Mark Oppenheimer

Mark Oppenheimer is one of our country's leading writers and professional speakers about contemporary religion. A frequent contributor to Slate, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times Magazine, Oppenheimer is also the author of two cutting-edge studies of religion and popular culture. The first, Knocking on Heaven's Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture, describes how the tumult of the 1960s affected Protestants, Catholics, and Jews in America. The second, Thirteen and a Day: The Bar and Bat Mitzvah Across America (2005), tells the story of Oppenheimer's cross-country trip in search of unique bar and bat mitzvahs, from the Ozark Mountains to rural Louisiana to Alaska.

Oppenheimer takes a special interest in the spiritual lives of young people, from teenagers to people in their thirties. As a former rock music critic and a practicing review of fiction, Oppenheimer also enjoys showing how popular culture affects American religion. Whether it's a baptism in the Coen Brothers' movie O Brother Where Art Thou? , a bar mitzvah on The Simpsons or a funeral on Sex and the City, religion is everywhere on our TVs and movie screens, and Oppenheimer watches with his keen journalist's eye.

As the former editor of In Character, a thrice-yearly journal of everyday virtues, Oppenheimer offered thoughtful commentary on the moral state of America. From lying in the White House to cheating in our schools, Americans constantly struggle with how to be moral in a land that sometimes seems to permit anything. Oppenheimer enjoys challenging audiences with questions and strategies about how to lead ethical lives, and he offers critical appraisals of American politics, including how elections bring out the best and worst in politicians.

Oppenheimer holds a PhD in religious studies from Yale University. He has been an NPR commentator, a newspaper editor, and a visiting professor at Stanford and Wesleyan universities and Hartford Seminary. He has delivered his humorous, accessible, intellectual speeches at colleges, high schools, churches, synagogues, and civic group meetings across the country.