bio

Thomas Albert (Tal) Howard (PhD, University of Virginia) is Professor of Humanities and History and holder of the Phyllis and Richard Duesenberg Chair in Christian Ethics at Valparaiso University, where he is affiliated with Christ College, Valparaiso’s humanities-based honors college.  He also serves as a Senior Fellow for the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and the Arts.  Prior to coming to Valparaiso, he taught at Gordon College, where he founded and directed the Jerusalem and Athens Forum honors program and led the Center for Faith and Inquiry.  He is the author or editor of several books, including The Faiths of Others: A History of Interreligious Dialogue (Yale University Press, 2021), The Pope and the Professor: Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age (Oxford University Press, 2017), Remembering the Reformation: An Inquiry into the Meanings of Protestantism (Oxford University Press, 2016), Protestant Theology and the Making of the Modern German University (Oxford University Press, 2006), and (edited with Mark A. Noll) Protestantism after 500 Years (Oxford University Press, 2016).  His writings have appeared in peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of the History of Ideas, History of Universities, Journal of Church and State, and Journal of the American Academy of Religion, and in more general venues such as Hedgehog Review, Wall Street Journal, Modern Age, Touchstone, Inside Higher Ed, National Interest, Christian Century, First Things, University Bookman, Books and Culture, and Commonweal.  His writings have been translated into German, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese.  He is currently working on two research and writing projects: “Modern Christian Theology: An Intellectual History” (under contract with Princeton University Press) and “Unholy Wars: Secularist Violence in Modern History” (under contract with Yale University Press).  For speaking and other engagements, please contact him at tal.howard@valpo.edu