He taught at New College of Florida in Sarasota and George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia before arriving at The University of Texas at Austin. He earned a B.A from the University of Florida, an M.T.S. from Candler School of Theology at Emory University, and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research addresses the relationship between religion and culture in American life, as evident in the social expressions of southern evangelicals, the popular religious practices of Latino migrants, and the moral prescriptions of corporate managers and business leaders. He is the author of The Secular Spectacle: Performing Religion in a Southern Town (Oxford University Press, 2013), and has published articles on industrial religion, corporate chaplaincy, and the religious politics of U2's Bono. His current research project examines the industrial formation of spiritual capitalism in the United States.