"Pietisten Digital Reunion" Web Project Is Underway
The back issues of Pietisten from 1998 on can be found at www.pietisten.org. I have begun coming to pietisten.org more frequently and I am delighted by what I find. I am amazed at the variety and quality of the articles. People and situations are brought freshly to mind and I am drawn into the conversation. Take a look around.
Pietisten has decided to initiate a project to put the entire Pietisten corpus on-line beginning with the first issue in 1986. This site is like a reunion, reviving a quarter of a century of conversation. We are calling the project the “Pietisten Digital Reunion”. When it is completed, the entire written Pietisten conversation will right here at hand.
The task of making the reunion complete will take time and work. There are more than 40 issues to process from the first in 1986 to 1998. It looks like it will take about 10 hours per issue to prepare them and make them live. At $10/hour, it will cost about $4,000. If you like this idea, you can make a contribution to Pietisten earmarked for the Digital Reunion. Your support will be much appreciated. (You can donate online or mail us a check.)
I recently completed the scanning-editing stage of Summer 1997 for the online corpus. Before getting into it, I did not remember what was in that issue. It has been very satisfying and a lot of fun to go through it again. The issue opens with an account of a Confirmation Celebration and includes a Confirmation sermon by Glen Wiberg and articles on Confirmation by Elder Lindahl, and David Hawkinson. Kathy Frank wrote about Confirmation from a parent’s perspective.
There is also a three-page article: “The Democratic Republic of Congo — Three Views.” Kenneth Saterberg, Covenant Missionary, Eduardo Machado, a student from Angola, Congo’s neighbor to the west, and Robert Thompson of the United Nations peace mission in Angola at the time are the contributors. Our writers opine on the new Democratic Republic of Congo as it came into being in 1997. It was written 14 years ago. I had overlooked the fact that Pietisten is on the cutting edge on the international scene.
Do you remember the series “Walker Percy Musings?” Walker Percy, the Catholic novelist and essayist, deeply influenced many of us. Love in the Ruins, The Last Gentleman, and The Second Coming are three of his six great novels. The Summer 1997 issue has an article—a refreshing musing—by Carl Blomgren of Vashon Island (see “The Brothers Blomgren” by Bob Bach) on Lost in the Cosmos, the book Percy called “The Last Self-help Book.” The issue has many more treasures.
This is a reunion with friends past and present and we hope you come to pietisten.org often.