David began teaching at Asbury in 2010 after graduate training at the University of Notre Dame. Areas of expertise and teaching interest include American religious history, Mennonite history, twentieth-century American culture, global religion, Civil War memory, and issues of war and peace.

His first book, Moral Minority: The Evangelical Left in an Age of Conservatism (2012, 2014), was published by the University of Pennsylvania Press. This first comprehensive history of the evangelical left charts the rise, decline, and political legacy of a movement that stood for antiwar, civil rights, and anticonsumer principles, even as it stressed doctrinal fidelity. Moral Minority earned positive reviews from the New York Times, Journal of American History, Christian Century, Huffington Post, and Books & Culture.

His second book, Facing West: American Evangelicals in an Age of World Christianity (2020) was published by Oxford University Press. While we typically imagine Christian faith traveling from West to East and from North to South, Facing West shows that the line of influence also runs the other way. Grounded in interviews and archival research in Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, Uganda, Guatemala, and the United States, this history shows how missionaries and global evangelicals have shaped Americans from abroad.

Future projects include a history of the evangelical antitrafficking movement in Southeast Asia and a history of Civil War memory in Jessamine County, Kentucky.

For more of David’s writing, visit the Anxious Bench blog, his website at www.davidrswartz.com, or his podcast at www.rebelonmain.com.