Anthea Butler, the Geraldine R. Segal Professor of American Social Thought in the School of Arts and Sciences, has received the 2022 Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion from the American Academy of Religion.

The Marty Award is given annually to an individual whose work helps advance the public understanding of religion. The Academy of Religion’s Committee on the Public Understanding of Religion praised Dr. Butler for her “distinguished record of scholarship on race, gender, and religion in American religious history as well as her innovative and multidimensional efforts to engage diverse publics and the media.” Her numerous articles and opinion pieces have been featured in the New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, NBC, and The Guardian. She appears regularly on MSNBC and has also served as a consultant to the PBS documentary series Billy Graham, The Black Church, God in America, and Aimee Semple McPherson.

Dr. Butler serves as chair of the department of religious studies at Penn and is president of the American Society of Church History. Her most recent book is White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America.