Anthea Deidre Butler (born 1960) is an African-American professor of religion and chair of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Religious Studies, where she is the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought.
Butler was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Race, Religion, and Gender at Princeton University from 2001 to 2002. She has also been on the faculties of Loyola Marymount University and the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York. In 2008 and 2009, she was a research associate and Colorado Scholar in the Women’s Study in Religion Program of Harvard Divinity School.[7] Since 2009 she has been on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where she now serves as chair of the Department of Religious Studies.[7][9]
In 2015, in response to Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson's views on the modern display of the Confederate battle flag at NASCAR races, she argued that he deserved a "Coon of the Year" award on Twitter, leading to criticism among conservatives for her use of an anti-Black racial slur.[12][15][16] Tommy Christopher of Mediaite defended her use of the word, arguing that the slur had different connotations when said by a Black person (such as Butler) than a White person.[17]
Butler, Anthea (2007). Women in the Church of God in Christ: Making a Sanctified World. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN978-0-8078-5808-0.
Butler, Anthea (2019). The Gospel According to Sarah: How Sarah Palin's Tea Party Angels Are Galvanizing the Religious Right. New Press. ISBN9781595587107.
Butler, Anthea (2021). White Evangelical Racism: The Politics of Morality in America. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN978-1-4696-6117-9.
Articles
Butler, Anthea D. "African American Religious Conservatives in the New Millennium." in Sutton, Matthew Avery. Faith in the New Millennium 2016: 59-73. ISBN0199372705.
Butler, A. D. "'Only a Woman Would Do' Bible Reading and African American Women’s Organizing Work." Women and Religion in the African Diaspora: Knowledge, Power, and Performance, 155-178.
Butler, A. D. (2001). Institutional authority vs. charismatic authority (pp. 100-114).
Butler, A. D. (2007). Unrespectable Saints: Women of the Church of God in Christ.
Butler, A. D., Walton, J. L., Neal, R. B., Hart, W. D., Sorett, J., Blum, E., & Glaude Jr, E. S. (2010). The Black Church is Dead—Long Live the Black Church. Religion Dispatches.
Awards and honors
In 2021, Butler was named the Geraldine R. Segal Professor in American Social Thought, a professorship "...interdisciplinary in nature and awarded to a scholar of national reputation whose central interests include human rights, civil liberties, and race relations."[9]
Butler was a Yale University Presidential Visiting Fellow for 2019-20, "to investigate the prosperity gospel and its political dimensions in the American and Nigerian contexts".[19][20]
