Category World War I
What Bethel Students in 2014 Thought about Bethel in 1914
On Monday we’ll be flying to London to begin our three-week travel course on the history of World War I. So don’t expect much from me here at this blog. (Not that I’ve exactly been prolific of late!) But before we go, I thought I’d share some thoughts from the students on our trip: As a pre-trip assignment, I […]
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 […]
Christians at War: Retrospect and Prospect
It’s been a busy fall, too busy to permit for much Bethel at War blogging past sharing my reminiscences of 9/11/01 on 9/11/14. But as the Bethel of 2014 settles down for a few weeks, I’m ready to get back to the Bethel of 1917-18 and 1941-45. (Fletcher, meanwhile, is spending the term in Oxford. If he spends more […]
Bethel Goes “Over There”
This morning let me leave Bethel’s past for a moment and look to a small part of Bethel’s future, as it connects to one of the wars we’re studying… This coming January, my colleague Sam Mulberry and I will take a group of Bethel students to Europe for a three-week course on the history of World […]
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 […]
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 […]
“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 […]
When Bethel Had a Sibling
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 […]
Christians at War: A Pacifist Turn?
During and after the First World War, Bethel Academy principal A.J. Wingblade made a concerted effort to keep a full list of all those associated with Bethel who had served as soldiers, sailors, or nurses during the war. As many as could be reached were invited back to campus for a special reception on December 1919, where they […]
Bethel at War 1914 - 2014 