John Fea (Ph.D, Stony Brook University, 1999) is Professor of American History and Chair of the History Department at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania His first book, The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Philip Vickers Fithian and the Rural Enlightenment in Early America (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), was chosen as the Book of the Year by the New Jersey Academic Alliance and an Honor Book by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities. His recent book Was America Founded as a Christian Nation: A Historical Introduction (Westminster/John Knox Press, 2011) was one of three finalists for the George Washington Book Prize, one of the largest literary prizes in the United States. John is also co-editor (with Jay Green and Eric Miller) of Confessing History: Explorations in Christian Faith and the Historian's Vocation. (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), a finalist for the Lilly Fellows Program in Arts and Humanities Book Award. His book Why Study History?: Reflecting on the Importance of the Past was published in 2013 with Baker Academic. John's book The Bible Cause: A History of the American Bible Society will appear in May 2016 with Oxford University. This book will be followed by a narrative history of the American Revolution in New Jersey that will be published by Rutgers University Press.