AMERICAN EVANGELICALS blends storytelling and free-flowing conversation to explore the varieties, similarities, and significance of evangelical Christians in American history.
Spanning the religious revivals of the 18th century to the cultural and political conflicts of the 21st, each episode is a conversation based on the historical research of its hosts, the deep scholarship on American evangelicals, and the lives of real figures who shaped the movement.
Hosted by three historians of American evangelicalism, discover how evangelicals have shaped and been shaped by the challenges of not just theology and belief, but by the same forces that have contributed to American society, from immigration to war, race, and economics.
This podcast is a partnership with the Lumen Center and STUDIO, both initiatives of the SL Brown Foundation.
Spanning the religious revivals of the 18th century to the cultural and political conflicts of the 21st, each episode is a conversation based on the historical research of its hosts, the deep scholarship on American evangelicals, and the lives of real figures who shaped the movement.
Hosted by three historians of American evangelicalism, discover how evangelicals have shaped and been shaped by the challenges of not just theology and belief, but by the same forces that have contributed to American society, from immigration to war, race, and economics.
This podcast is a partnership with the Lumen Center and STUDIO, both initiatives of the SL Brown Foundation.
Trailer for American Evangelicals - A History Podcast
April 16, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Defining the Movement: Conversion and the Colonial Revival
The series opens in the 18th century with George Whitfield and the transatlantic revivals that gave birth to evangelical identity in America. Through Whitfield's extraordinary career — crossing the Atlantic, preaching to massive open-air crowds, creating a new kind of religious celebrity — John Fea introduces conversion as the first and defining pillar of the evangelical tradition.
Episode 1 - Releases April 30, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Higher Life: Sanctification, Scandal, and the Keswick Movement
In the 19th century, Americans Hannah and Robert Pearsall Smith became unlikely spiritual celebrities in Britain through the Keswick holiness movement. Dan Hummel uses their story to explore what evangelical spirituality looks like from the inside — the pursuit of holiness, the role of women as spiritual teachers, and what happens when public faith collides with private scandal.
Episode 2 - Releases May 7, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Battle Royale: Fundamentalism and the Limits of Fellowship
The early 20th century saw evangelical identity tested by the rise of fundamentalism. Maggie Capra tells the story of Donald Grey Barnhouse and Carl McIntire — two men who agreed on almost everything theologically and couldn't stand each other — to examine how doctrinal militancy and separatism became defining features of one powerful strand of evangelical culture.
Episode 3 - Releases May 14, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
What Is an American Evangelical? Historians and Theologians in Conversation
Pulling back from narrative, this episode puts the three historians in direct conversation with theologians Vincent Bacote (Wheaton College) and Cory Marsh to interrogate the Bebbington Quadrilateral. What does the framework get right? What does it miss? And can a definition built by historians serve the needs of theologians — and vice versa?
Episode 4 - Releases May 21, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Race, Belonging, and the Voices History Forgets
J.M. Humphrey was a Black holiness minister whose entire preaching career centered on a minority evangelical position about divorce and remarriage. His racial identity appears nowhere in his published materials — it surfaces only in a letter written after his death by a white admirer whose words combine genuine affection with casual racism. Maggie Capra uses Humphrey's story to ask whose voices get recorded in history, and what we lose when they don't.
Episode 5 - Releases May 28, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
April 16, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Defining the Movement: Conversion and the Colonial Revival
The series opens in the 18th century with George Whitfield and the transatlantic revivals that gave birth to evangelical identity in America. Through Whitfield's extraordinary career — crossing the Atlantic, preaching to massive open-air crowds, creating a new kind of religious celebrity — John Fea introduces conversion as the first and defining pillar of the evangelical tradition.
Episode 1 - Releases April 30, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Higher Life: Sanctification, Scandal, and the Keswick Movement
In the 19th century, Americans Hannah and Robert Pearsall Smith became unlikely spiritual celebrities in Britain through the Keswick holiness movement. Dan Hummel uses their story to explore what evangelical spirituality looks like from the inside — the pursuit of holiness, the role of women as spiritual teachers, and what happens when public faith collides with private scandal.
Episode 2 - Releases May 7, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Battle Royale: Fundamentalism and the Limits of Fellowship
The early 20th century saw evangelical identity tested by the rise of fundamentalism. Maggie Capra tells the story of Donald Grey Barnhouse and Carl McIntire — two men who agreed on almost everything theologically and couldn't stand each other — to examine how doctrinal militancy and separatism became defining features of one powerful strand of evangelical culture.
Episode 3 - Releases May 14, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
What Is an American Evangelical? Historians and Theologians in Conversation
Pulling back from narrative, this episode puts the three historians in direct conversation with theologians Vincent Bacote (Wheaton College) and Cory Marsh to interrogate the Bebbington Quadrilateral. What does the framework get right? What does it miss? And can a definition built by historians serve the needs of theologians — and vice versa?
Episode 4 - Releases May 21, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
Race, Belonging, and the Voices History Forgets
J.M. Humphrey was a Black holiness minister whose entire preaching career centered on a minority evangelical position about divorce and remarriage. His racial identity appears nowhere in his published materials — it surfaces only in a letter written after his death by a white admirer whose words combine genuine affection with casual racism. Maggie Capra uses Humphrey's story to ask whose voices get recorded in history, and what we lose when they don't.
Episode 5 - Releases May 28, 2026
Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Web
PODCAST HOSTS
JOHN FEA is a historian who taught for 23 years at Messiah College in central Pennsylvania, where he was Professor of American History. He is currently a Visiting Fellow in History at the Lumen Center, an initiative of the SL Brown Foundation. He is the author of multiple books on American religion and politics, including Was America Founded as a Christian Nation? and Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump. John is a widely cited voice on the history of evangelicalism and its relationship to American politics, and his work has appeared in publications ranging from The Washington Post to Christianity Today.
DAN HUMMEL is the Director of the Lumen Center, an initiative of the SL Brown Foundation. He's a historian of American religion, focusing on theology, foreign relations, and evangelical culture. He is the author of Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations and The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation. Dan brings to the podcast a particular interest in the intellectual and theological life of evangelicals and their international connections.
MAGGIE CAPRA is a visiting instructor in American history at Beloit College. Her research centers on the theological dynamics within evangelical and holiness communities, with a particular focus on questions of marriage, family, divorce, and gender in the 20th century. Her work recovers the stories of lesser-known figures whose lives illuminate the intellectual and spiritual history of the movement — including those marginalized or overlooked in the standard historical record. Maggie brings to the podcast a talent for narrative history and a commitment to telling the full complexity of the evangelical story.
DAN HUMMEL is the Director of the Lumen Center, an initiative of the SL Brown Foundation. He's a historian of American religion, focusing on theology, foreign relations, and evangelical culture. He is the author of Covenant Brothers: Evangelicals, Jews, and U.S.-Israeli Relations and The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle over the End Times Shaped a Nation. Dan brings to the podcast a particular interest in the intellectual and theological life of evangelicals and their international connections.
MAGGIE CAPRA is a visiting instructor in American history at Beloit College. Her research centers on the theological dynamics within evangelical and holiness communities, with a particular focus on questions of marriage, family, divorce, and gender in the 20th century. Her work recovers the stories of lesser-known figures whose lives illuminate the intellectual and spiritual history of the movement — including those marginalized or overlooked in the standard historical record. Maggie brings to the podcast a talent for narrative history and a commitment to telling the full complexity of the evangelical story.