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A look back at 2025, and what’s coming in 2026!
As we move into the early weeks of 2026, we wanted to take a moment to pause, look back on the past year, and share a glimpse of what’s ahead for the Center for the Study of Evangelicalism.
Although the Center officially launched in late 2024, 2025 marked our first full year of sustained programming – and it quickly became clear just how much appetite there is for careful, historically grounded, and publicly engaged scholarship on Evangelicalism. Over the course of the year, we were grateful to host a wide range of conversations that reflected both the diversity of the field and the urgency of the questions it raises.
Looking Back: 2025 at the Center
Throughout 2025, the Center hosted 15 public events, welcoming 16 scholars, journalists, and public intellectuals, and drawing thousands of attendees including students, faculty, clergy, and community members. Our events took place on campus at UCCS, in partnership with community venues, and at CU Denver – reflecting our commitment to meeting audiences where they are and fostering conversations that extend beyond the university. Please visit the Center’s YouTube channel for videos of most of the following talks.
Our year began in February with:
- Jimmy’s Faith: Baldwin & Black Religion — An Evening with Christopher W. Hunt
Dr. Christopher W. Hunt (Colorado College) joined us to discuss James Baldwin, disidentification, and the queer possibilities of Black religion. - Spiritual Relation & Hallowed Ground — An Evening with Todne Thomas
Dr. Todne Thomas (Yale University) explored Black evangelical sociality, kinship, and the sacred through ethnographic research.
In March, we turned to the fraught intersection of religion and politics:
- White Christian Nationalism & the Future of U.S. Politics
A moderated conversation with Dr. Anthea Butler (University of Pennsylvania) and Dr. Randall Balmer (Dartmouth College) helped us to examine race, power, and the political legacies of white evangelicalism.
April brought conversations about division, punishment, and public life:
- Exvangelicalism & Political Division — An Evening with Sarah McCammon
Sarah McCammon (NPR) reflected on leaving, reforming, and reimagining evangelical spaces in contemporary America. - Crime, Punishment, & Evangelicalism — An Evening with Aaron Griffith
Dr. Aaron Griffith (Duke Divinity School) discussed evangelicalism’s shaping role in American criminal justice.
In May, we widened our lens to global and economic systems:
- Religion and Capitalist Humanitarianism — An Evening with Lucia Hulsether
Dr. Lucia Hulsether (Skidmore College) examined neoliberalism, moral critique, and global humanitarianism.
The start of the fall semester deepened these conversations across culture, history, and theology:
- Evangelical Literature & Culture — An Evening with Karen Swallow Prior
- Confronting the Heresy of Christian Nationalism — An Evening with Shane Claiborne
- Evangelical Empire & the Pacific Rim — An Evening with Helen Jin Kim
October centered questions of gender, authority, and institutional life:
- Between Ordination and Expectation: Women and Evangelical Ministry — An Evening with Beth Allison Barr
And in November, we concluded the year with our Fall Mini-Conference:
- Cultures of Evangelicalism: Past, Present, & Future
Featuring Matthew Sutton, Karen Johnson, Ansley Quiros, Paul Putz, and Isaac Sharp, this gathering created space for sustained reflection on evangelical history, race, politics, biography, and culture.
Taken together, these events reflect what we hope the Center can offer: a space for rigorous scholarship, careful listening, and conversations that resist simplification and stereotypes while remaining relevant to the community.
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Looking Ahead: 2026 Programming
As we move further into 2026, we’re excited to continue building on this momentum. Upcoming plans include:
- Friday, April 3rd at 6pm (Location TBD): Jesus Springs: Evangelical Capitalism and the Fate of an American City – An Evening with William Schultz (University of Chicago)
- Friday, May 7th at 6pm (ENT Center for the Arts): The Violent Take it by Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy – An Evening with Matthew D. Taylor (Center on Faith + Justice, Georgetown University)
- In September 2026, we plan to host a conference on Evangelicalism and the current American political landscape featuring Mark Labberton (Fuller Seminary) as the keynote.
- In early November 2026, we plan to host another Mini Conference, theme TBD
Additional details, including dates, locations, and registration information, will be shared soon.
New This Year: Our Podcast
We’re also delighted to announce the launch of the Center for the Study of Evangelicalism Podcast, which extends our mission beyond the lecture hall.
The podcast will feature multiple series designed to bring scholarly conversations into wider public circulation. Our first series, The Postscript, offers reflective conversations with visiting speakers following their campus lectures. The inaugural episode – an interview with Beth Allison Barr – is now live across major podcast platforms and on our YouTube channel.
Why This Work Matters
Studying evangelicalism today requires attention, care, and seriousness. It is a tradition that continues to shape American religious life, political discourse, cultural imagination, and social belonging in complex and sometimes unsettling ways. At a moment when public conversations about religion often become flattened or polarized, the work of the Center is grounded in the conviction that understanding – historical, cultural, and critical – is essential.
We remain committed to fostering scholarship that is rigorous without being insular, critical without being dismissive, and publicly engaged without sacrificing nuance. We’re grateful to all who have joined us in this work so far and look forward to what the coming year will bring.
Stay Connected
All of our public talks are available on our YouTube channel @TheCSE-UCCS.
You can also follow the Center on social media:
- Facebook: The Center for the Study of Evangelicalism
- Instagram: @cse-uccs
- Bluesky: @cse-uccs
- X: @cse_uccs
- LinkedIn: The Center for the Study of Evangelicalism
As we move further into 2026, we’re grateful for the scholars, students, community members, and conversation partners who continue to engage this work with us. The study of evangelicalism remains urgent not because it is static, but because it is continually being reshaped – by law, by culture, by institutions, and by people living its consequences every day. Our hope is that the Center remains a place for careful scholarship, public-facing dialogue, and critical curiosity, and we look forward to what the coming year will bring as we continue asking hard questions together.
Warmly,
Jeffrey Scholes and Paul Harvey, Co-Directors
Center for the Study of Evangelicalism
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
Join us for our Fall Mini-Conference!
Join us Friday, November 7th at the Heller Center for Humanities and the Arts. We will be hosting five speakers from 1pm to 7:30pm to speak on cultures of evangelicalism within sports, politics, and more. This event is free and open to the public, no registration or tickets needed. Below is a full schedule for each speaker throughout the day. For additional information, email Shayla Lewis-McGuire at [email protected].
Between Ordination and Expectation: An Evening with Beth Allison Barr
Join us Friday October 24th, 6pm at the Chapman Auditorum at the Ent Center for the Arts.
FREE & OPEN TO THE PUBLIC, doors open at 5:30pm Learn more at center.uccs.edu/cse/. No registration or tickets required.
BETH ALLISON BARR is the James Vardaman Prof. of History at Baylor University. Barr’s work considers women & religion inthe medieval & early modern world. Barr’s writing has appeared in Christianity Today, The Washington Post, & The Anxious Bench.
Barr’s 2025 best-seller, Becoming the Pastor’s Wife: How Marriage Replaced Ordination as a Woman’s Path to Ministry draws on archival research & her own experience to trace how evangelical protestantism has approached womens’ role in church leadership.
Evangelical Empire & the Pacific Rim: An Evening with Helen Jin Kim
Join us Thursday September 25th at 6pm at Parish Hall at Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, 601 N. Tejon St. Colorado Springs, CO for a lecture with Helen Jin Kim.
Helen Jin Kim is Associate Professor of American Religious History at Emory University. Kim’s work considers U.S. religion & history in a global ocntext, focusing on U.S. connections to the Asian-Pacific & transnational histories of Asian American religions.
Kim’s award winning 2022 book Race for Revival: How Cold War South Africa Shaped the American Evangelical Empire retells the story of American evangelicalism through its formative relationship with South Korea during the Cold War era.
The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 5:30pm, and a public Q&A will follow the lecture
Confronting the Hersey of Christian Nationalism: An Evening with Shane Claiborne
Join us on Friday, September 19th, at 6pm at Beth-El Mennonite Church 4625 Ranch Dr., Colorado Springs, CO 80918, for a lecture by Shane Claiborne.
Shane Claiborne is known as an activist, speaker, and best-selling author. As founder of The Simple Way in Philadelphia, Claiborne provides social aid and resources for his community as well as advocating for the health and well-being of the homeless, and comitted to “living as if Jesus meant the things he said.”
Claiborne has a number of books including, Jesus for President, Executing Grace, The Irresistable Revolution, and most current, Rethinking Life, detailing his life’s work which have been featured in TIME, Christianity Today, and The Wall Street journal. In 2023, Claiborne was awarded the prestigious The King Center’s Beloved Community Award for Social Justice from Dr. Bernice King.
The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 5:30pm, and a public Q&A will follow the lecture.
Evangelical Literature & Culture: An Evening with Karen Swallow Prior
Join us on Thursday, September 4th, at 6pm at UCCS Downtown, 102 S. Tejon St. Suite 106-A, for a lecture by Karen Swallow Prior.
Karen Swallow Prior is an independent scholar & critic whose work considers the literature & culture of Evangelicalism. The author of five books, her writing appears regularly in Religion News Service.
Prior’s 2023 book The Evangelical Imagination: How Stories, Images, & Metaphors Created a Culture in Crisis was a finalist for Christianity Today’s 2024 Book Award. It analyzes the culture surrounding evangelicalism to unpack the movement’s most deeply held concepts, ideas, values, and practices.
The event is free and open to the public. Doors open at 5:30pm, and a public Q&A will follow the lecture.