This is thinking in public a program dedicated to intelligent conversation about

front-line theological and cultural issues with the people who are shaping them.

I'm Albert Mughler, your host and president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville,

Kentucky.

Thomas Kidd is Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor University, where he also serves as Associate Director of

Baylor's Institute for Studies of Religion.

He writes regularly for the blog Evangelical History hosted at the Gospel Coalition website.

He also frequently contributes to news outlets such as

World magazine, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal. Dr. Kidd has authored many

books including The Great Awakening, The Roots of Evangelical Christianity in Colonial America,

Patrick Henry, first among Patriots, and George Whitfield America's Spiritual Founding

Founding Father.

His most recent book, this time from Yale University Press,

is Benjamin Franklin, the Religious Life of a Founding Father.

Professor Thomas Kidd, welcome to Thinking in Public.

Professor Kidd, your book on Benjamin Franklin's religious life really addresses a dimension of Franklin

that no one's written about and perhaps even really thought about for some time.

How did you come to Benjamin Franklin's

religious life for such a major project? Well as you know I published a

biography of George Whitfield in 2014, and that led me into the discussion of

Whitfield and Franklin's relationship, which started as a business partnership in the 1740s but turned into a close

an enduring friendship that lasted for 30 years and Franklin really admired Whitfield in spite of the fact that Franklin clearly, as he wonderfully

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