Thomas Kidd is Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University and Associate Director of Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. His books include Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father (Yale University Press, 2017), American Colonial History: Clashing Cultures and Faiths (Yale University Press, 2016), Baptists in America: A History (with Barry Hankins, Oxford University Press, 2015), George Whitefield: America’s Spiritual Founding Father (Yale University Press, 2014), Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots (Basic Books, 2011), God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution (Basic Books, 2010), American Christians and Islam(Princeton University Press, 2008), and The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America (Yale University Press, 2007). He has written for outlets including the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal. Kidd blogs at “Evangelical History,” at The Gospel Coalition website.

Kidd teaches courses on colonial America, the American Revolution, and American religious history. Kidd came to Baylor University in 2002 after completing a Ph.D. in history at the University of Notre Dame, where he worked with the historian of religion George Marsden. He received a B.A. and M.A. at Clemson University. He and his wife Ruby have two sons, Jonathan and Joshua.