I am happy to announce a new blog venture at The Gospel Coalition entitled “Evangelical History,” which will be run by Thomas Kidd and me.
You can go over to the new blog and read Dr. Kidd’s introductory post. He writes:
What do we mean by “evangelical history”? Justin and I both have broad interests in the history of evangelical Christianity, and the history of Christianity, so those will be a major focus here. But we’re also interested in a Christian view of all kinds of history: political, military, social, and other topics.
If this new blog intersects with your interests, please consider subscribing to it. I’m excited about the sort of things we’ll be interacting with and presenting in the days ahead.
For those who are wondering, I plan to keep blogging at Between Two Worlds. I am most grateful for all who take the time to read this blog, and I hope it helps you in some small way.
I assume most folks who swing by Between Two Worlds have heard of Thomas Kidd by now, but if not, here’s what you should know: he is distinguished professor of history at Baylor University, is husband and a father of two boys, is a Sunday School teacher and care-group leader in their Baptist church, and is one of the leading historians of religion in the colonial period in America. Over the past ten years, he has managed to produce on average a notable book each year (most of them published by Yale University Press and Oxford University Press), and they all seem to be the best books on their subject. Put this together, and he’s a widely respected scholar producing excellent scholarship that is accessible, all while remaining unashamed of Christ and the gospel.
He is currently working on a religious biography of Benjamin Franklin for Yale University Press, as well as a history of the United States for B&H.
Below are the other books he has published, with a blurb from a scholar. At the end, I’ve posted a video of the two of us sitting down to talk about George Whitefield.
The Protestant Interest: New England after Puritanism (Yale University Press, 2004).
“Sound in its scholarship, cogent in its arguments, and creative in its historical reconstruction, this book is a first-rate contribution to both American religious history and the early history of New England.”
—Mark Noll
The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (Yale University Press, 2007) and The Great Awakening: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford Books, 2007).
“Despite the prodigious attention to the ‘Great Awakening’ in eighteenth-century America, there has been, amazingly, no modern comprehensive account that looks at all regions from Nova Scotia to Georgia. The result is a highly fragmented series of vignettes and biographies with no overarching narrative. That void has now been more than filled by Thomas Kidd’s masterful analysis of the eighteenth-century revivals and the ‘evangelical’ movement they spawned. Thoroughly researched and beautifully written, this book is must reading not only for early American historians, but for anyone concerned to understand the origins of modern evangelicalism.”
—Harry S. Stout
American Christians and Islam: Evangelical Culture and Muslims from the Colonial Period to the Age of Terrorism (Princeton University Press, 2008)
“Before Thomas Kidd’s magisterial work, American Christians and Islam, no scholar had traced the long and convoluted history of Muslim-Christian exchange in the American experience from colonial beginnings to the present. Kidd brings a deep understanding of both traditions to his analysis and brilliantly demonstrates how so many contemporary American denunciations of Islam—especially evangelical denunciations—have a rich history that goes all the way back to the Age of Exploration and the first English settlements.”
—Harry S. Stout
God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2010)
“Balanced without being bland, lucid in the telling, Thomas Kidd’s chronicle corrects the excesses both of those who overstate the degree to which America was founded as a ‘Christian nation’ and of those who seek to minimize the formative role of religion in the new nation’s character.”
—Christianity Today
Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots (Basic Books, 2011)
“Patrick Henry is well known for crying ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ at a crucial moment in the struggle for American independence. This well-researched biography shows that there was a great deal more to this strangely neglected founding father. Thomas Kidd is especially compelling on why Henry’s life-long devotion to liberty could never move him to free his own slaves and why that same devotion led him to oppose the United States Constitution of 1787. The book is accessible history at its best.”
—Mark Noll
George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father (Yale University Press, 2014)
“Thoroughly researched, and rooted in an exact knowledge of Whitefield’s times; critically perceptive while remaining appreciatively sympathetic; this is the best balanced and most illuminating chronicle of the Anglo-American Awakener’s career that has yet been produced.”
—J. I. Packer
Baptists in America: A History, co-authored with Barry Hankins (Oxford University Press, 2015)
“Some books on Baptists in America sprinkle the reader with superficial simplicity, focusing on only one tribe or one aspect of the Baptist experience. Others drown the reader in historical narrative, but with no clear connection as to why non-Baptists ought to care. This book is different. This history offers a full immersion in the Baptist story, in every stream and fork of the Baptist river. This volume connects the Baptist experience to larger trends in American culture, politics, and theology in a way that informs both insiders and outsiders. This book is, without doubt, the definitive work on Baptists in America for this generation.”
—Russell D. Moore
American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History, co-edited with Darren Dochuk and Kurt W. Peterson (Notre Dame University Press, 2015)
American Evangelicalism is a grandly conceived and skillfully executed festschrift in honor of George M. Marsden. The affection and regard for Marsden from his colleagues and former students shine through one essay after another. As a major historian of American evangelicalism whose temporal range spans from the colonial era well into the twenty-first century, Marsden very much deserves this impressive tribute.”
—Leigh Eric Schmidt
American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths (Yale University Press, 2016)
“A readable, balanced overview of colonial American history highlighting religion and conflict. Kidd’s narrative includes fascinating primary documents that allow us to hear early Americans speaking in their own voices.”
—Catherine Brekus
