Samuel Smith, Ph.D.

Biography

Dr. Samuel C. Smith serves as a Professor and Chair in the History Department at Liberty University and is also the Graduate Program Director. He specializes in early American religious history. Before coming to Liberty, Dr. Smith was a teacher and administrator in Christian schools.

Past Professional or Notable Memberships

• American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies
• Southern Historical Association
• Abbeville Institute
• American Society of Church History
• Center for Apologetics and Cultural Engagement at Liberty University

Courses

Book Publications

• Among the Deplorables: Confessions of a Populist Evangelical. (KDP, 2020)
• A Cautious Enthusiasm: Mystical Piety and Evangelicalism in Colonial South Carolina (University of South Carolina Press, 2013)
• The Papers of Henry Laurens, vol. 16.  C. James Taylor, ed.  Columbia, S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2003.  [Editorial Assistant]
• Living on the Edge: The Archaeology of Cattle Raisers in the South Carolina Backcountry (With Richard Brooks and Mark Groover).  Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina Institute of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2000

Articles, Chapters, Review Articles

• “Southern American Evangelicalism,” The Oxford Handbook of Early Evangelicalism, edited by Jonathan Yeager (2022): 215-236. 
• “Critical Race Theory: Philosophy and Purpose,” Theology of Politics, Standing for Freedom Center, Liberty University (Spring 2022): 5-28. 
• Co-author with Ken Cleaver, “Engaging our Christian Heritage in its Broader Cultural Contexts: Interdisciplinary Engagement from History & Church History,” Faith and the Academy 2, no. 1 (Fall 2017): 48-50.
• “Antinomian Controversy: Inherent Righteousness,” Parts 1 and 2, in A Cautious Enthusiasm: Thoughts on Christianity and History [blog], (Summer 2015).
• “How Not to do History: Thomas Krannawitter’s Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President,” Journal of Faith and the Academy 3, no. 1 (Summer 2010).
• “‘That Feel and Touch of the Elbow’: William Gilmore Simms and the Whig Interpretation of History,” Simms Review 6, no. 1 (Summer 2008).
• “A Critique of Bonhoeffer Speaks Today: Following Jesus at All Costs,” Journal of the Grace Evangelical Society 20 (Autumn 2007).
• “Robert Johnson,” in South Carolina Encyclopedia, Walter Edgar, ed. Columbia,  S.C.: University of South Carolina Press, 2007.
• “Henry Laurens: Christian Pietist,” South Carolina Historical Magazine 100  (April 1999).
• “Government & Politics,” chapter six in American Eras: The Colonial Era, 1600-1754, edited by Jessica Kross (Detroit: Gale Research, 1998).

Book Reviews

• Review of Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon, by Jessica Parr.  The Journal of American History 103, no. 1 (June 2016): 176-177.
• Review of The Origins of Southern Evangelicalism: Religious Revivalism in the South Carolina Lowcountry, 1670-1760, by Thomas Little.  The Journal of Southern Religion 16 (2014): https://jsreligion.org/issues/vol16/smith.html.
• Review of An Introduction to German Pietism: Protestant Renewal at the Dawn of Modern Europe, by Douglas H. Shantz.  Church History and Religious Culture 94 no. 1 (2014): 151-153.
• Review of Moonshiners and Prohibitionists: The Battle over Alcohol in Southern Appalachia, by  Bruce E. Stewart. Abbeville Review (April 2014): https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/blog/moonshiners/.
• Review of “Faiths of the Founding Fathers,” by David Holmes in Journal of Faith and the Academy 2, no. 2 (Fall 2009).