Education

• PhD, Boston College (2016)
• MAR, Yale University (2009)
• BA, University of Western Ontario (2007)

Research Interests

My research specializes in the Religious History of the Americas (North & Latin America) and the ways in which various contemporary Christian communities (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Pentecostal) dynamically interact with modern and postmodern cultures: intellectual-philosophical, pluralistic-democratic, popular-aesthetic, scientific-technological cultures. In my most recent book, AB Simpson and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism, I examine this leading figure in North American religion at the turn of the 19th/20th centuries and show how Simpson crafted an “enchanted modernity” that both spurned aspects of Gilded Age modern developments and also provided a highly devout and supernaturalist pathway through modernity. The book further displays how Simpson played a role in shaping many of the key developments in Evangelical religious culture of the time. My first book, The Freedom of God: A Study in the Pneumatology of Robert Jenson, engaged a major contemporary Christian thinker’s interpretation of the symbol of the Holy Spirit against the backdrop of a range of 20th century Holy Spirit movements and discourses.

Teaching

• American Religious Historiography (RELG 8760)
• Christian Nationalism (RELC 5559)
• Global Christianity (RELC 2245)
• American Catholic History (RELC 2401)
• Evangelicalism (RELC 3115)
• Eastern Orthodoxy (RELC 3043)
• Ethical Engagements (EGMT 1540)
• Holy Spirit in Christian Tradition (RELC 3559)
• Religious Americana (RELG 4500)
• Religious Bioethics (RELG 2650)
• 20th c. Roman Catholic Theology (RELC 3559)

Selected Publications

Books

A.B. Simpson and the Making of Modern Evangelicalism (McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2019)

The Freedom of God: A Study in the Pneumatology of Robert Jenson (Fortress Academic/Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)

Articles

"Five Books That Shaped the Study of American Religions" Religious Studies Review, 50th Anniversary ed. (forthcoming, 2025)

"Review of Aaron Ross, The Holy Spirit and the Eagle Feather: The Struggle for Indigenous Pentecostalism in Canada (McGill-Queen's, 2023)", Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 53.3 (September 2024)

"Review of Carl Weinberg, Red Dynamite: Creationism, Culture Wars, and Anticommunism in America (Cornell University Press, 2021)," Journal of American History, 109.4 (March 2023)

"Review of Dennis Dickerson, The African Methodist Episcopal Church: A History (Cambridge University Press, 2020)," Religious Studies Review, 46.4 (Dec 2020)

“Invitation to the Triune Conversation: Explorations of Prayer through the Theology of Robert Jenson,” Dialog: Journal of Theology, 52:4 (Winter 2013): 340-48

“Chants of Conversion: Inspiration, Individualism and Adherence in American Evangelicalism” Journal of Religion & Society, 11:1 (2009)

Select Awards & Grants

UVA Dean's Office Faculty Summer Research Grant (2024)

UVA Seven Society Monticello Dinner Series Honoree for Contribution to Students (2023)

Boston College Donald J. White Award for Teaching Excellence

Boston College Dean of Summer Session Doctoral Teaching & Research Fellowship

Social Science & Humanities Research Council of Canada Doctoral Fellowship

Yale Rev. Harry B. Adams Academic Scholarship

Governor General of Canada’s Medal for Academic Excellence