Jeff Sharlet

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Jeff Sharlet (b. 1972) is an American journalist and author best known for writing about religious subcultures in the United States. He is a contributing editor for Harper's and Rolling Stone, a former senior writer for The Chronicle of Higher Education, and the former editor in chief of Pakn Treger, a magazine of Jewish culture published by the National Yiddish Book Center. His work has also appeared in The Washington Post, The Dallas Morning News, Columbia Journalism Review, Oxford American, Nerve, and The Baffler.

Sharlet is the co-creator of two online journals, Killing the Buddha, a literary magazine about religion, and The Revealer, a review of religion and media published by the New York University Center for Religion and Media. Sharlet also teaches journalism at New York University.

With Peter Manseau, Sharlet is author of Killing the Buddha: A Heretic's Bible (Free Press/Simon & Schuster), named by Publishers Weekly one of the ten best religion titles of 2004. "It shouldn't work, but it does—a literary leap of faith" declared Elle. Vanity Fair described it as "shot through with epiphanies and controversy."

Sharlet's magazine writing on Senator Sam Brownback, Ted Haggard, and The Family have also proven controversial, with Brownback accusing Sharlet of portraying him as more intolerant than he is and Haggard arguing that Sharlet had failed to understand his New Life Church, Colorado because Sharlet is not an evangelical. The Haggard and Family articles, both published in Harper's, were finalists for the Livingston Award.