David N. Hempton

David N. Hempton FRHistS
Born	David Neil Hempton (1952-02-19) February 19, 1952 Northern Ireland
Title	Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies, Harvard Divinity School
Academic background
Alma mater	Queen's University Belfast University of St Andrews
Academic work
Discipline	History
Sub-discipline	History of Christianity
Institutions	Queen's University Belfast Boston University Harvard University
Main interests	Evangelicalism

David Neil Hempton FRHistS (born 1952) is a Northern Irish historian of evangelicalism, Harvard University Distinguished Service Professor and Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Biography

Hempton was born on 19 February 1952, in Northern Ireland. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree (1974) from the Queen's University Belfast and his Doctor of Philosophy degree (1977) from the University of St Andrews. Hempton began teaching at Queen's University in 1979, where he was professor of modern history and director of the school of history. He joined the faculty of Boston University in 1998, where he was professor of the history of Christianity, and in 2008 named "Outstanding Teacher of the Year" at the divinity school. In 2007, he was appointed as the first Alonzo L. McDonald Family Professor of Evangelical Theological Studies at Harvard Divinity School, and in 2012 it was announced he would succeed William A. Graham as dean of the school. In 2020 he was admitted as a member of the Royal Irish Academy. He retired as HDS dean at the end of the 2022-23 academic year, but remains on the faculty.

Selected publications

• Methodism and Politics in British Society, 1750–1850, winner of The Whitfield Prize (1984)
• The Religion of the People: Methodism and Popular Religion C. 1750–1900 (1996)
• Religion and Political Culture in Britain and Ireland: From the Glorious Revolution to the Decline of Empire (1996)
• Methodism: Empire of the Spirit, winner of the Jesse Lee Prize (2005)
• Evangelical Disenchantment: Nine Portraits of Faith and Doubt (2008)
• The Church in the Long Eighteenth Century, winner of the Albert C. Outler Prize (2011)

External links

• Hempton's faculty page at Harvard Divinity School