Matthew Avery Sutton

Matthew Avery Sutton is the Claudius O. and Mary Johnson Distinguished Professor and chair of the department of history at Washington State University. His latest book is Chosen Land: How Christianity Made America and Americans Remade Christianity (Basic Books, 2026). He is the author of Double Crossed: The Missionaries Who Spied for the United States During the Second World War (Basic Books, 2019); American Apocalypse: A History of Modern Evangelicalism (Belknap Press, 2014); Jerry Falwell and the Rise of the Religious Right: A Brief History with Documents (Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2012); and Aimee Semple McPherson and the Resurrection of Christian America (Harvard University Press, 2009). He has published articles in diverse venues ranging from The Journal of American History to The New York Times and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the U.S. Fulbright Program. In 2016, he was named a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow.

Sutton’s project, “The Devil in Modern America: How Religious Ideology Drives Political Polarization,” examines how conservative religious leaders and political strategists have mobilized fears of Satan over the past 75 years to recast American politics as spiritual warfare, which has intensified polarization. By tracing how demonology moved from fringe theology into mainstream politics — shaping movements from the religious right to MAGA activism and QAnon — the project reveals how polarization is manufactured and sustained, while identifying historically grounded strategies for resisting divisive rhetoric and strengthening democratic culture.

May 2026