Opinion

From one sinker to another: just keep  failing. Maybe one day you’ll be a professional ping-ponger in New York. By Jamie Hudalla The warehouse in St. Louis Park looks like it might hang pig carcasses up on hooks or collect the ghosts of flour mill workers from 1890. My hands shake as I sit in the parking lot, but that has less to do with the warehouse and more to do with my job interview. I study who I am as I wait an hour and a half in the parking lot. What are your strengths, Jamie? Well, not driving. How do you deal with conflict? I’ve taken a reconciliation class, so, pretty well. What are your career goals? Fiction writing. Pray for me. I crack a window because I forgot to wear deodorant and it’s a balmy 40 degrees. At 1:55 p.m. I walk in the door of the… Keep Reading

Vinding is an English professor and Director of Writing at Bethel. By April Vinding Scared. It seems we’re mostly scared. Afraid to speak in class. Afraid there’s no job waiting. Afraid being at a small Christian school undermines our credibility as scholars. Afraid we’ll lose the jobs we have. Afraid we’ll never find love. Afraid the love we have is as good as it gets. Afraid to disappoint our parents. Afraid we haven’t given our children enough. Afraid of being unknown. Afraid of being known. And those fears are valid. I haven’t published for two years because the judgement I received when I divorced, from intimate friends and the church, destroyed my belief in the goodwill of strangers. I’ve stopped bringing treats to classes because students stopped saying thanks. I’ve stopped asking acquaintances to plays or yoga because half don’t even respond to the invitation. I’ve stopped asking some of… Keep Reading

Biology professor Joy Doan fused her love for science and God by coming to Bethel. By Joy Doan Fifteen years ago, I was a disillusioned academic living in Denver, Colorado. I was coming off a dozen years of traveling what the world told me were and always would be parallel roads. The first road included intensely secular doctoral and post-doctoral training in Immunology. The second and more important road concerned my faith in Christ.  I felt called to the former. The latter was deep in my bones. I had no idea how to bring them together, if it was even possible to bring them together. I had the beginnings of a plan to leave academia for full-time ministry. Then, I had an idea. Some might say a nudge from the Holy Spirit. I asked the internet how to find an open faculty position in Biology at a Christian college. Bethel… Keep Reading

Political science chair Chris Moore sees importance in the little words at Bethel. By Chris Moore If we ask ourselves what Bethel University has been about or what it should be about, we’re inclined to pay attention to the big words.  We look for those big nouns to define our goals. I’m attracted to words like “endowment” or “facility.” We zoom in on words like “opportunity,” “award,” “championship,” and “employment.”  If we can somehow make our way past the nouns, we’ll soon arrive at the verbs. Verbs motivate us, after all. So, we “strive” and “commit.” We “seek” and “build” and “reconcile.” We “study” and “practice” and “prepare.”  Then come the adjectives: “excellent” and “driven” and even “whole and holy.” Those are good things, too, but I’m not convinced they make us all that much different from the other colleges and universities down Snelling Avenue.  What I hope makes us… Keep Reading

Go tell it on the mountain: sex shouldn’t be a whispered word. Keep Reading

God shows up in more places than church pews. By Jamie Hudalla  Jonathan from Stranger Things stood maybe three inches taller than me. When he isn’t slaying Demogorgons, he drums at a hole-in-the-wall venue in London. The place felt like First Avenue, like a pocket of home after traveling for three months. I’m not a mystic, but the night’s events seemed ordained. Well, not meeting Jonathan. A few of us on England Term had stalked the crap out of his social media, found a tweet about his location, hopped on the Tube, and elbowed a mellow crowd to see him play the last five seconds of a song. But we were nestled in one of London’s unknown crevices, listening to the sleepy tones of indie-rocker Julia Jacklin, wearing jean jackets to blend in with the Brits. It felt right. Erik Leafblad, a theology professor and avid concert-goer, would refer to… Keep Reading

By Josh Towner From August 19, 2017 to July 29, 2018, I spent less than 50 days away from Bethel. For that dubiously long stretch of 345 days, I was never away from campus for more than two and a half weeks at a time. To put it lightly, I was tired of Bethel. I had eaten enough Sodexo taqueria and drank enough Royal Grounds dark roast to last me a lifetime. I saw enough people who claim to be good Christians leave their bags at an empty booth in the Grill while they ate dinner in the DC to make me consider never coming back to Bethel. That’s part of why instead of attending Bethel for the fall semester, I’m in New York City in a study abroad program. When I moved to New York, I immediately felt a change in energy. The city moves fast – it doesn’t… Keep Reading