Michael J. McVicar is Assistant Professor of Religion at Florida State University. He researches the relationship between religion and politics in twentieth-century U.S. history, with a specific focus on the emergence of the American conservative movement in the post-World War II era. Since receiving his PhD from the Ohio State University in 2010 he has taught courses on contemporary evangelicalism, theory and method in religious studies, and gender and sexuality in religion. He has recently published Christian Reconstruction: R. J. Rushdoony and American Religious Conservatism.

McVicar's current research focuses on the interaction between religion, domestic intelligence gathering by non-governmental organizations, and the development of political and social conservatism in twentieth century American culture. The project explores how religious pressure groups in the U.S. assembled massive archives of information about a range of perceived threats to the American political and social system.