Over the weekend I took the long way from Washington, DC to New Haven, CT in order to spend an hour in an 18th century outpost of Pietism in America. In 1741 Moravian emigrants came to the North American colony of Pennsylvania. It had been almost twenty years since Moravian refugees had first settled on the … More Moravian Bethlehem
This spring I’ve had the pleasure of teaching a group of adults who are planning a trip to Germany this fall. We started with a 90-minute tour of the Reformation last week and will conclude next Sunday with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, but for the middle of our three-Sunday course, they were kind enough to let me … More If I Ever Led a Trip to Germany on the History of Pietism…
Today I’m happy to welcome Grace College professor Jared Burkholder back to the blog for a timely guest-post. With shootings in Michigan, Kansas, and Washington this past week, we are again confronted with moral dilemmas about responding to violent threats. In the wake of the mass shooting in San Bernardino back in December and the debate over Falwell’s … More There’s Nothing New about the Moral Dilemmas Raised by Violence… Just ask 18th Century Moravian Missionaries
We’ll have some new guest posts at the end of the week, but little from me while I spend Bethel’s spring break in Virginia with my parents. But it’s been a while since I’ve reposted any “best of” material, so I’ll share one from each year this blog has been published — in part to … More Best of The Pietist Schoolman: Emmaus Education
Two weeks ago, I reported briefly on the panel devoted to A. Greg Roeber’s new book on early modern marriage at the American Society of Church History meeting in DC. During the session, I figured it was only a matter of time until the discussion turned to 18th century Moravians, who fostered an interesting view … More Sects and Sex
A few weeks ago, when Chris crafted some questions for me to answer, he asked me to talk a bit about the Moravians – a Pietist movement that that I happen to study quite a lot. “What might a churchly Pietist like myself learn from the Moravians?” he asked. I thought this was especially interesting … More On Moravians and Other Radical Voices
November 22, the day that marked the passing of that strange threesome of JFK, C.S. Lewis, and Aldous Huxley, is now itself history. Here at Grace College, we marked the occasion with a symphonic concert of 1960s pop music (strange as that may sound) as well as a more academic event for which well-known C.S. … More Would Eighteenth Century Pietists Have Embraced C.S. Lewis?
11/16/12 – I’m afraid I’ll be Europe-bound while this is happening, but readers interested in Pietism who happen to live in New Orleans or will be attending the annual meeting of the American Historical Association (AHA) in January might want to stop by the sensational-sounding session entitled “When Religious Leaders Die.” Organized by the Pietism … More Pietism Studies at AHA
Last Friday Bethel hosted its inaugural Colloquium on Pietism Studies. Yesterday I posted a summary of Scot McKnight’s keynote talk, in which he suggested that evangelicals delve more deeply into the history of Anabaptism and Pietism. This morning: a recap of our post-lunch talk. Later today: recapping our closing session… In his keynote address, Scot … More Pietism Colloquium Recap: Jon Sensbach
Six previews of The Pietist Impulse in Christianity down, two to go… Today we have Dick Pierard, Christoffer Grundmann, and Victor Ezigbo examining the “Pietist impulse” in the history of Christian missions — together providing yet another response to the commonly-held stereotype that Pietists are “too heavenly-minded to be earthly good.” As their narratives overlap … More The Pietist Impulse: Missions
The Pietist Schoolman 