February (Web-only) 2006

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One of the evangelicalism's premier scholars will be leaving one of evangelicalism's premier colleges. Mark Noll will be moving from Wheaton College to the University of Notre Dame at the start of the school year this fall.

"This is one of the most painful announcements I've had to make in my nine and a half years as provost," says Stan Jones, provost at Wheaton. Noll has served as an inspiration and role model to students as well as other professors, Jones says. "I was inspired by his balance and maturity of thought."

"We're delighted to have him," says John McGreevy, chair of the department of history at Notre Dame. "We feel we have a strong program already. Mark will augment that."

Long a respected historian among evangelical scholars, Noll's stature has risen in recent years. His book America's God: From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln was named "the most significant work of American historical scholarship" in 2002 by The Atlantic.

His 1994 book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, has become shorthand for the ongoing conversation about evangelical anti-intellectualism, says John Wilson, editor of Books & Culture, a sister publication of Christianity Today. America's God however raised Noll's visibility beyond evangelical academic circles. It was one of the most important historical books in years, says Wilson, who called it Noll's magnum opus. In 2005, Time magazine named Noll one of America's 25 most influential evangelicals.

Noll's impact has been in three areas, according to Wilson: as an American historian, as a historian of evangelicalism to which he brought a global perspective, and as a scholar of the Bible in public life. His forthcoming book The Civil War as a Theological Crisis is a prime example, says Wilson. ...