Panel Series: Christian Nationalism and the 2024 Election

Nancy T. Ammerman is professor emerita at Boston University School of Theology, where she served as professor of sociology of religion (2003-2019), after having previously taught at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology (1984-95), and at Hartford Seminary’s Hartford Institute for Religion Research (1995-2003).  At Boston University, she also served the College of Arts and Sciences as associate dean of the faculty for the social sciences (2015-18), as chair of the department of sociology (2007-13), and director of the graduate division of religious studies (2014-15). Ammerman’s earliest work explored grassroots Fundamentalists and analyzed the organizational architecture of the 1980s conservative takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention. Her most recent research has focused on everyday lived religion across a wide religious and geographic spectrum, including working with Grace Davie (University of Exeter) to coordinate an international team of scholars to assess “Religions and Social Progress” for the International Panel on Social Progress.

Ruth Braunstein is associate professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, where she is director of Undergraduate Studies and director of the Meanings of Democracy Lab. A cultural sociologist interested in the role of religion and morality in American political life, Braunstein's award-winning research has been published in the top peer-reviewed journals in her field, and has been covered in major news outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, and Time Magazine. She also writes frequently for public audiences, including at The Guardian, Religion News Service, and The Conversation. 

Her forthcoming book, My Tax Dollars: The Morality of Taxpaying in America (Princeton University Press), examines how the mundane act of taxpaying can, under certain circumstances, become infused with intense moral significance -- sometimes positive, sometimes negative -- with major implications for American politics and institutions. This project is supported by grants from the Louisville Institute, the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR), the Swarthmore College Peace Collection, and the University of Connecticut. 

Jack Delehanty is an associate professor of sociology at Clark University. His research addresses how religion and moral thinking contour American civic life and politics. His recent book, Making Moral Citizens, explains how community organizers bring people together across race, class, and religious lines to build collective political power. Delehanty has also studied how religion can animate conservative politics and fuel discriminatory attitudes.

Cheryl Townsend Gilkes is the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor Emerita of African-American Studies and Sociology at Colby College (Waterville, Maine). An ordained Baptist minister, she is an assistant pastor for special projects at the Union Baptist Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has served as visiting faculty at several seminaries and schools of divinity, most recently Chicago Theological Seminary and Yale University. She also serves as a Distinguished Professor, Community Liaison, and Research Consultant for the Hartford International University for Religion and Peace (formerly Hartford Seminary). She holds degrees in sociology from Northeastern University (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.), has pursued graduate theological studies at Boston University's School of Theology, and has received an honorary Doctor of Divinity (D. D.) from Ursinus College. In addition to her book, If It Wasn't for the Women: Black Women's Experience and Womanist Culture in Church and Community, she has published articles in scholarly journals and edited volumes on race and ethnicity, the work of W.E.B. Du Bois, and African American religion. She has also published sermons in several journals and edited volumes. Until the pandemic, she was "Dr. Dr. Cheryl" on Colby College's radio station where she hosted a gospel music radio show, "The Uncloudy Day," for 19 years. Since the pandemic, she has contributed several opinion pieces to Religion News Service and has written the introduction to the fiftieth anniversary publication of James Cone’s book, The Spirituals and the Blues: An Interpretation.

M. Cathleen Kaveny is a scholar who focuses on the relationship of law, religion, and morality, serves as the Darald and Juliet Libby Professor at Boston College, a position that includes appointments in both the department of theology and the law school. She is the first faculty member to hold such a joint appointment. A member of the Massachusetts Bar, Kaveny clerked for the Honorable John T. Noonan Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and worked as an associate at the Boston law firm of Ropes & Gray in its health law group. She was the 2018-2019 Cary and Ann Maguire Chair in Ethics and American History at the Kluge Center of the Library of Congress. Kaveny has published four books and over a hundred articles and essays, in journals and books specializing in law, ethics, and medical ethics. She serves on the masthead of Commonweal as a regular columnist. Her books include Law’s Virtues: Fostering Autonomy and Solidarity in American Society (Georgetown University Press, 2012); A Culture of Engagement: Law, Religion, and Morality (Georgetown University Press, 2016); Prophecy without Contempt: Religious Discourse in the Public Square (Harvard University Press, 2016); and Ethics at the Edges of Law: Christian Moralists and American Legal Thought (Oxford University Press, 2018). Kaveny regularly teaches contract law to first-year law students. She also teaches a number of seminars which explore the relationship between theology, philosophy, and law, such as “Faith, Morality, and Law,” “Mercy and Justice,” and “Complicity.” Kaveny is the chair of the board of trustees of the Journal of Religious Ethics. She has been the president of the Society of Christian Ethics, the major professional society for scholars of Christian ethics and moral theology in North America. It meets annually in conjunction with the Society of Jewish Ethics and the Society for the Study of Muslim Ethics. Kaveny has served on a number of editorial boards including The American Journal of Jurisprudence, The Journal of Religious Ethics, the Journal of Law and Religion, and The Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics. She has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, Yale University, and Georgetown University, and a visiting scholar at the University of Chicago’s Martin Marty Center. From 1995 until 2013 she taught law and theology at the University of Notre Dame, where she was a John P. Murphy Foundation Professor of Law. 

Sarah Riccardi-Swartz is an assistant professor of religion and anthropology at Northeastern University, where she is also an affiliate faculty member in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. Her research focuses on conservative politics, race, media worlds, gender and sexuality, and Orthodox Christianity. She is the author of Between Heaven and Russia: Religious Conversion and Political Authority in Appalachia (Fordham University Press, 2022). She produced and directed Pixelating Holiness, a short documentary film which screened at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in 2018. Beyond academic work, she has appeared on numerous podcasts and has written for The Immanent Frame, The Conversation, Canopy Forum, and Religion Dispatches. Her work on religion and politics in the United States has been supported by the Social Science Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Citizens and Scholars (formerly the Woodrow Wilson Foundation), the Fetzer Institute, and the Louisville Institute, among others.

Mark Silk is Professor of Religion in Public Life Emeritus at Trinity College, from which he retired in June 2023. After receiving his Ph.D. in history from Harvard University, he edited the Boston Review and spent 10 years as a reporter, editorial writer, and columnist for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life as well as a faculty member at Trinity College. He is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II, Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America, and (with Andrew Walsh) One Nation, Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. He has co-edited two book series, Religion by Region (8 vols.) and The Future of Religion in America (5 vols.). Currently he is a contributing editor and weekly columnist for the Religion News Service and a visiting scholar at the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life at Boston College.

Evan Stewart is an assistant professor of sociology at University of Massachusetts Boston. His research centers on a variety of topics focused on the stakes of pluralism in social life: what brings diverse groups of people together and what breaks them apart? This work currently focuses on climate inequality, religious pluralism, and belonging in public life. This work has appeared in American Sociological Review, Social Forces, Social Problems, and Sociological Theory, among other outlets. Stewart is also an associate editor at the journal Sociology of Religion. Public sociology is an important part of his scholarly work. He was a 2021-2022 fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute and the editor and principal author at Sociological Images - one of the largest sociology blogs in the country. Stewart's research has also been featured on media outlets including WBUR Boston, The Conversation, Washington Post’s Monkey Cage, and FiveThirtyEight. Stewart earned a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Minnesota, where he worked as an Edelstein Fellow with the American Mosaic Project and an Interdisciplinary Doctoral Fellow with the Center for the Study of Political Psychology. He also holds an M.A. in Sociology from UMN and a B.A. in Political Theory and Social Policy from Michigan State University’s James Madison College.

Dr. Aaron Q. Weinstein is an assistant professor in the Department of Politics at Fairfield University. He specializes in American political thought, with a particular emphasis upon the American Civil Religion (ACR). His research has appeared in numerous peer-reviewed scholarly outlets, including Politics, Religion & Ideology; American Political Thought; and New Political Science, among others.

Rhys H. Williams (Ph.D., University of Massachusetts, 1988) is professor emeritus of Sociology at Loyola University Chicago.  His research interests focus on religion in American politics and culture, including recent attention to the politics of immigration in public discourse and attitudes.  His books include A Bridging of Faiths: Religion and Politics in a New England City (Princeton 1992; w/ N.J. Demerath III), Cultural Wars in American Politics (Aldine 1997), Religion & Progressive Activism (New York University Press, w/ Ruth Braunstein and Todd Fuist), and Civil Religion Today: Religion and the American Nation in the 21st Century (NYU Press, w/ Ray Haberski and Philip Goff).  Williams’ articles have appeared in the American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Sociological Theory, Theory & Society, Sociology of Religion, and the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, among others.