Andrew Himes

Andrew Himes is the author of The Sword of the Lord: The Roots of Fundamentalism in an American Family. He was born into one of the leading fundamentalist families of the 20th century. Himes' grandfather was John R. Rice, dean of American fundamentalists for decades until his death in 1980, and mentor to many younger Baptist preachers including Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, as well as founding editor of The Sword of the Lord newspaper. Himes' great-grandfather, Will Rice, was a preacher, a Texas State senator, and a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan in Texas during the 1920s. By the time Himes was four, he had been saved; by the time he was 17, he’d turned his back on the career as a Baptist preacher expected of him by his family, becoming instead an activist in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 60s. Only later in life did he begin a spiritual journey to reconnect with and redefine his family’s spiritual heritage in blog posts and in the pages of his book The Sword of the Lord as well as a 2009 staged monologue titled Revival! How I Got Saved, Got Lost, and Failed to Overthrow the Imperialist Bourgeoisie.

In 1989, Himes was founding editor of MacTech, the premiere journal of Macintosh software development. In 1992, he was founding editor of the Microsoft Developer Network, and then led the first web development project in the history of the company, a project dubbed the MSDN OffRamp, aimed at making articles, resources, and technical information available on the Internet to an audience of software developers. Beginning in 1994 Himes managed Microsoft's platform web team producing the sites for all of Microsoft’s operating systems, browsers, development tools, and technologies. After leaving Microsoft, he founded Project Alchemy, a non-profit company providing technology assistance, training, consulting, database and web solutions to hundreds of grassroots organizations working for social justice in the Pacific Northwest.

Himes was co-founder in 2003 of the international movement, Poets Against the War, and produced the acclaimed 2005 documentary Voices in Wartime, an exploration of the trauma of war through the lens of poetry. He co-founded Charter for Compassion International in 2009, and currently serves as director of collective impact for the Carbon Leadership Forum hosted at the University of Washington.