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Molly Worthen Headshot

Adjunct Associate Professor
History

mworthen@unc.edu

Molly Worthen is an associate professor of history and a freelance journalist. She received her B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University. Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history. Her most recent book, Apostles of Reason, examines American evangelical intellectual life since 1945, especially the internal conflicts among different evangelical subcultures. Her first book, The Man On Whom Nothing Was Lost, is a behind-the-scenes study of American diplomacy and higher education told through the lens of biography. She created an audio and video course for The Great Courses, “History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Modern Megachurch.” She recently released an audio course for Audible, “Charismatic Leaders Who Remade America.”

Worthen teaches courses on North American religion and politics, and the history of ideas in civic life. She has been involved in UNC’s Program for Public Discourse since 2019. Worthen writes about religion, politics and higher education for the New York Times and has also contributed to the New Yorker, Slate, the American Prospect, Foreign Policy and other publications. She is currently writing a book about the history of political and religious charisma in America, due out in 2025 from Penguin Random House.