David W Bebbington

David W. Bebbington (born 1949) is a Professor of History at the University of Stirling in Scotland and a distinguished Visiting Professor of History at Baylor University. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Historical Society. An undergraduate at Jesus College, Cambridge (1968–71), Bebbington began his doctoral studies there (1971–73) before becoming a research fellow of Fitzwilliam College (1973–76). Since 1976 he has taught at the University of Stirling, where since 1999 he has been Professor of History. His principal research interests are in the history of politics, religion, and society in Great Britain from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and in the history of the global evangelical movement.

Bebbington is widely known for his definition of evangelicalism, referred to as the "Bebbington quadrilateral", which was first provided in his 1989 classic study Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. Bebbington identifies four main qualities which are to be used in defining evangelical convictions and attitudes:

• biblicism, a particular regard for the Bible (e.g. all essential spiritual truth is to be found in its pages)
• crucicentrism, a focus on the atoning work of Christ on the cross
• conversionism, the belief that human beings need to be converted
• activism, the belief that the gospel needs to be expressed in effort

Bebbington (along with Mark Noll and others) has exerted a large amount of effort in placing evangelicalism on the world map of religious history. Through their efforts they have made it more difficult for scholars to ignore the influence of evangelicals in the world since the movement’s inception in the eighteenth century.

Bebbington is married to Eileen, and has a daughter Anne Bebbington and granddaughter Becky. He lives in the village of Bridge of Allan and is a longtime member of Stirling Baptist Church, where he has held various positions of leadership. He is also a regular lay preacher for churches affiliated to the Baptist Union of Scotland.