The Conference on Faith and History 2024 Biennial Conference

Regular Registration | $165

Discounted Registration | $100

For graduate students, independent scholars, archivists/librarians, and secondary instructors.

Undergraduate Registration | $50

Ad-on | Th, Oct 10, Birmingham Civil Rights Intitute Visit | $30

Grad Student Scholarships:

We don’t want funds to be a barrier to attendance. Limited financial scholarships are available. To apply, please email CFH Board Member Andrea Turpin at [email protected] with your current academic position, your current city and state, and a brief statement of why you need the scholarship. Please also include whether you plan to present a paper at the CFH and whether you expect to receive any other sources of funding.

Presenters must be CFH Members. If you are a presenter and are not currently a member, please update your membership. Visit https://faithandhistory.org/about-chf/membership/ to become a member or renew your membership today.

Hampton Inn Birmingham Mountain Brook

Professional Meeting Reservation and Rate

Undergraduate Meeting Reservation and Rate

Courtyard by Marriott Birmingham Homewood

Professional and Undergraduate Meeting Reservation and Rate

Samford University | Birmingham, Alabama

Undergraduate Conference: October 9-10, 2024

Professional Conference: October 10-12, 2024

Context is central to historical thinking. Historians may debate how best to discern context or how to account for it as they interpret the past to the present, but the work of history rests on the insight that nothing we study in the past happened in a vacuum. All such events and ideas have to be understood in relation to a complex web of factors that changes over time.

In choosing context as the overarching theme for this year’s meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, we mean to invite papers and panels on a wide variety of topics.

First, any of the contexts that Christian historians study. Of course, many CFH members investigate the history of their own faith, but others specialize in cultural, diplomatic, economic, environmental, intellectual, military, political, social, or sports history — or the history of religions other than Christianity. In that sense, this year’s theme is meant to underscore the breadth of work done by Christian historians, with papers and panels invited on all manner of historical contexts.

Given our conference setting in Birmingham, Alabama, we particularly encourage proposals related to that local context — e.g., on the Civil Rights Movement or religion in the American South.

But as importantly, we recognize that the work of history itself has to be contextualized. So second, we invite Christian historians to consider their own contexts, to reflect on the religious, social, political, intellectual, educational, professional, and other factors that inspire, constrain, encourage, complicate, influence, or otherwise shape their work. For example, the implications of doing history within a secondary school, a public history venue, or perhaps at a college facing declining enrollment, the response of historians to contemporary injustices, the importance of history in light of the 2024 presidential election, the practice of history within a particular denomination or tradition, and the role of Christian historians in an increasingly “post-Christian” America.

We are pleased to announce the plenary speakers for the 2024 Biennial Professional and Undergraduate Conference for the Conference on Faith and History. Information about registration and accommodations will be released soon. (Tag #CFH2024 on social media.)

Undergraduate Conference Speaker
Malcolm B. Foley | Baylor University and Mosaic Church
Foley studied African American Protestant responses to lynching for his doctoral dissertation at Baylor University, where he now serves as Special Advisor to the President for Equity and Campus Engagement, while also pastoring Mosaic Church in Waco, Texas. He is author of the forthcoming book, The Anti-Greed Gospel (Brazos) and a regular columnist at the .

Professional Conference Speakers
Karen Swallow Prior | Independent Scholar
Prior is author of The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, and Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis (Brazos), (Brazos), and (Thomas Nelson). She also has edited a series of literary classics as A Guide to Reading and Reflecting for BH Books. She has formerly taught literature at both Liberty University and Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary and contributes regularly on her substack, The Priory, and as a regular columnist at Religious News Services.

Benjamin E. Park | Sam Houston State University
Park is author of (Liveright). Ben previously published the (Liveright) and (Cambridge UP). He is an Associate Professor at Sam Houston State University.

S. Jonathan Bass | Samford University
Bass is author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated (LSU Press). He is a Professor of History at Samford University.

CFH Presidential Address
Lisa Clark Diller | Southern Adventist University
Diller is an expert on religion in early modern England, who contributed a reflection on Huguenot refugees to our 2020 CFH devotional, (Baylor UP). She is a Professor of History at Southern Adventist University and a regular columnist at .

Host or Publisher The Conference on Faith and History