In June 2010 I was privileged to meet Dr. Daniel Williams through a mutual acquaintance at the Policy History Conference in Columbus, Ohio. His first book came out that year — God’s Own Party: The Making of the Christian Right (Oxford University Press). While I am not a 20th century historian, as a fellow Christian scholar, I have found the scope of his scholarship quite compelling and its content highly relevant to Christians seeking to make sense of much of our contemporary socio-political reality.
Dr. Williams has gone on to publish three more monographs and has more in the pipeline.
Defenders of Life: The Pro-Life Movement before and after Roe v. Wade (Oxford University Press, 2016)
The Election of the Evangelical: Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, and the Presidential Contest of 1976 (University Press of Kansas, 2020)
The Politics of the Cross: A Christian Alternative to Partisanship (Eerdmans, 2021).
I have been even more drawn to his short form writing at the Anxious Bench and to his articles that appear in such prominent venues as The Atlantic, Christianity Today, New York Times, History News Network, and the Washington Post. It seems that it doesn’t matter how polarizing or volatile the issue, Williams’s writing is consistently deeply researched, tightly reasoned, measured, and overall exudes what I consider to be an exemplary kind of erudition.
For this post I interviewed Daniel, asking him to reflect on being a historian and the connections between his life, his faith, and his work. He answered these questions in writing.
“Come, let us reason together, says the Lord.” (Isaiah 1:18)
- You are a prolific historian and writer whose writing focuses heavily on topics related to 20thcentury religious history, with a strong emphasis on evangelicals, politics, abortion, and race. Do you view your enduring interest in these particular topics as coming from a single root, or are they downstream from various influences or inputs in your life? Briefly describe these influence(s).
I grew up in a conservative Christian home and entered graduate school as a committed Christian with a strong belief in the harmony between faith and reason – or, to put it another way, the connection between theology and the observable world or the world of the intellect. I have also had a nearly lifelong fascination with politics, which I think I can trace back to a love of reading presidential biographies that began when I was in first grade.
When I was growing up in the late 1980s and early 1990s, most of the people I knew in my church and in the homeschooling association that my family was part of were political conservatives of a Christian Right variety. I thus entered adulthood with the belief that in our two-party system of representative government, Christians had the obligation to support candidates who opposed abortion or who favored other causes that aligned with my understanding of biblically based morality. In college, my conservative political beliefs were reinforced by a circle of conservative Christian friends and by a minor I completed in economics, a field in which most of my professors were strong advocates of the free market. I knew plenty of political liberals, but few of those liberals were devout Christians – so it was easy for me to assume that political conservatism was the appropriate ideology for people who believed in the authority of the Bible (or who understood the principles of Adam Smith).
But in my second year of graduate school, my beliefs were challenged when I began reading about African American Christians who had a strong commitment to biblical authority but whose political applications of Christian theology differed markedly from anything with which I was familiar. I wanted to learn more, so I began reading about African American history more systematically.
All of this raised a question for me: If the political assumptions of conservative white evangelicals were not taken directly from scripture, where did they come from? This led me to write a dissertation on the Christian Right that eventually became the book God’s Own Party.
After that, I wanted to examine the origins of the pro-life movement, because it seemed to me that it didn’t neatly fit into the Christian Right framework that I had examined in my first book. As I discovered in my research, there was a good reason for that: The pro-life movement did not originate among white evangelicals as conservative cause, but among mid-twentieth-century Catholics – many of whom were Democrats who believed in the congruity between Catholic social teaching and the ideology of the New Deal.
Most of my books have originated with a personal question that I want to investigate – and almost invariably, that question relates to my own quest to better understand God’s principles and the world around me. For my first book, I wanted to know what stances I as a Christian should take in the political sphere. For my second book, I wanted to understand the relationship between pro-life ideology and modern American liberalism and conservatism – and I wanted to understand how a cause that I thought should interest liberals became identified so strongly with political conservatism. When I was doing research for my forthcoming book The Search for a Rational Faith, I wanted to examine the historical origins of the Christian apologetic arguments that have long interested me and find out how educated Christians who believed in the rationality of the Christian faith responded to new developments in science and historical study. Like all of my work, there’s a strongly personal dimension to this research.
- How do you think about the value (or purpose?) of the various kinds of writing you do? I view your publications as falling into at least 4 different categories: academic books & journal articles, online blogging (such as the Anxious Bench & Current), traditional secular popular media (such as The Atlantic and the NY Times), and traditional Christian popular media (such as Christianity Today and The Gospel Coalition)?
When I started in my academic career, I really wanted to write a book, and to this day, research-based monographs form an important part of my scholarship, because they are a way for me to explore research questions in a depth that would not be possible in any other format. Because it usually takes several years to research a write a book, a book project gives me the opportunity to wrestle with questions for a lengthy period of time, travel to various archives to do research, and read numerous books on a topic of interest – none of which would be possible for a blog post or a 1,200-word online magazine article. Although most of my books have been published with academic presses, I hope that they will be accessible to people outside the academy as well – and at least some of them have had a substantial non-academic market, especially among thoughtful Christians.
The research I completed for my academic monographs also gave me the knowledge and perspective I needed to write books and articles designed specifically for Christians. The Politics of the Cross (a book designed for a Christian audience) would not have been possible without the earlier academic research that I did for God’s Own Party and Defenders of the Unborn.
I started regular monthly blogging about five years ago, and I launched a Substack earlier this year. Blogs and Substack posts give me a chance to test ideas in progress, apply historical analysis to recent news developments, or comment on a matter that might not merit a full book-length analysis but that is at least worth a blog entry of 2,000 words or so. Blogging has helped me connect my research to up-to-the-minute contemporary conversations in a way that I can’t do in my academic monographs, and I think that it has sharpened my work and helped keep my ideas fresh.
My articles for traditional secular popular media, such as the Atlantic or the New York Times, have sometimes reached a wider audience than any of my other publications have. Ideally, I’d like to think that my articles in secular media have given me an opportunity to reach people who have never read any of my other work and who might be intrigued to learn that the pro-life movement was not always linked with political conservatism or that secularization will not necessarily resolve America’s political polarization.
My writings for Christian media (including Christianity Today, the Gospel Coalition, and Mere Orthodoxy) have given me a chance to use my scholarship to benefit the church – especially in helping Christians think about politics and history from a perspective that is informed by Christian theology. Wheaton College history professor (and past CFH president) Tracy McKenzie has encouraged Christian academics for years to use their scholarship to inform and edify the church, and I hope that I’m doing that in my writings for Christians.
- What do you enjoy most – and least — about writing and publishing?
I love doing research. I’m thrilled whenever I can travel to an archive and uncover a story that no one has told before or comb through some primary sources to draw connections that might answer a question of personal interest. When I have discovered an untold story, I’m eager to tell it to others – and in those cases, I generally find that it’s easy to write.
I also find it easy to write when I have a new idea that might be sparked by a connection I observe between a current news story and the historical research that I have done.
But I find it difficult to write when I don’t have a new story to tell. If I’m simply retelling what I’ve already written about before – as I often have to do whenever someone asks me to produce a new short piece on the Christian Right or on the pro-life movement, for instance – I don’t enjoy writing nearly as much. But this is part of the expected duty of being a scholar in the field. You have to be willing to repeatedly summarize your work in multiple different venues in order to market a book; you can’t simply write a book and go on to the next project.
- What do you know now about being a highly published historian that you wish you knew when you began your career as a historian?
Academic research and writing can be just as enjoyable as I thought it would be when I first started out in the profession. It’s also something that gets easier (and arguably even more enjoyable) over time.
But when I first started in the profession, I didn’t understand the importance of strategic marketing. While some publishers are able to give at least some help to authors in marketing their book, nearly all publishers – even those with good marketing teams – expect authors to do as much as they can in marketing their work. Because my wife (Nadya) is a published author and editor, she has given me a lot of insights in this area that I did not have when I first started in the field. One of the reasons I decided to launch a Substack is because of Nadya’s encouragement to do more to publicize my books. In some cases that I know, academic authors who haven’t developed platforms to publicize their work find that they can’t get new book contracts.
The other important thing that I should have learned as a graduate student is the extremely high importance of time management – and the realization that I need to appreciate the great privilege of any time or funds I am given for research. Even at top-tier research-oriented institutions, most historians are not given the time or travel money to research that graduate students might take for granted. There are always other teaching and service obligations. And once a scholar has published a book, there are always other writing responsibilities that don’t necessarily relate to the next book project. Those include manuscript peer review, book endorsements, public articles publicizing the book, conference papers, book talks, and keynote addresses, among other things. So, if a faculty member wants to continue researching and writing, they’re probably going to have to be very strategic in their use of time. And they’re going to have to think strategically about the use of resources. In the last five or six years, I have taken significantly fewer archival research trips, but I have also made more strategic use of digitized primary sources – and I have figured out how to do more with the limited number of archival resources that I have been able to look at.
But I also think that in the midst of these realizations, it’s important not to forget the importance of teaching. Scholars who focus only on publication and view students’ demands on their time as an imposition are often miserable people. I think that Christian scholars can glorify God through their archival research and publications – but we can’t do that if we pursue publication at the expense of relationships with people (including both family and students). So, I try to be a good citizen in my own department and university, and I also try to make each of my students feel valued; I want to invest in their lives. I’m inspired by the example of Mark Noll, who has published about two dozen scholarly books (many of which have changed the field) but who has always made time to encourage his students, as well as grad students and junior scholars who contact him for feedback on their work. George Marsden is another great example of this, I think.
- Now that you have taught in both private Christian and public secular institutions, what would you say is similar and different about the role of a Christian history professor in those two contexts?
I think that in both private Christian colleges and secular state universities, professors have an obligation to help students think critically and consider other points of view – which means teaching through primary source documents as much as possible and asking thought-provoking questions that challenge students’ assumptions. In both settings, the professor needs to respect each student as an individual person – which means being sensitive to their individual needs and helping them grow as a person. In both settings, the professor who is a Christian is guided by the knowledge that academic inquiry – and cultivating students’ intellectual curiosity – is a God-honoring endeavor. In each setting, the professor who is a Christian is guided by a commitment to truth – which includes both general and special revelation.
There are many different types of Christian colleges, and each type has a different set of expectations of how their faculty will bring their Christian worldview into their teaching. But in at least some Christian colleges, a professor has the freedom to engage in theological discussions that might not be possible in a secular setting. At a secular state university, a professor can often present Christian viewpoints as one possible viewpoint among many or can discuss the Christian perspective presented by a particular primary source document. For example, it would be perfectly appropriate even at a secular state university for a professor to discuss the Christian assumptions in Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” as part of a class analysis of that primary source. But a professor at a state university probably could not take the next step of examining how those Christian assumptions might relate to specific scriptures, how and why various groups of Christians have reacted to those assumptions, or how those assumptions might affect our lives today as Christ-followers. At some Christian colleges, at least, that type of discussion is both possible and expected. Ideally, at a Christian college, a professor is not only a teacher but also a Christian mentor whose goal is to help students grow in their faith, as well as their knowledge and understanding.
- How have you been thinking about and responding to our society’s increasing hostility toward the academy and expertise in general, and the value of studying history, in particular.
The study of history gives us the perspective to understand our current moment in a much larger context – and that’s more important than ever in a time of such rapid political upheaval and chaos.
I’m certainly troubled by the political attacks that we’ve seen on the academic establishment. I value expertise and the academy, and I don’t think that ignorance is ever superior to knowledge. At the same time, I think that as Christians and as historians, we have to be honest in humbly admitting blind spots in the academy that have led to this troubling moment. Our current anti-establishment political moment has deep historical roots, and I think that we need to respond to this moment by acknowledging those roots and even sympathizing with some of them without endorsing right-wing populism’s vilification of academic knowledge.
- In your insightful July 7, 2021 Anxious Bench post titled “Is there a Theological Reason for white Evangelical Racism?” you made this powerful statement that clearly offends many evangelicals to this day: “Sin is corporate and structural as well as individual, and the sooner that white evangelicals recognize this, the better.” Do you think that thinking this way about sin causes you to think differently, or write differently, about the history of evangelicals than “more conservative” evangelical scholars who might disagree with this view of sin? Explain.
I identify theologically as an evangelical Christian, but I also think that American evangelicalism’s understanding of sin and salvation has been too individualistic. A study of both history and Christian theology has led me to see that sin is more than a series of individual wrong actions – which means that redemption involves more than merely the regeneration and sanctification of individuals, as some evangelicals have tended to believe. If we understand this evangelical theological blind spot, we’ll be much better positioned to understand related blind spots in evangelical politics, and we’ll be better positioned to offer a theological corrective that respects what is valuable and true in evangelical theology while also bringing in insights from other biblically based Christian traditions that can correct evangelical misunderstandings of scripture and history.
- Are you hopeful about the future of America? About the future of American evangelicals? If so, how does your research/writing and your faith relate to your sense of hope?
I’m hopeful about the future of God’s kingdom. There have been moments in the past when God’s people didn’t find much reason for optimism when looking at the world around them, yet they nevertheless maintained a hope based on God’s promises. The prophet Jeremiah is a good example of that. At the time he was living, his city was under siege and the Babylonians were enslaving most of his compatriots and taking them to Babylon, where he would never see them again. He didn’t see any signs of spiritual revival, and he spent much of his life in prison because of the king’s unwillingness to listen to his message. Yet God gave him a promise of a new covenant and a future redemption.
So, even if I didn’t see any reason for hope in America or in the American church, I would still find reason to hope in God’s covenant promises.
But I think there are other reasons for optimism as well. In the world today, there are more Christians than ever before in world history, and Christianity is now more racially, culturally, and geographically diverse than it ever has been. Regardless of what happens in the United States, the future of global Christianity is likely to be bright.
I’m alarmed at some of the recent political developments in the United States – as well as the politics that I see in much of the American evangelical church – but at the same time, I think that there is more spiritual substance in American Christianity (including American evangelical Christianity) than some of its critics assume. And despite all of America’s failings, I continue to be increasingly impressed with the wisdom of the constitutional framers in creating a governmental system that has endured as long as it had because it is based on an insightful understanding of human nature. That governmental system has been remarkably resilient, and I think there’s a chance it can continue to endure even though it has experienced some shockingly severe strains recently. Our ultimate hope doesn’t rest on the endurance of America’s political system, but nevertheless, there are a lot of reasons to be thankful for our constitutional order and to pray that it will continue.
In my scholarship, I try to be honest about the failings of my historical subjects – and because of the theological beliefs I hold about original sin, I’m not surprised by those failings even among believers. But I also try to be sympathetic toward my subjects’ points of view, and I’m actually often impressed with their thoughtful insights. My forthcoming book The Search for a Rational Faith, for instance, explores the resilience of Christian intellectual arguments for faith in the midst of skeptical challenges – and some Christian readers may come away from the work with a sense of hope about the value of Christian intellectual projects even in an age of secularization.
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