Dr. Lynn Neal earned her Ph.D. in Religious Studies from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She teaches a variety of courses in American religious history and religion and popular culture. She is the author of Romancing God: Evangelical Women and Inspirational Fiction (2006), Religion in Vogue: Christianity and Fashion in America (2019), and Wearing Their Faith: New Religious Movements, Dress, and Fashion in America (2025). She is the co-editor, with John Corrigan, of Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History (2010, 2019), and has published other works on this topic, including “Intolerance and American Religious History,” and “They’re Freaks!: The Cults Stereotype in Fictional TV Shows, 1958-2008.” In 2025, she launched a website dedicated to researching religion and fashion entitled, “Fashioning Faith.”
B.A. 1993 Houghton College, Houghton, New York
M.T.S. 1995 Duke Divinity School, Durham, North Carolina
M.A. 1997 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Ph.D. 2003 University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Online Research Projects
Fashioning Faith: A Research Hub for Religion and Fashion (website)
Creator and Principal Researcher, 2024-Present
Fashioning Faith website
Books
Wearing Their Faith: New Religious Movements, Dress, and Fashion in America.Cambridge Elements Series on New Religious Movements. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2025.
Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History, Second Edition. Revised and Expanded. Co-edited with John Corrigan, Lucius Moody Bristol Distinguished Professor, Florida State University. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020.
Religion in Vogue: Christianity and Fashion in America. New York: New York University Press, 2019
Religious Intolerance in America: A Documentary History. Co-edited with John Corrigan, Lucius Moody Bristol Distinguished Professor, Florida State University. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
Romancing God: Evangelical Women and Inspirational Fiction. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.
Select Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters
“Religion Reprocessed in Dolce & Gabbana’s ‘Tailored Mosaic,’” in Fashion and Contemporaneity, edited by Laura Petican. Leiden, Brill, 2019. Translated and Reprinted in Carlo Nardella, ed, Religioni Dappertutto: Simboli, Immagini, Sconfinamenti. Rome: Carroci Publisher, 2024.
“Jonestown and Television.” Invited review essay for a Special Issue on Peoples Temple and Jonestown. Nova Religio 22:2 (November 2018): 137-44.
“OMG: Authenticity, Parody, and Evangelical Christian Fashion,” Fashion Theory 21:3 (2017): 223-244, and published online at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1362704X.2016.1143574.
“The Ideal Democratic Apparel: T-shirts, Religious Intolerance, and the Clothing of Democracy,” Material Religion 10:2 (June 2014): 182-207.
“Rescripting the Past: Suicide Cults on Television,” in Sacred Suicide, James R. Lewis and Carole M. Cusack, eds. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2014.
“Evangelical Love Stories: The Triumphs and Temptations of Romantic Fiction,” in Evangelical Christians and Popular Culture, Robert H. Woods, Jr, ed. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2013.
“Alma White’s Bloodless Warfare: Women and Violence in U.S. Religious History,” in Religion, Violence, and America: From Jeremiad to Jihad, John Carlson and Jonathan Ebel, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
““They’re Freaks!”: The Cult Stereotype in Fictional Television Shows, 1958-2008,” Nova Religio 14:3 (February 2011): 81-107.
“Intolerance and American Religious History,” Religion Compass 4:2 (February 2010): 114-123.
“Christianizing the Klan: Alma White, Branford Clarke, and the Art of Religious Intolerance,” Church History 78 (June 2009): 350-378.
- Introduction to Religion
- Religious Sects and Cults
- Religion and Popular Culture
- Religious Intolerance in America
- History of Religions in America
- Christianity and Fashion
- Religion and Me (Gen Z)
- Jonestown After 40 Years