S.6 E.14 Researching and Questioning the Religious Norm: Dr. Rachel Schwaller

Profane Faith

What does research look like regarding White U.S. Evangelicals' capitalization to capitalism and free-market....yeah, that! Dr. Rachel Schwaller joins me this week to discuss that and the colonization of Xtianity on many different levels. Rachel Schwaller received her PhD in American Studies from the University of Kansas. Rachel’s primary field focuses on Christianity in America with a particular interest in scriptural interpretation, race, colonialism, and economics. She uses a mixture of archival and ethnographic methodologies to uncover how people have made written scriptures active in their everyday lives. Her recent work focuses on how average white conservative evangelical Christians have interpreted scriptures in order to support free market economics, and, importantly, the effects that interpretation has had on minority populations in the U.S. In the future, Rachel hopes to expand this analysis to include other Christian groups including progressive protestant denominations Prior to her time at KU, Rachel received an MA in History from the Pennsylvania State University with a specialty in Hebrew Bible and Archaeology of the Ancient Near East. She has been on several digs in Egypt and in Turkey. Currently, Rachel is a lecturer in the History Department and the Religious Studies Department at KU.