John Carlson

John Carlson is Associate Professor of Religious Studies and Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University.

A scholar of religious ethics, his research explores how religious and moral inquiry informs and invigorates our understanding of political life. He has written on issues of war and peace, religion and violence, human rights, and a variety of social and political issues, both domestic and international.

He received his B.A. in political science from Vanderbilt University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in religious ethics from The University of Chicago Divinity School. Professor Carlson is coeditor of, and contributor to, three books: From Jeremiad to Jihad: Religion, Violence, and America (University of California Press, 2012); Religion and the Death Penalty: A Call for Reckoning (Eerdmans, 2004); and The Sacred and the Sovereign: Religion and International Politics (Georgetown University Press, 2003). He is the author of twenty book chapters and academic articles from leading journals in his field as well as numerous shorter writings (see below). Currently, he is working on a monograph entitled "Justice This Side of Heaven: Human Nature, Religion, and the Moral Order of Politics," a political-theological examination of how ideas about human nature and humanity's relation to the divine shape and limit our political pursuits of justice. From 2008-2011, he served as president of the Niebuhr Society, a related scholarly organization of the American Academy of Religion. He recently served on the editorial board of the Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics and still serves on the Steering Committee of the Religion and Social Sciences section of the American Academy of Religion.