The Rev. Ruthanna Hooke, Ph.D., is Professor of Homiletics.
Ruthanna B. Hooke, who joined the VTS faculty in 2003, is Professor of Homiletics and Program Director of “Preaching Congregations,” a Lilly Endowment-funded congregationally-based program of renewal and formation for preachers and listeners. Her most recent publication, Sacramental Presence: An Embodied Theology of Preaching (Lexington Books, 2023), draws on performance theory, and on liturgical and sacramental theology, to develop a theology of proclamation rooted in the body’s experience of preaching. Her other publications include Transforming Preaching (Church Publishing, 2010); “Queering Worship,” in Claiming God: Essays in Honor of Marilyn McCord Adams, (Wipf and Stock, 2022); “Wisdom’s Cry and the Task of Preaching,” in Shouting Above the Noisy Crowd, (Wipf and Stock, 2021); and “The Challenge and Promise of Preaching in a Consumer Culture,” in The Study of Ministry: A Comprehensive Study of Theory and Best Practice, (SPCK, 2019).
She is a member of the planning committee of the Homiletics and Biblical Studies Section of the Society of Biblical Literature. A Designated Linklater Voice Teacher and ordained Episcopal priest, she teaches courses in homiletics, voice, performance, and biblical storytelling. Her recent courses at VTS have included Embodying the Sermon: Vocal and Physical Training for Preachers; Biblical Storytelling: The Book of Acts; Preaching in the Anglican Tradition; and Preaching in a Time of Eco-Crisis.
Linked Publications
Reproduced by permission of SPCK.
“The Spirit-Breathed Body: Divine Presence and Eschatological Promise in Preaching,” in Toward a Homiletical Theology of Promise, David Schnasa Jacobsen, ed. (Eugene: Cascade, 2019). Reproduced by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Read Chapter“Real Presence: Sacramental Embodiment in Preaching,” in Preaching and the Theological Imagination, Cameron Partridge and Zachary Giuliano, eds. (Bern: Peter Lang, 2015). Reproduced by permission of Peter Lang.
Read Chapter“Poets of the Word: Literature as a Preaching Resource,” in Parental Guidance Advised: “Adult” Preaching from the Old Testament, Alyce M. McKenzie and Charles L. Aaron, eds. (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2013)
“The Personal and its Others in the Performance of Preaching,” in Preaching and the Personal, Dwayne Howell, ed. (Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2013). Reproduced by permission of Wipf and Stock Publishers.
Read Chapter