Our Mission

Baylor ISR exists to initiate, support, and conduct research on religion, involving scholars and projects spanning the intellectual spectrum.

 Featured Scholar

Meet the acclaimed scholars of Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion

Meet Thomas Kidd

James Vardaman Distinguished Professor of History, Baylor University
Co-Director, Program on Historical Studies of Religion

Thomas Kidd is the Associate Director of ISR, and James Vardaman Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University. His books include Who is an Evangelical?: A History of a Movement in Crisis (Yale University Press, 2019); 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.