Anthea Butler is Professor of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Her work examines American religion through the lenses of race, politics, and media. She situates her scholarship within a broader effort to confront how religious narratives shape and legitimize systems of inequality. Drawing on her work on evangelicalism and Black religious life, she highlights how media amplify particular forms of religious authority while marginalizing others. Personal experience and historical analysis are tightly interwoven in her account, as she reflects on how scholarship emerges from encounters with exclusion, faith, and community. Her remarks emphasize that religion cannot be understood apart from power—whether in electoral politics, public discourse, or everyday life—challenging any attempt to isolate belief from its social consequences.
