Roland Boer

Roland Boer is not your average scholar, nor is he a typical theologian. The academic who enjoys stirring up debate with articles under such arresting titles as 'Lenin the Nudist', believes a measure of provocation is a good thing if it stimulates thought and discussion about religion. The director of the Faculty of Education and Arts' Religion, Marxism and Secularism project describes himself, on his curiously titled but well-patronized blog Stalin's Moustache, as someone who likes "speaking my mind" and basks in one reviewer's assessment of his sentiments as "the oddest I have ever read in a scholarly work." But for all this spirited subversion, Boer is a widely read and internationally recognized academic theologian whose prolific writing has broadened dialogue not only in his specialty research field, Marxist interaction with religion, but across the spectrum of religious and political debate.