ST. AUGUSTINE, FL (08/26/2013)(readMedia)-- After successfully planning a March conference on the same subject, Flagler College Professor of Religion Timothy Johnson has published his third text of the year, "From La Florida to La California: Franciscan Evangelization in the Spanish Borderlands."
Published by the Academy of American Franciscan History, the book highlights the history and the role the Franciscans played in bringing the Christian faith to the North American continent.
"Although the Franciscan missions in California have been popularized in American culture, the friars were in Florida 200 years before California," said Johnson. "As a matter of fact, their headquarters were in the current National Guard building on St. Augustine's bay front."
Johnson's book contains essays from scholars from several countries on both sides of the Atlantic.
Johnson says Flagler College will host another conference in March of 2014 focusing on the indigenous peoples who encountered the Franciscans and will include representatives from the Navaho and Hopi nations.
In 2013, Johnson also published "The Soul in Ascent: Bonaventure on Poverty, Prayer, and Union with God" (Franciscan Institute Press) and "Franciscans and Preaching" (Brill Academic Press).
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Flagler College is an independent, four-year, comprehensive baccalaureate college located in St. Augustine, Fla. The college offers 29 majors, 34 minors and two pre-professional programs, the largest majors being business, education and communication. Small by intent, Flagler College has an enrollment of about 2,500 students, as well as a satellite campus at Tallahassee Community College in Tallahassee, Fla. U.S. News & World Report and The Princeton Review regularly feature Flagler as a college that offers quality education at a relatively low cost. A Flagler education is less than half the cost of similar private colleges, and competitive with many state universities. A relatively young institution (founded in 1968), Flagler College is also noted for its historic beauty. The centerpiece of the campus is the former Hotel Ponce de Leon, a grand resort built in 1888 by Henry M. Flagler, industrialist, railroad pioneer and co-founder of Standard Oil. The Ponce has been designated as a National Historic Landmark. For more on Flagler College, visit www.flagler.edu.