Andrew Coates: Material Religion Today

Andrew is a lecturer in the Department of Religious Studies at Duke University. He is the managing editor of "Material Religion: the Journal of Objects, Art, and Belief" and the author of "What is Protestant Art?", a short survey of Protestant images and visual cultures from the Reformation to the present. Andrew has published articles on Bible charts, comic book Bibles, and Protestant fundamentalism in America. He is currently working on a project about maps of the "Holy Land" in the Scofield Bible. He also teaches undergraduate classes about the history of religion in the United States, atheism and secularism, and religion and film.In this episode, I sit down with Andrew to establish the foundations of material religion—what it is, why it matters, and how it’s transforming the study of faith today. He helps map the key debates and methodological commitments shaping the field, emphasizing its inherently interdisciplinary nature and the global perspectives pushing its boundaries. This conversation lays the groundwork for understanding how material forms, ancient and emerging, shape belief, devotion, and religious imagination.