Resident Scholar, History of Christianity
Baylor University
Email Elesha Coffman
Elesha Coffman vitae

Elesha Coffman joined Baylor faculty as assistant professor of history in 2016. Previously, she was the assistant professor of church history at the University of Dubuque Theological Seminary.

She earned a B.A. at Wheaton College (IL) and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at Duke University. She also spent a year as a fellow at the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University. Prior to graduate school, she worked at Christianity Today International as managing editor of Christian History magazine.

Dr. Coffman writes on religion and media in American culture. She has published articles in American Catholic Studies and Religion and American Culture and has presented numerous papers at the American Academy of Religion and American Society of Church History annual meetings. Her first book, The Christian Century and the Rise of the Protestant Mainline (Oxford, 2013), narrates the history of the magazine and its role in establishing the tradition that would come, in 1960, to be called the mainline.  She is beginning a research project on the spiritual life of Margaret Mead.