A brief update on planning for our colloquium on Pietism at Bethel University, taking place April 20, 2012. In addition to talks by Scot McKnight and Jon Sensbach, we’ll have a roundtable discussion asking whether Pietism provides a “usable past” for churches today. In some ways, this is a reprise of a session at our … More Pietism, Churches, and a “Usable Past”
Recently I concluded a series elaborating on a talk I gave last spring at Bethel University: “In Search of a ‘Usable Past’: Pietism in the Historiography of Christian Colleges and Universities.” If you missed some or all of the series, you can find the entries indexed here, with sample quotations: 1. The Usable Past of … More The Usable Past: An Overview
Today I’m going to wrap up a series of posts on the notion of Christian colleges looking to a “usable past” for guidance as they consider their missions and identities. Thus far, we’ve mostly found that schools founded by denominations originating (at least in part) in Pietism have not found such utility in that tradition. … More The Usable Past: Pietism and Bethel University
Today we continue to consider why, for most historians and leaders of colleges and universities founded by Pietist denominations, Pietism seems not to provide a “usable past,” a living history capable of sustaining a distinctive mission and identity. In the first part of this post, I suggested, first, that this might be a byproduct of … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 2)
In the second (full) post in this briefly interrupted series, I went through the rather lengthy list of American denominations founded by Pietists, and the colleges and universities those churches went on to establish. Having said nothing in two weeks to develop that history (except to provide a few quick facts about those schools in … More The Unusable Past: Pietism and Christian Colleges (part 1)
Today I’m starting a new series that builds on a talk I gave at Bethel last spring. It takes up the thesis that Pietism has a “usable past” capable of distinctively and beneficially shaping Christian higher education. Pages and pages have been written on Catholic, Reformed, Lutheran, Anabaptist, and other Christian traditions and how their … More The Usable Past of Christian Colleges
Did you know? The members of the NHL champion Boston Bruins will have three full months between their Game 7 triumph and the beginning of training camp in which to play golf, go to the beach, and do silly things with the Stanley Cup. (Of course, members of my Minnesota Wild and the league’s thirteen … More My Summer Vacation
The Pietist Schoolman 