Matthew Taylor

Matthew D. Taylor is the senior Christian scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Baltimore, where he specializes in American Christianity, American Islam, Christian extremism, and religious politics. His new book, The Violent Take It by Force: The Christian Movement that is Threatening Our Democracy (Broadleaf, 2024), tracks how a loose network of charismatic Christian leaders called the New Apostolic Reformation A movement originally identified and named in the 1990s by evangelical theologian C. Peter Wagner. The NAR has since become the leading political and cultural vision of the Pentecostal and Charismatic wing of evangelical Christianity. Learn more was a major instigating force for the January 6th Insurrection and is currently reshaping the culture of the religious right Often used interchangeably with Christian Right, but also can describe broader conservative religious coalitions that are not limited to Christians. Can include right-wing Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and members of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. Learn more in the U.S. He is also the author of Scripture People: Salafi Muslims in Evangelical Christians’ America (Cambridge, 2023). Taylor holds a PhD in religious studies and Muslim-Christian relations from Georgetown University and an MA in theology from Fuller Theological Seminary. He also serves as an associate fellow at the Center for Peace Diplomacy in New Orleans, where he works on preventing religion-related violence surrounding U.S. elections.