Leah Payne, PhD

Leah Payne is a professor of American religious history at Portland Seminary, and principal investigator for the Institute for Pastoral and Congregational Thriving at Portland Seminary, a Lilly Endowment, Inc.-funded initiative.

She holds a PhD from Vanderbilt University, and her research explores the intersection of religion, politics and popular culture. Payne's recently published book, God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music (Oxford University Press), won the 2024 Christianity Today book of the year for History and Biography.

Her first monograph, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century (Palgrave, 2015), won the 2016 Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies Book Award. Payne co-hosts Rock That Doesn't Roll, a Public Radio Exchange (PRX) podcast about Christian rock and its listeners, which won the American Academy of Religion's first-place award for Best In-Depth Multimedia Journalism.

She also hosts Spirit & Power, an Axis Mundi Media podcast about politics and Pentecostal and charismatic Christians, and is co-creator of Weird Religion, a religion and pop culture podcast. Payne's scholarship and teaching have been supported by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI), the Louisville Institute, and the Wabash Center for Teaching and Learning in Theology & Religion.

Her writing and research has appeared in The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, Harper's Magazine, The Economist, and Christianity Today.

Academic Background

PhD, Vanderbilt University; MA, Vanderbilt University; MTS, Vanderbilt University; BA, George Fox University

Expertise and Research Interests

American religious innovation; Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianities; religion, politics, and popular culture; gender, race, and class construction, ritual and performance theory

Curriculum Vitae