Category World War II
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Bethel at War 1914 - 2014 