Former Contributors

John Turner (2012-2021) teaches and writes about the history of religion in nineteenth- and twentieth-century America. He teaches in the Department of Religious Studies at George Mason University. His books include They Knew They Were Pilgrims: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty (Yale University Press, 2020) and Brigham Young: Pioneer Prophet (Harvard University Press, 2012). He writes regularly for popular outlets like the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times and tweets @JohnGTurner2020.

Thomas Kidd (2012-2016) is the James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History at Baylor University and distinguished visiting professor of church history at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His many publications include biographies of Benjamin Franklin and Patrick Henry and a forthcoming book on evangelicalism for Yale University Press. He blogs at The Gospel Coalition and tweets @ThomasSKidd.

John Fea (2012-2013) is an American historian at Messiah University in Grantham, Pennsylvania. He is the author of several books, including Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (Eerdmans, 2018) and Was America Founded as a Christian Nation?: A Historical Introduction (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2011). John is also the executive editor of Current, where you can find his long-running personal blog The Way of Improvement Leads Home. Follow him on Twitter @johnfea1.

Miles S. Mullin, II (2013-2015) is Professor of Christian Studies and Religious History at Hannibal-LaGrange University in Hannibal, MO, where he also directs the Honors Program and the Center for Christian Worldview. He’s back on the faculty after spending five years as Vice President for Academic Administration and Dean of the Faculty. You can follow him on Twitter @msmullin.

Christopher Gehrz (2016-2022) teaches modern European, military/diplomatic, religious, and sports history at Bethel University in St. Paul, MN. He is the author or editor of five books, including Charles Lindbergh: A Religious Biography of America’s Most Infamous Aviator (Eerdmans, 2021) and The Pietist Option: Hope for the Renewal of Christianity (IVP Academic, 2017). He blogs at The Pietist Schoolman; you can follow him on Twitter @cgehrz.

Kristin Kobes Du Mez (2016-2022) teaches history and gender studies at Calvin University. She is the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation (Liveright, 2020) and A New Gospel for Women: Katharine Bushnell and the Challenge of Christian Feminism (Oxford University Press, 2015). You can follow her on Twitter @kkdumez.

Tim Gloege (2016) is the author of Guaranteed Pure: The Moody Bible Institute, Business, and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism (Univ. of North Carolina Press, 2017). An independent scholar, he currently works in the History and Special Collections department of the Grand Rapids (MI) Public Library and can be followed on Twitter @timgloege.

Agnes Howard teaches at Christ College, the honors college of Valparaiso University. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. Her writing has appeared in Commonweal, First Things, The Cresset, and other publications.

João B. Chaves, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Evangelism and Mission at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary and Associate Director for Programming at the Hispanic Theological Initiative, housed at Princeton Theological Seminary. João is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and four books, including Migrational Religion: Context and Creativity in the Latinx Diaspora (Baylor University Press, 2021) and The Global Mission of the Jim Crow South (Mercer University Press, 2022). He currently serves as chair of the Latinx Religions session of AAR-SW and co-editor of the Perspectives on Baptist Identities Series—published by Mercer University Press. His next book, co-authored with Mikeal Parsons, is tentatively titled Remember Antônia Teixeira: Missions, Memory, and Violence Across Borders (Eerdmans, forthcoming 2023).

Beth Allison Barr is Associate Dean in the Graduate School and Associate Professor of History at Baylor University and a Resident Scholar at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. Her research focuses on women and religion in medieval England, as well as how the Reformation era affected women in Christianity. She is known to dabble in the history of modern evangelicalism, especially as it relates to women and Baptists. She is the author of The Pastoral Care of Women in Late Medieval England (Boydell, 2008), editor of The Acts of the Apostles: Four Centuries of Baptist Interpretation, and her published articles include chapters in A Companion to Pastoral Care in the Late Middle Ages and The King James Bible and the World It Made along with articles in Fourteenth Century England, The Journal of Religious History, and Church History and Religious Culture. Her current book projects include The Making of Biblical Womanhood, Women in English Sermons 1381-1625, and a Christian history textbook. She earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2004, and has been happily married to a Baptist pastor for more than 20 years.

Nadya Williams holds degrees in Classics from the University of Virginia and Princeton University. Her book Cultural Christians in the Early Church was published with Zondervan Academic in November 2023, and she is currently at work on her next book, Priceless, under contract with IVP Academic. She is Book Review Editor at Current, where she also edits the Arena blog.

David R. Swartz teaches history at Asbury University. He is author of Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012) and writes at the Moral Minority blog. Areas of teaching interest and research include American religious history, twentieth-century American politics, Anabaptism, global religion, and issues of war and peace. He is the founder and faculty sponsor of Plowshares, a Central Kentucky group that promotes peace and reconciliation.

Melissa Borja (PhD, Columbia) teaches in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan, where she is a core faculty member in the Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Program. She researches migration, religion, politics, race, and ethnicity in the United States and the Pacific World, with special attention to how Asian American religious beliefs and practices have developed in the context of pluralism, migration, and the modern American state. Melissa’s forthcoming book, Follow the New Way: Hmong Refugee Resettlement and Practice of American Religious Pluralism, is under contract with Harvard University Press.

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