Professor of Studies on Religion at the University of Virginia and director of the Living Theology project, he has been visiting professor «Dietrich Bonhoeffer» at the Humboldt University in Berlin. His books include God's Long Summer: Stories of Faith and Civil Rights (1997), which won the Grawemeyer Prize for religion, and Reclaiming Dietrich Bonhoeffer: The Promise of His Theology (1994). He was a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and has been named member "Ellen Maria Gorrissen" of the American Academy of Berlin.