Martin E. Marty Award for the Public Understanding of Religion

Dr. Balmer is an award-winning author of more than a dozen books published across three decades, including four since 2021: Saving Faith: How American Christianity Can Reclaim Its Prophetic Voice(Fortress 2023); Passion Plays: How Religion Shaped Sports in North America (University of North Carolina Press, 2022); Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2021); and Solemn Reverence: The Separation of Church and State in American Life (Steerforth, 2021). One of his earliest books, Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: A Journey into the Evangelical Subculture in America (Oxford University Press, 1989), was published in five editions over 25 years and was made into an award-winning, three-part documentary for PBS. Dr. Balmer was nominated for an Emmy for writing and hosting the series.

Dean at Vanderbilt Divinity School (effective July 1, 2023), founding director of the Center for African American Religious Life at the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), and renowned womanist scholar who works at the intersections of faith, race, and gender in American religion.

Professor of American social thought and chair of the department of religious studies at the University of Pennsylvania, known for contributing prolifically and powerfully to public digital and media conversations about religion in U.S. politics and the bravery and clarity of purpose required for the kind of public voice she has achieved.

Professor of social ethics and Latinx Studies at the Iliff School of Theology, known for years of enduring engagement with distinct public audiences outside the academy around important social and ethical issues such as immigration, race, and sexuality.

Professor of Islamic Law, known for intellectual courage, longstanding commitment to human rights, and willingness to bring academic expertise to the complex religious and political dynamics that characterized the post–9-11 era.

Sociologist of religion, founded and directed the Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion and Public Life.

Professor of African religious traditions and of African and African American studies, whose work has fostered understanding of religious pluralism in Nigerian civic, academic, religious and political spheres.

Professor of religious studies and affiliate professor of law, her public scholarship and work as an expert witness have impacted courtrooms, prisons, military units, and government offices.

Professor of the practice of religion and public life whose teaching and research focus on ethics and foreign policy and the role of religion in world politics and in American society.

Scholar-activist and pioneer in the field of Islamic feminism, her work bridges the divide between the academic study of Islam and public understandings of Islam, Muslims, and religious feminisms.