Matthew Engelke (born 1972) is an anthropologist and author specializing in religion, media, public culture, secularism, and humanism.
[1] Engelke taught at the Department of Anthropology in the London School of Economics and Political Science from 2002–2018.
[4] Additionally, he was the editor for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Society from 2010–2013,[5] and previously wrote as a columnist for The Guardian.
The text focuses on how the rejection of biblical textual authority creates a situation where certain semiotic forms of speech and song are understood by believers as 'live and direct' expressions of divine presence.
The novel is an introduction to anthropology for non-specialists and stresses the importance of learning "to think critically about our own assumptions regarding people across the globe who may seem exotic to us" by avoiding "exoticizing these 'others'" without "reducing cultural differences to the point of inconsequence.