John Fea

Professor and Chair
Early America; history pedagogy

Office: 260 Boyer Hall
Phone: 717-766-2511 x 2253
Email: jfea@messiah.edu

C.V.

Educational Background

Ph.D., American History, Stony Brook University, 1999

Biography

John is Professor of American History and Chair of the History Department at Messiah.

He is the author or editor of six books and his essays and reviews have appeared in a variety of scholarly and popular venues.

John lives in Mechanicsburg with his wife Joy, daughters Allyson and Caroline, and dog Jersey.

Courses Taught

United States History to 1865
Colonial America
Revolutionary America
Civil War America
Teaching History and Social Studies
History of American Evangelicalism
Pennsylvania History

Selected Publications

Believe Me: The Evangelical Road to Donald Trump (Eerdmans, 2018)
The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society (Oxford University Press, 2016)
Why Study History?: Reflecting on the Importance of the Past (Baker Academic, 2013)
Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction (Westminster/ John Knox Press, 2011)
Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian’s Vocation, co-edited with Jay Green and Eric Miller (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010)
The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008; paperback edition, 2009)
“The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian’s Rural Enlightenment,” The Journal of American History (September 2003, 462-490).

Selected Presentations

Papers and Lectures presented at the Organization of American Historians, Omohundro Institute Annual Conference, Lilly Fellows Program in Arts and Humanities, Fort Ticonderoga Seminar on the American Revolution, Conference on Faith and History, McNeil Center for Early American Studies, New Jersey Forum, Pennsylvania Historical Association Annual Meeting, Meeting of the American Society of Church History, Annual Meeting of the Society for the History of the Early American Republic, Annual Conference of the Society for the History of Reading, Authorship, and Publication.

Current Activities

John is working on a book on the American Revolution in New Jersey and a survey of American Christianity from the perspective of ordinary people.