religion | reporting | public theology
Religion Nerd
Ken Chitwood is a Senior Research Fellow with the Muslim Philanthropy Initiative (MPI), an initiative of Lake Institute on Faith and Giving and the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI. In the summer of 2024, he will be Scholar in Residence at First Lutheran in Venice Beach, California.
From 2020-2022, he was the Fritz Thyssen Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Berlin Graduate School Muslim Cultures & Societies at Freie Universität Berlin. From 2019-2023 he was a fellow with the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Engaged Spirituality Project.
His first monograph, The Muslims of Latin America and the Caribbean (2021) won the Religion News Association’s Best Nonfiction Book Award and his second book, AmeRícan Muslims: The Everyday Lives of Puerto Rican Converts to Islam, is forthcoming with the University of Texas Press (2024).
Ken is also working on an anthology entitled Engaged Spirituality: Stories of Religious Inspiration, Resilience, and Work for the Common Good, as well as books on Muslim philanthropy in the Caribbean, religion in Berlin, and global Islam.
He obtained a doctorate from the University of Florida in 2019, where he worked with the Department of Religion and the Center for Global Islamic Studies. His academic work focuses on Islam in the Americas, Puerto Rican Muslims, Latinx Muslims, American religion (including North America, Latin America, and the Caribbean), translocal religion, intersections of religion & culture, Christian-Muslim relations, global Christianity, Muslim minorities, & ethnographic methods and manifestations of religion-beyond-religion in a global and digital age. Additionally, he has published work on Judaism in Latin America and the Caribbean, religion and popular culture, and the theme of global heroism.
He has been reviewing books on Christianity, Islam, religion, anthropology, culture, and history for eleven 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 200 popular books, academic monographs, and edited collections.
View Ken’s CV HERE.
Newswriter
Ken is an award-winning religion, travel, and culture newswriter.
He is President of the Religion News Association and Editor of ReligionLink, a nonpartisan, monthly newsletter with source guides and story ideas for journalists reporting on religion. He is also a journalist-fellow with the University of Southern California’s Center for Religion and Civic Culture’s Spiritual Exemplars Project.
His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, BBC Radio 4, 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, Cantonese, Czech, Dutch, Estonian, French, German, Indonesian, Kiswahili, Portuguese, Malay, Mandarin, Norwegian (Bokmål), Spanish, Swedish, and Turkish.
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, multi-cultural ministry, 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 is 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.