Matthew D. Taylor, Ph.D.
Senior Scholar | Protestant Scholar
Matthew D. Taylor, Ph.D., is a Senior Scholar and the Protestant Scholar at ICJS, where he specializes in Muslim-Christian dialogue, Evangelical and Pentecostal movements, religious politics in the U.S., and American Islam. Prior to coming to ICJS, Taylor served on the faculty of Georgetown University and The George Washington University. He is a member of the American Academy of Religion, the North American Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies. Taylor holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies and Muslim-Christian Relations from Georgetown University and an M.A. in Theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. His book, Scripture People: Salafi Muslims in Evangelical Christians’ America (Cambridge University Press), offers an introduction to the oft-misunderstood Salafi movement in the U.S. by way of comparison with American Evangelicalism. He is also the creator of the acclaimed audio-documentary series “Charismatic Revival Fury: The New Apostolic Reformation,” which details how networks of extremist Christian leaders helped instigate the January 6th Insurrection. His next book, The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian movement that is threatening our democracy (Broadleaf Books), will be published in Fall 2024.
EXPERTISE
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
SELECTED PRESENTATIONS
- Muslim-Christian Relations
- Comparative Religion
- Evangelicalism and Pentecostalism
- Salafism in the U.S.
- Christian Nationalism
- Interreligious Encounter
Publications
BOOKS:
The Violent Take It By Force: The Christian Movement That is Threatening Our Democracy (Broadleaf Books, Fall 2024)
Scripture People: Salafi Muslims in Evangelical Christians’ America (Cambridge University Press—2023)
ARTICLES:
The peril radicalizing some evangelicals goes beyond Christian nationalism, Religion News Service, April 4, 2024
Mike Johnson Is Mainstreaming the Spirituality that Gave Us the Capitol Riot, The Bulwark, Feb. 6, 2024
The Key to Mike Johnson’s Christian Extremism Is Hanging Outside His Office, co-authored with Bradley Onishi, Rolling Stone, Nov. 10, 2023
Mike Johnson, Polite Extremist, The Bulwark, Oct. 30, 2023
Roger Stone and the Key to Trump’s Evangelical Support, The Bulwark, May 31, 2023
Evidence Strongly Suggests Trump Was Collaborating with Christian Nationalist Leaders Before January 6th, co-authored with Bradley Onishi, Religion Dispatches, Jan. 6, 2023
“Dabru Emet’s Imagined Future: Doing Eschatology with an Interreligious Sensitivity” (online forum) American Religion
BOOK REVIEWS:
An American Biblical Orientalism: The Construction of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Nineteenth-Century American Evangelical Piety by David D. Grafton for Dialog: A Journal of Theology (September 2020)
Sacrifice in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam by David L. Weddle (NYU Press, 2017) for Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion (January 2019)
Why I Am a Salafi by Michael Muhammad Knight (Soft Skull Press, 2015) for the American Journal of Islam and Society, Vol. 35, no. 2 (Spring 2018)
“Transborder Networks of Christian Internationalism: American ‘Christian Nationalism’ and the Global Apostolic and Prophetic Movement” at Georgetown University – Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and Global Affairs (March 2023)
“Shofars and a Messianic Rabbi at the Capitol Riot? American Christian Nationalism’s Jewish Edge” at the American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX (November 2021)
“‘We are going to rule and reign through Trump and under the lordship of Jesus Christ’ – A Stereotype-defying, Immigrant, Christian Nationalist Pastor at the January DC Protests” at the American Academy of Religion, San Antonio, TX (November 2021)
“Between Saudi Authenticity and American Integration: Post-Salafi Shaykhs Straddle National and International Identities” at the British International Studies Association (June 2021)
“Reformed Theology’s Reasons for (and Hesitation about) Interreligious Dialogue” for The Reformed Institute of Metropolitan Washington, Washington, DC (June 2021)
“Engaging Evangelical Christians in Interfaith Dialogue” at the Sisterhood of Salaam Shalom National Conference, Doylestown, PA (November 2019)
“Common-sense Idioms in a Shared Environment: Why do Salafis in America sound so much like Evangelical Christians?” at the North American Association of Islamic and Muslim Studies, Boston, MA (September 2019)
“White Supremacy, Christian Theology, and the Rising Violence against Jews and Muslims” for Hadassah of Greater Baltimore (May 2019)
“Evangelical Christianity, American Politics, and the State of Israel” for the Baltimore Hebrew Congregation – Interfaith Institute (March 2019)
The Capitol Riot & the Crisis in Christian Identity
2022-05-17Many journalists, scholars, and observers noted the plethora of Christian symbols, chants, songs, slogans, and flags on display during the Capitol Riot on January 6, 2021. In this lecture, following up on his course on Christian Nationalism and drawing on his own research into the Capitol Riot, ICJS Protestant Scholar Matthew D. Taylor made the case that much of the seemingly chaotic Christianity on display in the Capitol Riot is actually quite coherent and emerges from some of the fastest growing and most influential segments of the American Christian community. Taylor called on Christians to reckon with the radicalization that is occurring within the Christian community, the threat it poses to American religious pluralism, and the potential for future religiously inflected political violence.
Messianic Judaism and Christian Zionism
2023-05-02Judaism and Christianity have had a long and entwined history ever since the early Christian church emerged from first-century Judaism. Today some Christians also identify as being Jewish (a.k.a., Messianic Jews), and many Christians, known as Christian Zionists, support the modern state of Israel for theological reasons. This course examined the background and present-day complexities of these Christian identifications with (or attachments to) Judaism.
See MoreSelect Publications and Presentations
Charismatic Revival Fury: The New Apostolic Reformation
Podcast series that details how networks of extremist Christian leaders helped instigate the January 6th Insurrection.
READ MOREScripture People: Salafi Muslims in Evangelical Christians’ America.
Scripture People is the first book-length study of the Salafi movement in the U.S. and the challenges it has faced post-9/11
READ MOREMatt Taylor in the News
A collection of articles on Christian nationalism quoting Matt Taylor
READ MORE