Roger Baumann

Roger Baumann’s research and teaching focus on questions about collective identity and social action. He is especially interested in how overlapping racial, religious, and national identities contribute to how members of religious groups collectively understand who they are, where they come from, and what they should be doing in the world.

His book Black Visions of the Holy Land (Columbia University Press, 2024) analyzes African American Christian engagement with the global issue of Israel and Palestine. It examines how different groups of Black Christians invoke and contest the identity, history, and mission of “the Black Church” as they approach the conflict.

Another recent project, American Evangelicals, Islam, and the Competition for Religious Authority, analyzes hundreds of books written by and for evangelical Christians about Islam and Muslims in the last half century. It asks, What is the religious, political, and social significance of American evangelical struggles over the authority to define Islam and Muslims? And what are the implications of this struggle for how evangelicals draw boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in the American public sphere?

Featured Work: Black Visions of the Holy Land: African American Christian Engagement with Israel and Palestine