Michael O. Emerson

Michael O. Emerson is an American sociologist of religion and author whose known for his work on religion, race and ethnicity, urban sociology, and public policy. He is the Harry and Hazel Chavanne Fellow in Religion and Public Policy and Director of the Religion and Public Policy Program at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. At Rice University, Emerson was the founding director of the Center on Race, Religion, and Urban Life and co-founded the Kinder Institute for Urban Research with Stephen Klineberg in 2010. He was the President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion from 2015 to 2017. Emerson served as Professor of Sociology and Department Head at the University of Illinois at Chicago from 2020 to 2023. Since June 2023, he has held the Chavanne Fellowship at the Baker Institute at Rice University, where he directs the Religion and Public Policy Program (RP3).

His research on racial segregation in American churches and the role of evangelical theology in sustaining racial division has informed commentary on national events. Following the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Emerson noted in Christianity Today that white Christians and Christians of color voted sharply differently due to "separate cultures because of racial segregation in the churches," with white evangelicals emphasizing issues such as abortion and homosexuality while African American and Hispanic Christians also stressed justice concerns including equal rights, poverty, and war (Zylstra 2008).

Emerson's 2000 book Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America, co-authored with Christian Smith, won the 2001 Distinguished Book Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion.