Douglas ("Jake") Jacobsen is a scholar in the field of religious studies whose work encompasses history, theology, and sociology.

He attended Wheaton College (IL), where he studied with the philosopher Arthur F. Holmes and served as a teaching assistant for biblical scholar Gordon Fee.

Jacobsen taught at Messiah University in Mechanicsburg, PA, from 1984 through 2019, and then retired as Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Church History and Theology.

Jacobsen, a member of the United Church of Christ, is an ecumenical theologian whose thinking has been influenced by Anabaptist, Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox, and Pentecostal perspectives.

During the 1990s, he co-directed the Re-Forming the Center Project (with William Vance Trollinger Jr.), which had the goal of identifying and trying to moderate the religious dynamics that were encouraging America's culture war.