Stephens has been named a Top Young Historian by the History News Network (HNN).
[2][3] He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Christian Century, the Independent, Salon, the Conversation, the Immanent Frame, Religion Dispatches, and The Atlantic.
Stephens is the author of The Fire Spreads: Holiness and Pentecostalism in the American South (Harvard University Press).
His third book, The Devil's Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock 'n' Roll, was published by Harvard University Press in 2018.
He is the editor of Recent Trends in Religious History, part of the "Historians in Conversation Series: Understanding the Past," with the University of South Carolina Press.