In this episode Rev. Erica Whitaker interviews Dr. Leah Payne about her second book, God Gave Rock & Roll to You: a History of Contemporary Christian Music (Oxford University Press) shows how Contemporary Christian Music shaped evangelicalism in America and beyond.  As a companion to God Gave Rock and Roll to You,

Leah Payne (PhD, Vanderbilt University) is Associate Professor of American Religious History at Portland Seminary and a 2023–2024 Public Fellow at the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI).  Her first book, Gender and Pentecostal Revivalism: Making a Female Ministry in the Early Twentieth Century, won the Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies 2016 Book Award.

Payne co-hosts Rock That Doesn’t Roll: The Story of Christian Rock, a John Templeton Foundation-funded Public Radio Exchange (PRX) podcast. Through stories of its fans, the podcast explores the profound effect CCM had on 1990s and early aughts American public life and evangelicalism in the United States.

Dr. Payne’s public-facing work has appeared in The Washington Post, NBC News, Religion News Service, and Christianity Today.