Over the last three weeks, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with undergraduates about what it is that Christian historians do — and how, if at all, it’s different from what non-Christian historians do. • To help my Intro to History students prepare to write a preliminary statement of what they think it means to “think … More Back to Basics: What It Is Christian Historians Do
Our penultimate episode in season 1 of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast features Dan Hanson offering a Lutheran (and a student’s) perspective on higher education. About to start his final year at Luther Seminary, Dan reflects on the difference between a “college of the church” and a Christian college, explains why vocation and “faithful criticism” are central to Lutheran higher education, and … More Thursday’s Podcast: A Lutheran Perspective
Last Tuesday night I had the privilege of moderating my congregation‘s annual meeting for the sixth time — and the last for the foreseeable future. In 2009 I was elected chairperson of our church; after having been reelected three years later, I’ve now reached my constitutional limit of two terms and so happily gave way to a new chair. … More College Professors as Church Leaders
5/13/15 – We’ve saved one of the best episodes of Past & Presence for last. Not only do we take a road trip to Duluth, MN — with a stop at a former fur trading post and a discussion of one of the worst disasters in Minnesota history along the way — but we close with one of … More Past and Presence: Careers and Vocation
Baseball is my favorite sport. Field of Dreams is my favorite movie about my favorite sport. Well, not really — it’s Bull Durham. But I like Kevin Costner’s second-best baseball movie well enough that I was all cued up to enjoy Jeffrey Huston’s recent On Faith post arguing that Field of Dreams — a quarter-century old this year — “is nothing short of … More Does Passion Distract from Calling?
Here… • Are American Christians entering a time of exile? (Are Christians ever not living in exile?) How can history guide us? • Getting excited about stumbling across a term paper on Pietism by a college-aged John Howard Yoder is about the nerdiest thing I’ve done this year… …There and Everywhere • If you’ve been following … More That Was The Week That Was
Yesterday our department met with some of our web services and marketing folks to talk about planned updates to our website and the materials we give to prospective students. I was glad to hear that a key theme of the update will be sharing stories of what our alumni have done with their history degrees. While … More Majoring in History, Thriving in Business
From January… Another metaphor for education, this one occurring to me in the midst of teaching my course on the international history of World War II. In its final episode, “A World Without War,” Ken Burns’ The War arrives at the Allied liberation of concentration camps in the Third Reich. This chapter is introduced by an … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: The Purpose of the Liberal Arts is Purpose
Here… • From France (soft power of, as developed through funding of language immersion schools)… • …to Germany (stereotypes in, as rooted in Pietist frugality)… • …to the Ukraine (starvation of, by Stalin and Hitler), The Pietist Schoolman is your source for all things European! • Then, for variety’s sake, some advice for Christian parents looking to … More That Was The Week That Was
One more attempt to explain the inexplicable value of the liberal arts, and especially of the humanities, through metaphor. This one came to me last Tuesday and Wednesday, as I taught my World War II students about the end of the war in Europe. Like all such metaphors, it’s meant for musing. I almost hope … More The Purpose of the Liberal Arts is Purpose
