H/T … More That Was The Week That Was
Okay, one more Olympic post… Last fall I spent a couple of weeks attempting (with a big assist from my HIS354 Modern Europe students, and with tongue mostly in cheek) to determine the “best national anthem” — pointing out at least once or twice along the way that there’s really no objective way to determine … More The Best National Anthems: Special Olympic Edition
