Darren Schmidt
Adjunct Faculty
I completed my PhD in Divinity (Church History) at the University of St. Andrews (Scotland) in 2009 and an MA in History from Queen’s University (Kingston, ON) in 1998. Prior to relocating to southern Ontario in 2013, I taught at several colleges and universities in Edmonton, AB, and was a visiting research fellow at The King’s University College, also in Edmonton.
The main focus of my research is the interpretations and uses of Christianity’s history in the early modern English-speaking context by thinkers and writers including Jonathan Edwards, John Wesley and other figures. How did they connect their reflections on the Christian past with their religious self-identities? This interest has fostered my broader fascination with ways in which historical Christianity is (re)interpreted, integrated, or, for that matter, ignored.
Research / Areas of Expertise
- history of Christianity
- history of Early Modern Europe and North America
- Christian ethics
- President, Canadian Society of Church History, 2011–2012, and executive member, 2010–2011 and 2012–2013.
- Sir Richard Stapley Educational Trust Grant recipient (U.K.), 2007 - 2008.
- Stanford and Priscilla Reid Trust Grant recipient, 2005 - 2008.
To date, I have not supervised students at Martin Luther University College (formerly Waterloo Lutheran Seminary). I have supervised Honours undergraduate and master’s students in Religious Studies.
- Schmidt, Darren. “Erasmus Middleton’s Biographia Evangelica (1779–86).” In Evangelicalism and Its Historians. Edited by Andrew Atherstone and David Ceri Jones. Ashgate Studies in Evangelicalism. London & New York: Routledge, forthcoming.
- Schmidt, Darren. “Different Streams . . . into the Same Great Ocean": Jonathan Edwards, Robert Millar, and Transatlantic Influence on A History of the Work of Redemption." Jonathan Edwards Studies 5:1 (Spring 2015).
- Schmidt, Darren. “Church Historical Writing in the English Transatlantic World during the Age of Enlightenment.” Historical Papers (proceedings of the Canadian Society of Church History), 2012.
- Schmidt, Darren. “The Pattern of Revival: John Wesley’s Vision of ‘Iniquity’ and ‘Godliness’ in Church History.” In Studies in Church History 44: Revival and Resurgence in Christian History. Edited by Kate Cooper and Jeremy Gregory. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer for the Ecclesiastical History Society, 2008.