Randall Balmer

Randall Herbert Balmer (born October 22, 1954) is an American historian of American religion.

Biography

Balmer taught at Barnard College and Columbia University for twenty-seven years before moving to Dartmouth College in 2012, where he was named the Mandel Family Professor in the Arts & Sciences. He is also an Episcopal priest. He earned his PhD from Princeton University in 1985. He has been a visiting professor at Dartmouth College and at Rutgers, Princeton, Drew University, Emory University, Yale and Northwestern universities and at Union Theological Seminary, where he was also adjunct professor of church history. He has also taught in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was visiting professor at Yale Divinity School from 2004 until 2008.

Following his ordination in 2006 and concurrent with his academic responsibilities, Balmer served as part-time rector of two Episcopal parishes in Connecticut: St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington (2008–2009) and Christ Episcopal Church in Middle Haddam (2010–2012). In addition to his academic writing, Balmer has published commentaries in newspapers across the country, including The Des Moines Register, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The Dallas Morning News, the Omaha World-Herald, the Los Angeles Times, the Anchorage Daily News, the Hartford Courant, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, New York Newsday, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and The New York Times, among others. His work has also appeared in The Nation, The New Republic, The Washington Post Book World, and The New York Times Book Review. Balmer is a pescetarian.

Balmer was nominated for an Emmy for scriptwriting and hosting the three-part PBS documentary Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory, based on his book with the same title.

The title of Balmer's book about the religious right, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right (2021), was used for the documentary film of the same name.

Political career In 2003, Balmer ran for a seat on his local school board and lost by four votes.

In 2004, Balmer won the Democratic nomination for a seat representing the 111th District in the Connecticut House of Representatives. Balmer ran in the general election against incumbent Republican John H. Frey, despite the fact that Balmer had lived in the district for less than three years, Frey had never drawn an opponent, and the town of Ridgefield (which the 111th District represents) was "two-to-one Republican."

Selected publications

(1999) Blessed Assurance: A History of Evangelicalism in America. Boston: Beacon Press. (2002) Protestantism in America. New York: Columbia University Press.

(2006) Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America. 4th ed. New York: Oxford University Press. (2006) Thy Kingdom Come: How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America: An Evangelical's Lament. New York: Basic Books. (2008) God in the White House: How Faith Shaped the Presidency from John F. Kennedy to George W. Bush. San Francisco: HarperOne. (2010) The Making of Evangelicalism: From revivalism to politics and beyond. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Pp vii + 89. [Paperback edition 2017.] (2014) Redeemer: The Life of Jimmy Carter. New York: Basic Books.

(2016) Evangelicalism in America. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. 211 pages. [Paperback edition 2018.] (2021) Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. (2025) America’s Best Idea: The Separation of Church and State. Lebanon, NH: Steerforth Press.

Documentaries and e-seminars "Crusade: The Life of Billy Graham" "Crucible of Pluralism: Religion in Modern America" "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory"