Thomas Kidd

Thomas S. Kidd is Research Professor of Church History at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and holds the John and Sharon Yeats Endowed Chair of Baptist Studies. He earned his Ph.D. in history at the University of Notre Dame and completed his B.A. and M.A. at Clemson University. He has taught at Baylor University, where he served as the James Vardaman Endowed Professor of History and Associate Director of the Institute for Studies of Religion.

A prolific historian, Kidd has authored numerous books, including Thomas Jefferson: A Biography of Spirit and Flesh (2022), Who Is an Evangelical? (2019), and Benjamin Franklin: The Religious Life of a Founding Father (2017), among others. His writing has appeared in outlets such as the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, and he blogs for The Gospel Coalition. His work explores the intersection of faith, politics, and culture in America’s founding era. At Midwestern, he teaches courses on colonial America, the American Revolution, and American religious history. He and his wife, Ruby, have two sons, Jonathan and Joshua.