Praxis Circle Contributor Molly Worthen is a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a freelance journalist. Her research explores North American religious and intellectual history, focusing on the intersections of belief, culture, and politics. Praxis Circle interviewed Molly to get her perspective on Christianity in America today, along with our interest in her personal conversion from agnosticism to the Christian faith and worldview.
Raised in Illinois, Dr. Worthen received a B.A. in History and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Yale University. She is the author of three books: The Man On Whom Nothing Was Lost (2006), a biographical study illuminating the relationship between American diplomacy and higher education; Apostles of Reason (2013), an examination of American evangelical intellectual life since 1945 and the internal tensions among evangelical subcultures; and her most recent book, Spellbound (2025), which traces the history of charisma as both a religious and political concept from the Puritans to the Trump era.
Molly has also created several educational courses, including History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch for The Great Courses and Charismatic Leaders Who Remade America for Audible. She lectures widely on religion, politics, and the history of ideas, and teaches courses on North American religious and intellectual culture and global Christianity.
In addition to her academic work, Molly writes about religion, politics, and higher education for The New York Times, and her essays have appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker, Slate, and other publications.
