Dan Wells (Ph.D., Florida State University) is a scholar of religion in America and a Methodist pastor. Dan is currently consulting faculty at Duke Divinity School, where he teaches hybrid residential and online courses in American religious history. In addition to his academic work, Dan is the pastor of Dresden Church located in the Appalachian region of southeast Ohio.
Dan researches the relationship between religion, politics, and race in the United States. His research and writing analyzes networks of white supremacy in American religious conservatism. He also focuses on the use of aesthetics, theory, and method in the study of religion. He teaches courses on religion, race, and ethnicity, and religion in the Americas.
His first book project, An Unholy Empire: Cold War Spirituality, Race, and American Conservatism narrates a history of the development of modern American Christian conservatism that challenges previous interpretation. By surveying a diverse cast of Christian anticommunists that historians have not associated with one another, An Unholy Empire illustrates the complex, and oftentimes incongruous, racially charged make-up of Christian conservatism. Conservatives utilized the framework of Christian anticommunism and created a network of persons, organizations, ideologies, and capital to protect and extend traditional gender roles, white supremacy, and the interests of the American elite. Instead of focusing exclusively on the anticommunist rhetoric, intellectual productions, political alliances, or theological boundaries of Christian conservatives, this project focuses on their unifying aesthetic. This is the first work to approach via aesthetics the historical construction of crusading American Christian conservatism. Through the analysis of crusade aesthetics, made possible by the volumes of crusade print and material productions, this project expands the boundaries of American conservatism by identifying unifying meanings, sentiments, values, and varied principles. By problematizing the historical categories, this project urges practitioners and scholars alike to reconcile the centers and marginal fringes of American Christian conservatism.
Residing in Dresden, Ohio at the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains, Dan is passionate about building community that addresses socioeconomic issues in rural areas through direct community action and recovery of Appalachian folkways. In his area of ministry focus, Dan also serves as a “ministry coach” to pastors and congregations situated in rural contexts.
Dan Wells 