Making All Things New
This past Sunday morning, worship in the Lutheran church I was visiting opened with a Brazilian hymn. Verse 1 was easy enough: “Oh, sing…
A “Kindler, Gentler Form of Christianity”… with Real Differences
In a conversation full of irenic Christians, no one has approached this project in better faith than our resident Latter-day Saint. Month in and…
Justice and Piety in the Black Church: A Both/And Tradition
When I started my undergraduate studies at the College of William and Mary, there wasn’t anything like a “Pietist” church within walking distance, so…
“Oh, now I understand…”
If Lutheranism is the parent of Pietism, then surely the Wesleyan Tradition is the closest cousin to my own. The most distinctive catalyst for…
Is Pietism Really a Tradition? Is It Evangelicalism? And What of Justice?
Above all else, count me relieved that my unusual approach to the lead essay format seems to have connected with so many of my…
A Week in the Life of a Pietist
In many ways, I represent the most unusual member of this gathering of Christian traditions. So I hope you’ll understand if my version of…
Gift and Task: A Swedish Baptist Pietist Understanding
Let me respond to autobiography with autobiography: it’s the best way I can explain why so much of David Gushee’s essay sounded so familiar,…
Following Jesus is “More Than ‘Jesus and Me’”
I’ll come to my real topic in a moment, but permit me to start with an observation about how our conversation has carried us…
Finding Common Ground
For many Pietists, I’m sure that Anglicanism inspires the same sorts of reservations that I noted in earlier responses to other Christian traditions that…
The Anabaptist-Pietist Dialectic
One of my jobs at Bethel University is to help coordinate and teach Christianity and Western Culture, a one-semester general education course that takes…