Timothy Larsen

Timothy Larsen is McManis Professor of Christian Thought and Professor of History at Wheaton College, an Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh, and an Honorary Research Fellow, School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David.  He has been a Visiting Fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge, All Souls College, Oxford, and Christ Church, Oxford and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute. He has been elected President of the American Society of Church History for 2025. He is the author or editor of twenty books including Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England, A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians, The Slain God: Anthropologists and the Christian Faith, John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life and The Oxford Handbook of Christmas (all with Oxford University Press).

University of Edinburgh
D.D., Historical Theology, 2020

University of Stirling, Scotland
Ph.D., History, 1997

Wheaton College
M.A., Theology, 1990

Wheaton College
B.A. (Hons.), History, 1989

• Faith and Leadership | Timothy Larsen

The Crisis of Biblical Illiteracy
Charisma News

Wheaton College professor Timothy Larsen comments that "it has been demonstrated that biblical literacy has continued to decline. ... Gallup polls have tracked this descent to a current 'record low.'"

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Victor Turner, anthropology and Christianity
University of Oxford Podcasts

Timothy Larsen (Wheaton College, Illinois) discusses the impact of Christianity on the research and careers of Victor and Edith Turner, looking in particular at their work in Rhodesia. An anthropology departmental seminar...

Nicodemus, the mystery man of Holy Week
The Washington Post

Nicodemus might not be on the minds of many modern evangelicals, but they care deeply about his conversation with Jesus in John’s Gospel, said Timothy Larsen, a professor of Christian thought at Wheaton College in Illinois. Most consider being “born again” essential to salvation and a hallmark of their faith. “Evangelicals have traditionally cared a lot about when this happened,” Larsen said of the born-again experience. “It is the hinge moment in a person’s life.” When Chuck Colson moved from Nixon hatchet man to evangelical eminence, he titled his autobiography “Born Again.”...

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Prisons Purging Books on Faith from Libraries
The New York Times

Timothy Larsen, who holds the Carolyn and Fred McManis Chair of Christian Thought at Wheaton College, an evangelical school, looked over lists for “Other Christian” and “General Spirituality. There are some well-chosen things in here,” Professor Larsen said. “I’m particularly glad that Dietrich Bonhoeffer is there. If I was in prison I would want to read Dietrich Bonhoeffer.” But he continued, “There’s a lot about it that’s weird.” The lists “show a bias toward evangelical popularism and Calvinism,” he said, and lacked materials from early church fathers, liberal theologians and major Protestant denominations...

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Nineteenth-Century Spiritual Autobiography: Carlyle, Newman, Mill, The Bible, Narrative, and Modernity, University of Notre Dame, ID.

Victorians and the Bible Beyond Belief, The Bible, Narrative, and Modernity, University of Notre Dame, ID.

Teaching the Bible Outside Theology, The Bible, Narrative, and Modernity, University of Notre Dame

Exploring Religion and Literature Methodologies, The Bible, Narrative, and Modernity, University of Notre Dame, ID.

High Minds: The Victorians and the Birth of Modern Britain, Contextural Lecture Series, Dulwich Picture Gallery, London, UK.

Frazer, Anthropology and the Bible, Anthropology and Religion in the 19th Century, Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Cambridge, UK.

• Visiting Fellow, Christ Church, Oxford 2021
• Honorary Research Fellow, School of Theology, Religious Studies and Islamic Studies, University of Wales Trinity Saint David, 2014
• Visiting Scholar, Department of Religious Studies, Northwestern University, Winter and Spring Quarters 2014
• Visiting Fellow, All Souls College, Oxford, for the Trinity term, 2012
• Visiting Fellow, Trinity College, Cambridge, for the Lent and Easter Terms 2007
• Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS)
• Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (FRAI)
• Honorary Fellow, School of Divinity, Edinburgh University

• General Editor, Spiritual Lives biography series, Oxford University Press
• Editorial Board, Journal of Religious History
• Editorial Board, Fides et Historia
• Marginalia Review of Books, Contributing Editor

• Modern British Religious History
• History of Faith and Thought
• Anthropology and Religion
• Evangelical History and Theology
• Christianity and Women
• The History of Biblical Criticism and Interpretation
• Secularization Theory
• Christianity and Politics; Church and State Issues
• History of Academic Disciplines

• Christian Thought (BITH 315)
• Historical Theology (BITH 372)
• Theology and Art, 1000-1600 (BITH 489)
• History of Christianity to 1900 (BITH 576)
• Historical Theology: Early Church (BITH 653)
• Historical Theology: Medieval Church (BITH 654)
• Modern British Religious History (BITH 677)
• History of Evangelicalism (BITH 677)
• Faith, Doubt, and Secularization (BITH 677)
• Historiography (BITH 683)
• The Bible in the Nineteenth Century (BITH 883)
• Anthropology Senior Capstone (ANTH 495)

E. B. Tylor, Religion and Anthropology. British Journal for the History of Science. T. Larsen. 2013.

The Bible and Belief in Victorian Britain. Cahiers Victoriens et Édouardiens. T. Larsen. 2013.

The Book of Acts and the Origin of the Races in Evangelical Thought. Victorian Review. T. Larsen. 2012.

Biblical Commentaries as Prose. Nineteenth-Century Prose. T. Larsen. 2012.

Nineveh. Cities of God: The Bible and Archaeology in Nineteenth-Century Britain. T. Larsen. 2013.

The Bible and the Varieties of Nineteenth-Century Dissent: Elizabeth Fry, Mary Carpenter, and Catherine Booth. Dissent and the Bible in Britain, c. 1650-1950. T. Larsen. 2013.

The Evangelical Reception of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture. T. Larsen. 2013.

Christina Rossetti. The Decalogue through the Centuries: From the Hebrew Scriptures to Benedict XVI. T. Larsen. 2012.

Evangelicals, the Academy, and the Discipline of History. Beyond Integration? Inter/Disciplinary Possibilities for the Future of Christian Higher Education. T. Larsen. 2012.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Single-Authored Books:

Larsen, T. 2018 John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Larsen, T. 2018 George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles: Incarnation, Doubt, and Reenchantment, Downers Grove: IVP Academic. 

Larsen, T. 2016 [paperback edition] The Slain God: Anthropologists and the Christian Faith, Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Original edition: 2014. (Named the Book of the Year for 2014 by Books & Culture. I am the only author to win this honor twice. Also: Finalist for the 2016 Arlin G. Meyer Prize.)

Larsen, T. 2012 [paperback edition] A People of One Book: The Bible and the Victorians, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Original edition: 2011.

Larsen, T.  2008 [paperback edition] Crisis of Doubt: Honest Faith in Nineteenth-Century England, Oxford: Oxford University Press. Original edition: 2006. (Named the Book of the Year for 2006 by Books & Culture.)

Larsen, T. 2007 Friends of Religious Equality: Nonconformist Politics in Mid-Victorian England (Studies in Christian History and Thought), Milton Keynes, England: Paternoster Press. (This book was originally published in 1999.)

Larsen, T. 2004 Contested Christianity: The Political and Social Contexts of Victorian Theology, Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press.

Larsen, T. 2002 Christabel Pankhurst: Fundamentalism and Feminism in Coalition (Studies in Modern British Religious History 4),  Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press.

Larsen, T. 1999 Friends of Religious Equality: Nonconformist Politics in Mid-Victorian England (Studies in Modern British Religious History 1), Woodbridge, Suffolk and Rochester, NY: The Boydell Press. 

Edited Books:

Larsen, T. (ed.) 2020 The Oxford Handbook of Christmas, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Larsen, T. and Ledger-Lomas, M. (eds) 2017 The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions: Volume III: The Nineteenth Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press. (General Editors, Timothy Larsen and Mark A. Noll: The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions, 5 vols.)

Larsen, T. and Johnson, K. (eds), 2013  Bonhoeffer, Christ and Culture, Downers Grove: IVP Academic.

Larsen, T. and Greenman, J. (eds), 2012 The Decalogue through the Centuries: From the Hebrew Scriptures to Benedict XVI, Louisville: Westminster John Knox.

Larsen, T. and Treier, D. (eds) 2007 The Cambridge Companion to Evangelical Theology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 

Larsen, T., Greenman, J. and Spencer, S. (eds) 2007 The Sermon on the Mount through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Pope John Paul II, Grand Rapids: Brazos Press.

Larsen, T. and Husbands, M. (eds) 2007 Women, Ministry, and the Gospel: Exploring New Paradigms, IVP Academic.

Larsen, T. and Greenman, J. (eds) 2005 Reading Romans through the Centuries: From the Early Church to Karl Barth. Grand Rapids: Brazos Press. 

Larsen, T. and Bebbington, D. (eds) 2003 Modern Christianity and Cultural Aspirations (Essays in Honour of Professor Clyde Binfield, OBE; Lincoln Studies in Religion and Society 5), London and New York: Sheffield Academic Press (Continuum).

Larsen, T. (ed.) 2003 Biographical Dictionary of Evangelicals, Leicester, England and Dowers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press (IVP).

Larsen, T. and Johnson, K. (eds), forthcoming Balm in Gilead: A Theological Dialogue with Marilynne Robinson, Downers Grove: IVP Academic, [2019]. 

Co-Authored Book: 

Larsen, T. and Vickery, J. 2004 For Christ In Canada: A History of Tyndale Seminary, 1976-2001 (foreword by Leighton Ford).  Toronto: Tyndale University College and Seminary.

Sole General Editor, Spiritual Lives series, Oxford University Press:

Barry Hankins, Woodrow Wilson: Ruling Elder, Spiritual President, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. (Winner of the A. Donald Macleod Award for Presbyterian History.)

Emma Mason, Christina Rossetti: Poetry, Ecology, Faith, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.

Timothy Larsen, John Stuart Mill: A Secular Life, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. 

Co-General Editor:

Larsen, T. and Noll, Mark. General Editors. The Oxford History of Protestant Dissenting Traditions. 5 volumes: vol. 3 (2017), vol. 2 (2018), vol. 5 (2018). Vols 1 and 4 are forthcoming.

Edited Journal Issue: 

Timothy Larsen (guest editor) 2008 Bulletin of the John Rylands University Library of Manchester, 86, 3 (Autumn 2004) [actual publication date: May 2008]. 

Theme of issue: “Biblical Scholarship in the Twentieth Century: The Rylands Chair of Biblical Criticism and Exegesis at the University of Manchester, 1904-2004.”  My contributors, many of whom are among the most eminent biblical scholars working today, were James D. G. Dunn, Morna D. Hooker, John Rogerson, Peter Oakes, Craig A. Evans, Wendy Cotter, and Eileen Schuller.  I also contributed a research article myself, “A. S. Peake, the Free Churches, and Modern Biblical Criticism,” and wrote the introduction.