Kevin M. Burton

historian

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Nell Irvin Painter | Princeton University
"Kevin Burton has made original, crucial contributions to the social and religious histories of the United States"

publications

Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America

(New York University Press, 2026)

“Israel Dammon, Millerism, and Religious Intolerance in Nineteenth-Century America,” Journal of Adventist Archives 4 (2024): 76–112.

“Adventists and the Military,” in The Oxford Handbook of Seventh-day Adventism (Oxford University Press, 2024).

Public History

“Adventist Pioneers as Social Reformers.” The JustCoz Podcast with Dilys Brooks and

Nathan Brown, April 13, 2026

John Corrigan | Florida State University
"groundbreaking and stunningly meticulous"

a little about me

positions

assistant professor

Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary

2021 - present

director

Center for Adventist Research, Andrews University

2021 - present

president elect

Association of Seventh-day Adventist Historians

2025 - present

education

PhD in Religion

Florida State University

2023

MA in Religion

Andrews University

2015

biography

Kevin M. Burton is an assistant professor of church history at the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary at Andrews University, Berrien Springs, Michigan. He specializes in American religious history with a focus on minority religions and evangelicalism, particularly in reference to religious intolerance, politics, race, and gender. He joined the Department of Church History in 2021 and also serves as the director of the Center for Adventist Research, a leading archive in the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Burton has published several academic book reviews, encyclopedia entries, book chapters, and journal articles on American religious history. He is the author of Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America, which was published in the North American Religions series by New York University Press in 2026. This book argues for a strong relationship between apocalypticism and social reform politics in antebellum America. Social reform discourse and evangelical historiography have long emphasized millennialism and virtually ignored apocalypticism in political contexts. However, Apocalyptic Abolitionism treats millennialism and apocalypticism as intimately connected concepts that are distinguishable by time: the former is defined by gradualism (the millennium will eventually come), while the latter is rooted in immediatism (the millennium is coming now!). Immediacy gives millennialism apocalyptic force by positioning the “unreformed” on the threshold of doom before the arrival of prophesied violence, thus encouraging reform to avert divine judgment. The suspended nature of the apocalyptic present was a driving force within antebellum reform movements.

Burton has received some awards for his work in American religious history. In 2022, he received the Porterfield Prize, which recognizes excellence in research by a graduate student at Florida State University. In 2023, he defended his doctoral dissertation with distinction, and in 2024 he was selected to participate in the prestigious Young Scholar’s in American Religion program hosted by the Center for the Study of Religion & American Culture at Indiana University Indianapolis.

Burton is an active mentor and scholar. In 2025, Burton became the president elect for the Association of Seventh-day Adventist Historians and he serves as a graduate student mentor for the Society of Historians of the Early American Republic. He regularly presents academic papers at conferences and is actively engaged in public history work, including interviews, lectures, and tours, in the United States and numerous other countries in the world.