Three Years on Substack

And welcome to a bunch of new subscribers!

I have a good memory for many things — historical events, driving directions, baseball statistics — but I tend to be pretty awful at remembering birthdays. At this point, those reminders are the main thing keeping me on Facebook.

So I felt great a few days ago when I remembered a relative’s birthday in time to send flowers… but in the process I totally missed another birthday: that of this Substack!

I actually soft-launched on Independence Day 2022, when I knew that hardly anyone would be checking their email. So I usually view July 5th as the date when I started sharing more typical posts — at least, as typical as any post can be for a sometimes eclectic publication that covered everything from Holocaust commemoration to “early college” options in its first ten days and everything from artificial intelligence to the rise of a “dual state” in its most recent ten days.

More than 600 posts later, this version of The Pietist Schoolman is still going strong. Indeed, I’ve picked up lots of new subscribers in the last three days!¹

So I thought I’d use the occasion of my belated Substack birthday both to review some highlights from the past three years and, in the process, to give our newer subscribers a better sense of what to expect here.

Weekday Posts

My usual blogging routine on Substack has been to write regular weekday posts on Tuesdays and Thursdays, typically reflecting on one of my three core topics — Christianity, history, education — or a place where they intersect with each other. In recent months, I’ve occasionally written about politics; I try not to overdo it, nor to advocate particular policy issues, but I am worried about the future of American democracy under the current administration, and sometimes need to say as much out loud.

My guess is that most readers are more drawn to one topic than the others. But whatever I’m writing about, know that my goal is always to “think in public” as thoughtfully as possible.

Sample Weekday Posts

• “Listening for Justice, Beauty, and Other Echoes of God’s Voice” (May 11, 2023)

• “Standing Up for Women in the Church” (June 14, 2023)

• “Deeper Waters: The Anabaptist Tradition” (April 9, 2024)

• “Why Should Christians Value Democracy?” (July 11, 2024)

• “Salt and Light” (March 27, 2025)

College for Christians

Most weeks since last October, I’ve been using one of my weekday posts to add another chapter to my latest book, a college guide for Christian high schools and their families called (not so creatively) College for Christians. After my proposal didn’t get a bite from several publishers, I decided to use the project as an experiment in online, serial publication.

Free subscribers have been able to read each chapter as it’s come out. But as with other posts here, they go behind a paywall just under a month after publication. College for Christians will wrap up next week, so by the start of the fall semester, you’ll need a paid subscription to access the full book, like the rest of my archive.²

Sample College for Christians Chapters

• “Why Should I Go to College?” (Nov. 4, 2024)

• “Is College Worth It?” (Dec. 10, 2024)

• “How Can College Help Me to Discern My Calling?” (Apr. 9, 2025)

Photo by Richard Burlton on Unsplash

That Was The Week That Was

Tomorrow, like every Saturday, you’ll get a post by this title — what I’ve long called my weekly curations of articles and posts that I’ve been reading on other publications.³

Sunday Devotions

Almost every Sunday, I start the day by writing a shorter, more theological post reflecting on some passage(s) from the Old and/or New Testament. I typically use one of the readings scheduled in the Revised Common Lectionary. But occasionally I’ll have something more topical to share, or I’ll decide to explore parts of the Bible that are left out of the lectionary.

Sample Devotionals

• “Out-Heroding Herod” (Jan. 1, 2023)

• “Life Wins” (March 31, 2024)

• “Good Work” (Sept. 1, 2024)

• “The Women at the Tomb” (April 20, 2025)

However long or short a time you’ve been reading The Pietist Schoolman, thanks for your support!

Chris Gehrz

1. I think some of the newer arrivals saw my newsletter highlighted somewhere on the Substack home page. But most of my subscribers have come via recommendations from other Christian writers on Substack like Scot McKnight, Kristin Du Mez, Beth Allison Barr, and O. Alan Noble. So if you’re new here, please help me return the favor by clicking on my own list of Substack recommendations (bottom-right corner of the home page).

2. Stay tuned for next week’s conclusion to College for Christians, when I plan to offer a temporary discount on paid subscriptions to celebrate the end of the book.

3. The Pietist Schoolman started as a WordPress blog in 2011.