Tag Archives: Patriotism
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 […]
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 […]
A College’s Denomination: The BGC and the Vietnam War, 1970-1975 (Conclusion)
This is the last of a five part series on the Baptist General Conference during the Vietnam War era. You may find it helpful to begin reading from the beginning. ❧ Writing this post feels a bit like an unnecessary repetition. The themes covered in the previous installment continue, unaltered in content and purpose: the military […]
A College’s Denomination: The BGC and the Vietnam War, 1968-1969 (Part 4)
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 […]
“The Kid in Upper 4”: Further Thoughts on Bethel Fundraising during WWII
Earlier this month I noted how “as the [Second World] war went on, ‘Loyalty’ began to be used in Bethel publications in such a way that loyalty to country and loyalty to God were put in service of loyalty to Bethel, and its desire for better facilities.” Starting in late 1942, the prewar practice of designating February […]
A College’s Denomination: The BGC and the Vietnam War, 1964-1967 (Part 3)
We are convinced that war destroys all Christian values, including the destruction of human lives, rights and properties; that the possibility of plunging the human race into an unimaginable holocaust of death and destruction through nuclear warfare is ever upon us… — Proposed resolution on War and Peace, 1966 BGC Annual Conference ❧ In this […]
A College’s Denomination: An Exercise in Contrasts (Part 2)
Several weeks ago, I teased a series I planned to write on the Baptist General Conference during the Vietnam years. On Wednesday, I introduced that series. Today’s post was intended as the first of the three parts, but after a few hours of work on that post, I realised that there were too many background problems to […]
A College’s Denomination: The BGC and the Vietnam War – Introduction (Part 1)
These past weeks have seen me move increasingly from secondary literature into primary sources. In particular, I’ve been paging steadily through the Standard, the official organ of the Baptist General Conference – then Bethel College’s sponsoring denomination – which ran from 1940 to 2002. That year the magazine became BGC World and in 2008 when the denomination changed its name to Converge […]
The Professoriate Turns: Evangelical Antiwar Dissent at Calvin College
A few weeks ago I looked broadly at the Evangelical left and Vietnam, focusing particularly on Jim Wallis and the Post Americans. Of course, not all evangelicals who ended up opposing the war would have described themselves as leftists, nor would they have been comfortable with the extent to which the Post Americans critiqued American […]
“Are You Loyal?”: Bethel as an Immigrant School in 1917-18
Because of their widespread pro-German sentiments at the beginning of the European conflict and outspoken support for American neutrality, up to April 1917, the Swedes and other Scandinavians in the United States faced a highly uncomfortable situation, causing many to overreact—or to keep quiet. – H. Arnold Barton, A Folk Divided, p. 248 Both responses — overreact […]
Bethel at War 1914 - 2014 