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 […]
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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
It took over two months for Our Youth, the youth ministry periodical of the Swedish Baptist General Conference (it dropped the first adjective in 1945, so I’ll generally stick with BGC as the acronym for this blog), to acknowledge that a second World War had begun in Europe. And when that notice finally came in mid-November 1939, it took a […]
Please make use of the social media buttons below to share this post as widely as possible. Clicking here will allow you to share this post via email. At the beginning of the month, I put out a call for participation from alumni, faculty, and staff who were at Bethel during the War on Terror. Today, I’d […]
The ease with which Bethel and its denomination embraced the war effort from 1941-1945 suggests that any interwar dalliance with pacifism had shallow roots. That comes into starker relief when you look at the history of an actual “peace church” and its colleges. Writing a history of Mennonite education in 1925, John Ellsworth Hartzler (president of the […]
In 1910 just over 350,000 Americans (not quite 3% of the total population) were enrolled in a total of 951 institutions of higher learning; by 1920, enrollment neared 600,000 (almost 5% of population) and there were over a thousand colleges, universities, law schools, business schools, medical and dental schools, normal schools, seminaries, and other such […]
This is part four of a five part series. If you haven’t yet done so, you may find it helpful to read parts one, two, and three of this series for context. Today, we’ll look at the years 1968-69 in the Baptist General Conference. Those two years saw sustained, often violent protest in America’s campuses and cities – and […]
In contrast to the pacifist resolutions of the Swedish Baptist Conference in the interwar period, [Bethel] junior college fostered an extremely supportive attitude toward American political institutions and foreign policy. This included an intense identification with the value of democratic institutions; an emphasis on supporting a society at war; and an exploration of ways to […]
Bethel at War 1914 - 2014 