Advances

2025 Water Advance with Dr. Leah Payne

March 7-8, 2025

Conversation Partner: Dr. Leah Payne

We are thrilled to announce our next Water Advance will feature Dr. Leah Payne. Leah Payne is an award-winning author, podcaster, and Associate Professor of American Religious History at Portland Seminary. She holds a Ph.D. from Vanderbilt University and her research explores the intersection of religion, politics, and popular culture. Payne is author of God Gave Rock & Roll to You: a History of Contemporary Christian Music (Oxford University Press, 2024), the 2024 Christianity Today book of the year for History and Biography, and co-host of Rock That Doesn’t Roll, a Public Radio Exchange (PRX) podcast about Christian rock and its listeners. 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. Her writing and research has appeared in The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, Harper’s Magazine, The Economist, and Christianity Today.