Leah Payne is an award-winning historian and Professor of American Religious History at Portland Seminary. Her research explores the intersection of religion, politics, and popular culture. She is the author of God Gave Rock & Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music (Oxford University Press, 2024), Christianity Today’s 2024 Book of the Year for History and Biography. She also hosts Spirit & Power, an Axis Mundi Media podcast about politics and Pentecostal and charismatic Christians, and is co-creator of Rock that Doesn’t Roll, a podcast exploring the power and peculiarity of Christian rock. Her writing and research have appeared in outlets such as The Washington Post, BBC Radio, NBC News, Religion News Service, Harper’s Magazine, The Economist, and Christianity Today.