George Marsden

For other uses, see George Marsden (disambiguation).

• American history
• history of Christianity
• intellectual history

George Marsden
Born	George Mish Marsden (1939-02-25) February 25, 1939 (age 86) Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Spouse	Lucie Commeret ​ (m. 1969)​ [1]
Academic background
Alma mater	Yale University Westminster Theological Seminary Haverford College
Thesis	The New School Presbyterian Mind [2]  (1966)
Doctoral advisor	Sydney E. Ahlstrom
Institutions	Calvin College Duke University University of Notre Dame
Doctoral students	Diana Butler Bass Matthew Grow Thomas S. Kidd Steven Nolt Rick Ostrander
Main interests	American evangelicalism
Notable works	Jonathan Edwards: A Life (2003)

George Mish Marsden (born February 25, 1939) is an American historian who has written extensively on the interaction between Christianity and American culture, particularly on Christianity in American higher education and on American evangelicalism. He is best known for his award-winning biography of the New England clergyman Jonathan Edwards, a prominent theologian of Colonial America. ^[3]

Biography

Marsden was born on February 25, 1939, in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. ^[1] He attended Haverford College, Westminster Theological Seminary, and Yale University, completing a Doctor of Philosophy degree ^[1] in American history under Sydney E. Ahlstrom. He taught at Calvin College (1965–1986), Duke Divinity School (1986–1992), and as Francis A. McAnaney Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame (1992–2008). ^[4] As of 2017 Marsden is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Notre Dame. ^[5] His former doctoral students include Diana Butler Bass, Matthew Grow, Thomas S. Kidd, Steven Nolt, and Rick Ostrander. ^[6]

He was awarded the Bancroft Prize for his book Jonathan Edwards: A Life in 2004, the Merle Curti Award in 2004, ^[7] and the Grawemeyer Award in Religion in 2005. ^[4]

A Festschrift was composed in his honor in 2014. It was entitled American Evangelicalism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History and was edited by Darren Dochuk, Thomas S. Kidd, and Kurt W. Peterson.

Selected works

• The Evangelical Mind and the New School Presbyterian Experience: A Case Study of Thought and Theology in nineteenth-century America. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 1970. ISBN   9780300013436.
• Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth-Century Evangelicalism, 1870–1925 . New York: Oxford University Press. 1980. ISBN   9780197599488.
• Understanding Fundamentalism and Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. 1991.
• The Soul of the American University: From Protestant Establishment to Established Nonbelief. New York: Oxford University Press. 1994.
• Reforming Fundamentalism: Fuller Seminary and the New Evangelicalism. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. 1995. ISBN   9780802836427.
• The Outrageous Idea of Christian Scholarship . New York: Oxford University Press. 1997. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195122909.001.0001. ISBN   978-0-19-512290-9.
• Jonathan Edwards: A Life . New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. 2003. ISBN   9780300096934.
• A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans. 2008.
• The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief. New York: Basic Books. 2014. ISBN   9780465030101.
• C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: A Biography. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press. 2016. ISBN   9780691153735.

• The Soul of the American University Revisited: From Protestant to Postsecular. Oxford University Press. 2021. ISBN   9780190073312.

• An Infinite Fountain of Light: Jonathan Edwards for the Twenty-First Century. IVP Academic. 2023. ISBN   9781514006627.

References

Footnotes

1. "Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–" 2006, p. 272.
2. Marsden 1966.
3. Hansen, Collin (February 5, 2009). "Marsden Discusses 'Short Life of Jonathan Edwards'". Christian History. Christianity Today. Archived from the original on February 4, 2017. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
4. "2005 – George M. Marsden". Grawemeyer Awards. Louisville, Kentucky: University of Louisville. July 21, 2005. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
5. "George Marsden". Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame. Retrieved February 3, 2017.
6. Dochuk, Kidd & Peterson 2014.
7. "Merle Curti Award Winners," Organization of American Historians.Accessed 18 Apr. 2020.

Bibliography

• Dochuk, Darren; Kidd, Thomas S.; Peterson, Kurt W., eds. (2014). "Appendix: George Marsden's Doctoral Students and Their Dissertations". American Evangelism: George Marsden and the State of American Religious History. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. ISBN   978-0-268-15855-2.
• Marsden, George M. (1966). The New School Presbyterian Mind: A Study of Theology in Mid-Nineteenth Century America (PhD thesis). New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University. OCLC   13386337.
• "Marsden, George (Mish) 1939–" . Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series. Vol. 142. Detroit, Michigan: Gale. 2006. pp.  272–276. ISBN   978-1-4144-0544-5. ISSN   0275-7176.

Awards
Preceded by James F. Brooks	Bancroft Prize 2004 With: Edward L. Ayers and Steven Hahn	Succeeded by Melvin Patrick Ely
Preceded by Alan Gallay		Succeeded by Michael Klarman
		Succeeded by Michael O'Brien
Preceded by Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz	Merle Curti Award in Intellectual History 2004	Succeeded by Michael O'Brien
Preceded by Jonathan Sacks	Grawemeyer Award in Religion 2005	Succeeded by Marilynne Robinson