His research focuses broadly on the interaction and exchange between new religious movements and American culture. His first book, Shakers, Mormons, and Religious Worlds: Conflicting Visions, Contested Boundaries (Indiana University Press, 2010) explores Mormon and Shaker boundary maintenance strategies. He is currently researching Mormon exorcism and writing a biography of Joseph Fielding Smith, to be published by the University of Utah Press. He teaches courses in American religious history, African American religion, possession and exorcism in cross-cultural perspective, introduction to the academic study of religion, and theory/method in Comparative Religion. He lives in Shaker Heights, Ohio, with his wife and four children.