Ph.D. in history, Johns Hopkins University (1999)
Advisor: Dorothy Ross
Dissertation: "'This Holy Hieroglyph': Providence and Historical Consciousness in George Bancroft's Historiography"

M.A. in Hebrew Bible, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School (1991)
Advisor: John Sailhamer
Thesis: "'Sing an Old Song to the Lord': 1 Chr. 16:8-36, the Psalter, and the Chronicler's Historiography"

B.A. in history, University of Michigan (1988)
Advisor: David Hollinger
Thesis: "'God's Book, Man's Book': A Prospect on William Rainey Harper's Biblical World"

Professional Development

InterVarsity Christian Fellowship
Associate Director, Graduate & Faculty Ministries (2003- )
Conference Director, Following Christ 2008 (2007- )
Web Producer, Information Services (2003–2007)
Program Director, Following Christ 2002 (2001-2003)

North Park University
Adjunct Professor of History (2006)

Encyclopædia Britannica and Britannica.com
Assistant Editor through Senior Editor (1999-2000)

Northwestern University Library
Catalog Management & Acquisitions Library Aide (1998-1999)

Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford University Press
Freelance researcher (1998-1999)

Selected Volunteer Service

Jon's sophomore-year ID from New Trier.

Council Member and Vice Chair, Grace Evangelical Covenant Church, Chicago (2004– )

Associate Dean of Humanities, Following Christ / Shaping Our World conference (1997-1999)

Member, Board of Directors, Central-Bennett West, Inc. (1997-1999)

Campus Volunteer, InterVarsity Graduate & Faculty Ministries, Northwestern University (1996-1998)

Recent Non-Academic Teaching and Presentations

"The Spirit Speaks," guest sermon on Acts 1:12–26, Grace Evangelical Covenant Church, Chicago, February 4, 2007.

"Higher Education," campus-wide chapel sermon on Daniel 1-6, Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Ga., November 5, 2004.

Chair of a panel, "Christians in Graduate School," at the biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, Hope College, Holland, Mich., October 14, 2004.

"All Things in Common," guest sermon on Acts 2:42-47, Grace Evangelical Covenant Church, Chicago, May 23, 2004.

"Contentment and Vision in an Academic Calling: Spiritual Formation throughout the Academic Life," paper presented at the conference, "Christianity and the Soul of the University," Baylor University, Waco, Texas, March 26, 2004.

"Christ Is Proclaimed," guest sermon on Philippians 1:12-30, Grace Evangelical Covenant Church, Chicago, July 13, 2003.

On the theological ideas of Bill Mallonee, University of Chicago Graduate Christian Fellowship, May 10, 2002.

"The Scandal of Particularity," Sunday Morning Seminary, First Presbyterian Church of Evanston, Illinois, April 19, 1998.

On integrating faith and academic scholarship, University of Chicago Graduate Christian Fellowship, October 17, 1997.

Jon circa 1984.
photo: Kurt Ryden

Selected Publications

"Slow and Slower," review of The Wild Trees, by Richard Preston, and Dirt, by David Montgomery, The Common Review 6, no. 2 (Fall 2007), 44–46.

"Windy City," in The Encyclopedia of Chicago, ed. James R. Grossman, Ann Durkin Keating, and Janice L. Reiff, 882 (University of Chicago Press), 2004.

"If We Ever Needed the Lord Before," Books & Culture 5, no. 3 (May/June 1999): 40-42.

"The Oriole" (poem), Baseball Research Journal 24 (1995): 15-16.

Review of Religious Advocacy and American History, ed. Bruce Kuklick and D. G. Hart, Fides et Historia 29, no. 3 (Fall 1997): 87-89.

Ann and Jon get married (Oct 8, 2000). That's my brother Jim in the background.
photo: Jane Deitrich

Recent Academic Presentations

Commentator for a panel, upcoming biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, Bluffton University, Bluffton, Ohio, September 18-20, 2008.

"Providentialism and Christian Historiography," presentation to the History Club, Covenant College, Lookout Mountain, Ga., November 5, 2004.

Commentator for a panel, "The Search for a Christian Interpretation of History," at the biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, Hope College, Holland, Mich., October 15, 2004.

"Who Says? Musings on Anonymity in Scholarship," paper as part of a panel on "Historiography as if the Incarnation Really Mattered," presented at the conference, "Christianity and the Soul of the University," Baylor University, Waco, Texas, March 26, 2004.

Commentator for a panel, "On the Morality of Providential History," at the biennial meeting of the Conference on Faith and History, Huntington College, Huntington, Ind., October 12, 2002.

"Classical Historicism and George Bancroft's Providentialism," paper as part of a panel on "Divine Languages and Human Authority in the Origins of Academia," presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Church Historians and American Historical Association, Washington, D.C., January 8, 1999.

"German Historicism in the American Republic: The Providential Nationalism of George Bancroft's Historiography," paper as part of a panel on "Dilemmas of Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Historiography," presented at the annual meeting of the Society for Historians of the Early American Repulic, Harpers Ferry, W.Va., July 17, 1998.

"'The Slowly Ripened Fruit of Providence and of Time': Historicism and Providentialism in George Bancroft's Historiography," paper presented at the Pew Fellows Conference, Yale University, May 2, 1997.

"Antebellum American-History Schoolbooks and the Subjective Reading of Providence," paper presented at the annual conference of the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, Mass., July 18, 1996.

Interests

Etymology and lexicography, jazz, hiking, maps & landscape, historical fiction, computers and electronic media, data graphics, baseball, brewing traditions, chess, and typography.