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Dr. Corwin Smidt

Professor Emeritus;Senior Fellow, Paul Henry Institute

Biography

Corwin E. Smidt is a senior research fellow at the Henry Institute for the Study of Religion and Politics, Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI), and Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Calvin College.  He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and has been engaged in the study of religion and public life for nearly three decades. Smidt served as the Executive Director of the Henry Institute for fifteen years, and was a founding member of the Religion and Politics section of the American Political Science Association, serving several terms on the section’s executive council and once as its Executive Director.  He has also served on the governing council of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and was recently nominated as its President-Elect. 

He is the author, editor, or co-author/co-editor of fifteen books and has published in a variety of social and political science journals.  His most recently completed volumes are American Evangelicals Today (Rowman and Littlefield) The Disappearing God Gap? Religion in the 2008 Presidential Election (Oxford), The Oxford Handbook of Religion and American Politics (Oxford), and Pews, Prayers, and Participation: The Role of Religion in Fostering Civic Responsibility (Georgetown). 

Education

M.A., Ph.D. (Iowa, 1971, 1975)

Publications