Category Beyond Bethel
Following Up: “It Might Lead to Drinking”
There’s a hoary old joke about Baptists: “Why are they opposed to pre-marital sex? It might lead to dancing.” Reading issues of their denominational magazine from the first half of 1942, I can’t help but wonder if people at the time told a different version of the joke about the people of the Swedish Baptist […]
Following Up: A Veterans Day Story on the G.I. Bill
Today’s Veterans Day edition of the Minneapolis StarTribune features a story on the 70th anniversary of the G.I. Bill, including some comments from me on that legislation’s impact on Bethel College and Seminary in the years after World War II. Reporter Kevyn Burger contacted me after coming across this blog — specifically, my late June post on […]
Following Up: Bethel’s First War Casualty
In my one of my first posts for this blog, I briefly shared the story of August L. Sundvall (A ’09), the Marine lieutenant who was killed on the Western Front on April 20, 1918 — making him the first former student from Bethel to die in our century of warfare. In honor of today’s incredibly well-timed football game between Bethel […]
The War on Terror: My Experience
Over the summer Fletcher invited Bethel alumni, faculty, and staff to share their memories of the War on Terror by completing a questionnaire. I want to join him in thanking those of you who have taken the time to write us. But I also want to step out of my usual role in this project and add […]
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 […]
‘Accounting’ for Shoddiness: Professionalization at Bethel
While crunching through the Clarion, I came across an interesting article from February 17, 1965: “School Employs CPA to Upgrade Accounting.” The article was occasioned by the hiring of one Ken White, CPA for Bethel’s accounting and financial affairs division. Except, calling it the “accounting and financial affairs division” is probably somewhat too generous. While the […]
Christian Service Brigade
I’ve noted in a previous post how the Baptist General Conference retreated from debating the Vietnam War in 1968, a quiescence which would persist to the end. Part of that retreat included what I termed an “invasion of the domestic.” Here’s how I described that shift as it related to the chaplaincy: Whereas in previous years […]
“A Greater Problem for Us”: War and Temperance
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 […]
Christians at War: A Peace Witness
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 […]
Bethel at War 1914 - 2014 