religion | reporting | public theology
Religion Nerd
Ken Chitwood is a postdoctoral researcher pursuing Habilitation with the Department for the Study of Religion at Universität Bayreuth. He is also an Affiliate Researcher with the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture and a Visiting Scholar with the University of Edinburgh’s School of Literatures, Languages and Cultures and its Alwaleed Centre for the Study of Islam in the Contemporary World.
In the past, Chitwood enjoyed several appointments and fellowships:
Scholar-in-Residence, First Lutheran in Venice Beach, California (Summer 2024).
Senior Research Fellow Muslim Philanthropy Initiative (MPI) at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI (2022-2024).
Fritz Thyssen Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures & Societies at Freie Universität Berlin (2020-2022).
Journalist Fellow, University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture (2019-2023).
His first monograph, The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean (2021) won the Religion News Association’s Best Nonfiction Book Award. His second book, Borícua Muslims: The Everyday Lives of Puerto Rican Converts to Islam (2025) was a finalist for the same award, and his third, an edited anthology, Engaged Spirituality: Stories of Religious Inspiration, Resilience, and Work for the Common Good is due out with Bloomsbury (2026). Ken is also working on book projects related to religion in Berlin and global Islam.
His academic work focuses on global Islam with a focus on Muslim communities in the Americas, American religion (including North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean), intersections of religion & culture, Christian-Muslim relations, global Christianity, and ethnographic methods and manifestations of religion-beyond-religion in a global and digital age.
He has been reviewing books on religion, culture, music and history for fifteen years with Publisher's Weekly, the Houston Chronicle, Reading Religion from the American Academy of Religion, and other scholarly and popular publications. In that time, Ken has read and reviewed over 225 popular books, academic monographs, and edited collections.
View Ken’s CV HERE.
Newswriter
Ken is an award-winning journalist and feature writer whose work traces the unexpected intersections of religion, migration, and global culture. He is especially drawn to the everyday, lived textures of belief and how faith travels, adapts, and takes root in unlikely places. Along the way, he’s reported from Oman’s frankincense farms and mountainside shrines, rode e-scooters through Berlin with missionaries from Eastern Europe, followed the migrant trail with Muslims through Mexico, and scaled the sides of Brutalist buildings in Casablanca, Morocco. His writing moves between the street-level and the structural, connecting intimate human stories to the broader forces reshaping religion in a global age.
He is Editor of ReligionLink, a nonpartisan, monthly newsletter with source guides and story ideas for journalists reporting on religion. He was Sojourner’s Faith and Immigration Reporter in 2024 and is a former journalist-fellow with the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Spiritual Exemplars Project. From 2022-2024, he was President of the Religion News Association.
His work has appeared or been featured in Foreign Policy, The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, BBC Radio 4, chrismon, NPR, Religion News Service, The Times of India, USA Today, The Guardian, Christianity Today, The Houston Chronicle, Salon, Newsweek, New Lines Magazine, The Conversation, Religion Unplugged, Interfaith America Magazine, AFAR Magazine, The Raw Story, Sojourners Magazine, The Daily Dot, Sightings from the University of Chicago, Deseret News National, Christian Century, US Catholic, RealClear Religion, Epicenter Magazine, The Living Church, The Gainesville Sun, The Lutheran (Australia), HUM Magazine, Indo-American News, The Olive Tree (New Zealand), The Lattice Journal & other publications.
He has published articles in, or his work has been translated into, Arabic, Bosnian, Cantonese, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Indonesian, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Malay, Mandarin, Norwegian (Bokmål), Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, and Vietnamese (tiếng Việt).
Ken’s work has been recognized for excellence by the Religion News Association, Associated Church Press, Evangelical Press Association, American Academy of Religion and the Goldziher Prize.
Take a look at some of his published work HERE.
Public Theologian
Chitwood is also a Lutheran theologian, pastor, and popular speaker who accents 'glocal' 21st-century Christianity.
Described as a "theologian without borders," his interests include global theologies, the power of stories to connect us, and the contextualization of doctrines & practices across religious boundaries, physical borders, and cultural barriers. Weaving together historical context, societal exegesis, and a fair dose of sarcastic humor, Ken speaks with power, love, and sound mind. He has also been involved in interreligious dialogue and engagement as a writer and participant with Religions for Peace and the International Dialogue Center. He was the host of the Common Thred podcast, about finding common ground on pressing, important issues in pop culture, politics, and spirituality.
In addition to writing, teaching, and research, Ken enjoys ultra-distance running, spending time outdoors, and rugby. An Angeleno, he misses tortas, tacos, and In N’ Out like crazy.
*What is vocatio? Vocatio is Latin for "vocation" or "calling." Ken feels called to the work of religious literacy. For him it is more than work, it is an effort with spiritual promptings & divine intimations.