Author Archives: Chris Gehrz
Photographing Minnesota at War, 1941-1945
From 1935 to 1945, photographers like Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and Ben Shahn were hired by the federal government to travel the United States, capturing images of Americans at work, play, rest, and worship. The project began as an effort to build public support for portions of the New Deal aimed at helping poor farmers, but the photographers […]
A Rivalry Renewed? Bethel and the University of Chicago
We’ve noted a few times here that 2014 is the 100th anniversary of the two events whose intersection gives this project a point of departure: In 1914 the modern age of warfare began with the onset of World War I; also that year, what’s now Bethel University made its permanent home in St. Paul, Minnesota when the Swedish Baptist Theological […]
Letters To (and From) Bethel: Chaplains as “Spiritual Pillars”
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from the letters sent back to Bethel during World War II by former students and members of its denomination who were serving in the military, it’s this: complaining about one’s pastor is as common in war as in peace. I did attend both Protestant chapel services, and my first impression was […]
Letters To (and From) Bethel: “Praise God for beauty in nature!”
Even a cursory glance at the letters, diaries, and memoirs of the American combat soldiers [in World War II] reveals that their view of the Old World focused first and foremost on the natural surroundings…. the GIs had a love-hate relationship with nature. That’s the somewhat surprising start to the body of Peter Schrijvers’ illuminating […]
Letters To (and From) Bethel: The Crash of Ruin
Several months after World War II ended in Europe, a U.S. Army chaplain named Carl Bergstrom returned to that continent aboard a hospital ship bound for the southern Italian city of Naples. Invited to the bridge by the ship’s captain, Maj. Bergstrom looked through borrowed binoculars to take in “the mighty Vesuvius spewing out its smoke toward the […]
Letters To (and From) Bethel: A Baptist Conscientious Objector
From late 1943 through the end of World War II, junior college dean Emery Johnson and other Bethel staff regularly wrote letters of greeting and encouragement to former Bethel students and the sons and daughters of Swedish Baptist General Conference churches serving in the military. Dozens wrote back, most to request copies of the denominational magazine, […]
Two Walfreds
One of the more popular posts at this blog was Fletcher’s commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the assassinations of Austrian crown prince Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie: the sparks that lit the fuse that set off World War I. He called it “Two Shots.” In hopes of similar popularity, but mostly out of a […]
Tweeting a Visit to the Archives
As our #bethelatwar work continues, I'm up in the archives of @BethelU and @convergeww. http://t.co/fBvIpykQQo — Chris Gehrz (@cgehrz) August 5, 2014 As the summer continues, I’ve become increasingly interested in integrating social media into our digital history project, as a way of breaking down some of the barriers traditionally separating scholar and audience. Not just to share […]
Christians at War: The “Moral Welfare” of Soldiers
When I began this series, I suggested that there is an inherent tension in followers of Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, going to war. Whether resolved by the pacifist’s refusal to take up “the sword,” the just warrior’s willingness to engage in deadly violence under certain strict criteria, the crusader’s belief that God sometimes ordains killing, or some other stance, […]
World War I at 100
One hundred years ago today Britain declared war on Germany, starting the First World War. If this is your first time at Bethel at War, you might mark the occasion by reading a bit of what I’ve written about the impact of WWI on what was then Bethel Academy and Seminary, such as my recent post on the temperance movement […]
Bethel at War 1914 - 2014 