Congratulations, Dr. Ruben Rivera!

In late November of 2007 Bethel history professor Ruben Rivera successfully defended his Ph.D. dissertation at Boston University in Massachusetts. Ruben presented a fresh history and interpretation of Mexican-born Alberto Rembao (1895-1962) and Latin American Protestantism in the first half of the 20th century. He argued that while the ideals of internationalism, pacifism, and renewed social concern in the period between the two world wars became central to mainline Protestant churches, mission agencies and other organizations around the world, those ideals have never been explored for understanding Rembao and his generation.

This research is significant because until now most scholarship has looked at the Rembao generation in a fairly negative light, as a phase of liberal Protestantism that acquiesced to North American missionary leadership and its alleged focus on reaching Latin America's elite, and (by the 1930s and 40s) is said to have passed into history for failing to develop an independent Latin identity and producing little that was relevant to the masses like Liberation Theology later claimed to be. Ruben was able to show that these interpretations are historically inaccurate and often reflect the contextual/ideological bias of later generations of authors. Instead, Alberto Rembao and his like-minded internationalist Protestant colleagues, far from passing into historical irrelevance, helped to lay the foundations for the current generation of holistically-minded Hispanic evangelicals.

History Profs and Podcasting

Our faculty continue to experiment with podcasts as a teaching tool. You can read descriptions of our two current podcasts, and then scroll down to find out how to subscribe through Bethel's iTunes U page (available to anyone with a Bethel community account):

CWC: The Radio Show

For the second year, History faculty Sam Mulberry and Chris Gehrz (with Political Science professor Stacey Hunter Hecht in the fall and Philosophy chair Sara Shady in the spring) are producing a weekly podcast for GES130 Christianity and Western Culture (CWC). Episodes come out every Tuesday afternoon and typically feature commentary on news and pop culture, a "Patron Saint of the Week," a quiz for CWC students, and an interview with a special guest on an issue related to the week in CWC. During the fall "season" of the podcast, we interviewed not only Bethel faculty but pastors and lay leaders from several distinctive local churches, including leaders of Abbey Way Covenant Church, Pastor Efrem Smith of Sanctuary Covenant Church, and Dr. Greg Boyd of Woodland Hills Church.

Radio Modern Europe

Also this past fall, Dr. Gehrz produced a series of ten podcasts for HIS354 Modern Europe, an upper-division survey of European history from 1750 to the present. Each seventy-minute episode replaced one class lecture and was accompanied by a PowerPoint companion, textbook and primary source readings, and a quiz. Episodes of "Radio Modern Europe" were modeled (roughly) on NPR's All Things Considered and included "news updates," in-depth discussion of key themes and events, interviews with Bethel faculty experts and the occasional historical figure (brought to life by the, um, magic of podcasting), spotlights on books, films, plays, and local museums, period music, and much more.

To Get Podcast Episodes...

If you have a Bethel community account, you can access both podcasts through iTunes U, a service provided to colleges and universities by Apple that Bethel recently joined.

1. Go to the Bethel ITS page for iTunes U (use Explorer or Safari) and click on the Bethel community members access link.
2. Enter your username and password.
   
3. Bethel's iTunes U page will open with the iTunes application. If you don't have iTunes, you can download it from the ITS page where we started.
4. On the iTunes U page under "Courses," click on "Division of General Studies and Academic Services" for the CWC podcast, or "Division of Arts and Humanities" for the Modern Europe podcast.
5. You can either download individual episodes (press the "Get" button next to the episode you want) or subscribe (every time you open iTunes, it will check to see if there's a new podcast and automatically download it for you).