This week I got to be a bit more of a Pietist schoolman again, as we considered how a Pietist ethos would shape education at several levels.
Things started with Sam and me talking about Bethel and revisiting some of the key themes of last year’s book on The Pietist Vision for Christian Higher Education: e.g., education as conversion of the whole person; the cultivation of virtues like love, humility, and open-mindedness; and how such learning takes place in relationships and communities. Mark then helped us think through what that “vision” might mean for seminaries, preK-12 schools, and church-based Christian formation.
We even closed with an impromptu discussion of parenting! (That’ll be our next book and podcast series: The Pietist Guide to Childrearing.) You can find it all on iTunes and at Feedburner.
Further reading:
- From the Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education (IVP Academic, 2015), we quoted from or made particular mention of chapters by David Williams, Kathy Nevins, Roger Olson, and Sara Shady & Marion Larson
- If you’re not quite ready to buy that book (only $15.53 on Kindle!), start with the four-part preview I wrote at my blog — sharing the back story of the book, the distinctive way it was written, and the themes of conversion and community
- Two chapters in our 2011 book, The Pietist Impulse in Christianity, focused on education: Shirley A. Mullen, “The ‘Strangely Warmed’ Mind: John Wesley, Piety, and Higher Education”; and Kurt W. Peterson & R. J. Snell, “‘Faith Forms the Intellectual Task’: The Pietist Option in Christian Higher Education”
- Donald Frisk, “Theological perspectives for Christian Education,” unpublished 1963 paper for the Evangelical Covenant Church’s education commission, reprinted in the Spring/Summer 2013 issue of Pietisten
Image credit: Nyvall Hall, the home of North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago – CC BY-SA 3.0 (Túrelio)
