![\""Who](\"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/evangelical-sept19.jpg\")
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If you follow politics, you’ve seen plenty of headlines or social media posts in recent months along the lines of “Evangelicals believe [a certain stance on an issue]” or “Evangelicals support [this or that candidate]”.<\/p>\n
And if you follow Dr. Thomas Kidd<\/a> on Twitter<\/a>, you’ve seen him repeatedly call out such posts — in particular, questioning how such stories determine who counts as an evangelical before reaching their conclusions.<\/p>\n Now, Kidd — a Baylor history professor since 2002 — has published his thinking in a new book: Who Is an Evangelical?: The History of a Movement in Crisis<\/a><\/em>. In it, Kidd pulls from his expertise in American religious history<\/a> to look back at the birth and growth of the evangelical movement, in the process illustrating how distorted the word “evangelical” has become when it comes to politics.<\/p>\n “The word ‘evangelical’ itself is a source of confusion: scholars, journalists, and the public can’t seem to decide what it means,” writes Kidd. “The term ‘evangelical’ has become fundamentally political in popular parlance… This book seeks to show how historically peculiar a partisan and ethnic definition of evangelicals is.”<\/p>\n [READ REVIEWS: Christianity Today<\/a> || The Atlantic<\/a> || Patheos<\/a> || For the Church<\/a> || Goodreads<\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n “This book, written by one of the most respected historians of our time, examines evangelicalism with clarity and insight, through the telling of a riveting story,” notes Russell Moore, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s\u00a0Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission. “Reading this book makes me remember why I loved the word \u2018evangelical\u2019 in the first place, and why I think our movement is worth saving.”<\/p>\n Who is an Evangelical?<\/em> is the 10th book written and\/or edited by Kidd.\u00a0Two years ago, his spiritual biography of Benjamin Franklin<\/a> was named one of the year’s top 10 religion and spirituality books<\/a> by the American Library Association. Two of his other books — The Great Awakening: The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America<\/a>, and <\/em>God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution<\/a><\/em> — were named among the best books of the year by Christianity Today<\/em> in 2008 and 2011, respectively.<\/p>\n Sic \u2019em, Dr. Kidd!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you follow politics, you’ve seen plenty of headlines or social media posts in recent months along the lines of “Evangelicals believe [a certain stance on an issue]” or “Evangelicals support [this or that candidate]”. And if you follow Dr. Thomas Kidd on Twitter, you’ve seen him repeatedly call out such posts — in particular, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academics","category-faith","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22063\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www2.baylor.edu\/baylorproud\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}