About

Welcome to The Women of Bethel, a digital history of a Christian university in St. Paul, Minnesota, one that places the institution’s women at the center of its story.

This is a work-in-progress, as Bethel history professor Chris Gehrz continues research that began during his Fall 2024 sabbatical. Initially, The Women of Bethel will consist of a project blog, where Chris will share a variety of posts — updates on research, tidbits from the archives, first drafts of the developing story — and solicit feedback from members of the Bethel community. By the fall of 2025 it will include several narrative essays exploring various aspects of the women’s history of Bethel — e.g., stories of pioneering women who broke institutional glass ceilings, debates over women in ministry at a university connected to an evangelical Baptist denomination, the growth of women’s sports at Bethel — plus a digital timeline, the 2025 revival of the Bethel Women’s History Month Devotional, links to the oral history interviews that Chris conducted June-August 2024, in collaboration with fellow Bethel professor Sam Mulberry and their student Ellie Heebsh.

Cover image: this yearbook photo comes from 1972-1973, the first year Bethel College students studied on the new campus in Arden Hills, Minnesota. The yearbook identifies the two students as Connie Larson (left, a Social Science major from Isle, Minnesota who went on to work as a librarian at Bethel) and Peninah Apela (an English major from Nairobi, Kenya). Image courtesy of the Bethel Digital Library.

More about Bethel University

Bethel University is a Christian university in St. Paul, Minnesota. Founded as a seminary for Swedish Baptist immigrants in 1871 in Chicago, it relocated to St. Paul in 1914, when that seminary merged with a local high school called Bethel Academy. It started a junior college in 1931, which expanded to a four-year program in 1947. Bethel College and Seminary was renamed Bethel University in 2004, after the development of adult, professional, and graduate programs.

Bethel is connected to the Converge denomination, originally known as the (Swedish) Baptist General Conference. In addition to its Baptist and evangelical roots, Bethel is distinctively shaped by the Pietist tradition in Christianity.

More about Chris Gehrz

Chris Gehrz is professor of history and co-chair of the Department of History, Philosophy, and Political Science at Bethel University. A native of Stillwater, MN, Chris studied history at the College of William and Mary (A.B., 1996) and Yale University (PhD, 2002), then returned to the Twin Cities in 2003 to teach at Bethel. He is the author or editor of five books, including The Pietist Vision of Christian Higher Education: Forming Whole and Holy Persons (IVP Academic, 2015) and Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of America’s Most Infamous Pilot (Eerdmans, 2021), and is currently publishing College for Christians, an online college guide for Christian families. Chris writes regularly about Christianity, history, and higher education at his Substack newsletter, The Pietist Schoolman.