Her research focuses on North American religious and intellectual history, particularly the ideas and culture of conservative Christianity. She is the author of the books "Apostles of Reason: The Crisis of Authority in American Evangelicalism" (Oxford University Press, 2013), and "The Man On Whom Nothing Was Lost: The Grand Strategy of Charles Hill (Houghton Mifflin, 2006.) Worthen teaches courses in global Christianity, North American religious and intellectual culture, and the history of politics and ideology. She is a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times and has also written about religion and politics for Slate, the Boston Globe, Foreign Policy and other publications. She is working on a 36-lecture course for the Teaching Company's Great Courses series, "History of Christianity II: From the Reformation to the Rise of Evangelicalism," scheduled for release in 2018.