Jill Y. Crainshaw

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Jill Yvette Crainshaw, born in 1962, is an American theologian and expert on worship and liturgy. She earned a BA from Wake Forest University in 1984, an MDiv from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in 1987, and a doctorate from Union Presbyterian Seminary in Virginia in 1997.

Crainshaw is the Blackburn Professor of Worship and Liturgical Theology at Wake Forest University School of Divinity. She served as interim dean of the seminary between the terms of Gail R. O'Day and Jonathan L. Walton, and in 2019 she was named Vice Dean of Faculty Development and Academic Initiatives. She delivered the 2019 Aidan Kavanagh Lecture at Yale Divinity School. She is ordained as a Minister of Word and Sacrament in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

Crainshaw is the author of several books on liturgy and theology, including Wise and Discerning Hearts: Introduction to a Wisdom Liturgical Theology (2000), Keep the Call: Leading the Congregation Without Losing Your Soul (2002), Wisdom’s Dwelling Place (2010), They Spin with Their Hands: Women’s Ordination Rites: Renewing God’s Story with God’s People (2015), and When I in Awesome Wonder: Liturgy Distilled from Daily Life (2017). She also published a poetry collection, Cedars in Snowy Places, in 2018.