On Monday Christians around the world heard again Luke’s story of the Nativity. But after lingering in some detail on the first day of Jesus’ life, that evangelist moves rapidly through the next couple decades. In the same chapter that begins with Jesus’ birth, Luke skips ahead to age 12, then summarizes Jesus’ adolescence and … More Why Every Biography Is Incomplete
Here… • My favorite movie of the year is a documentary on teaching by one of my best friends. • Latest evidence that it’s hard to define “evangelical,” the wide range of evangelical responses to a wedding sermon. • The best version of the “Pietist option” is probably a multiethnic church. …There and Everywhere • … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • I daydreamed about leading a summer tour of Pietism sites in Germany. • I recommended a new blog on technology and theology, Digital Wisdom. …There and Everywhere • When you write about Beth Moore and the importance of women to the future of evangelicalism, you apparently get thousands of readers. • Maybe the people … More That Was The Week That Was
Here… • Five of my Bethel colleagues joined dozens of other Christian theologians to issue a modern-day version of the Barmen Declaration. Dean Pamela Lightsey and Dr @ccollinswinn draft the #BostonDeclaration at Boston University School of Theology #aarsbl17 pic.twitter.com/ZdnNuujexD — Peter Heltzel (@PeterHeltzel) November 18, 2017 • How prayer sustained two of the most famous … More That Was The Week That Was
I promise I’ll get back to blogging about other topics soon, but this is book release week, so I hope you’ll indulge one more Pietist Option post… We turned in the first draft of the manuscript about eleven months ago, and Mark and I (plus various people at InterVarsity Press) have read it many times since. But … More Early Reader Reviews of The Pietist Option
While I’ve skimmed through Charles Lindbergh’s most famous memoir, I’m actually intimidated to read The Spirit of St. Louis. A popular and critical hit, SoSL won the 1954 Pulitzer Prize for its inventive, gripping narrative. Any would-be biographer needs to live up to the high standard set by Lindbergh himself (with considerable editing assistance from his wife, Anne). … More The Spiritual Spirit of St. Louis
If your image of Christian higher education is a Donald Trump commencement address or a scandal-plagued football team, let me share a sample day in my life as a professor at Bethel University. Yesterday was atypical in a sense (no classes, since it was the study day that breaks up our final exam week), but it still provided … More A Day in the Life of a Christian College Professor
A big moment in my career happened last Friday around lunchtime, when I sent this document to our editor at InterVarsity Press: Yes, this is the manuscript for the book that Mark Pattie and I have been writing all year. There’s still a lot of work left to do before it comes out (maybe next fall?), but … More What Comes Next? (On Reaching Mid-Career in Higher Education)
Back in my very first post, I looked forward to using this blog to engage in “intellectual spring cleaning… to clear out some stray thoughts taking up mental space, expose them to the harsh light of day, and see if they look as profound on screen as they can sound in my mind at 1am.” I’ve learned not … More Blogging’s Impossible… Here’s How I’ll Try to Do It
Aside from sharing a new, hopeful episode of The Pietist Schoolman Podcast, this week I left blogging to others: • One reason this blog was on hiatus was that I was trying to write a eulogy for G.W. Carlson. I’ll be delivering it this Sunday afternoon, at a kind of service that Carl Truman really wishes we wouldn’t call a … More That Was The Week That Was
