Lis Valle-Ruiz
Contact information
Field of Study: Homiletics, Worship
Designation: Assistant Professor of Homiletics
Email: lvalle@mccormick.edu
Department: Ministry
Extension: 6287
Office: 306
Rev. Lis Valle-Ruiz works as Assistant Professor of Homiletics and Worship and Director of Community Worship Life at McCormick Theological Seminary. She earned her PhD in Religion (Homiletics and Liturgics) from Vanderbilt University, where she also studied gender and sexuality. Her dissertation, “As One Among Many: Affirming a Multitude of Embodied Preaching Practices,” analyzes pulpit preaching through public speech, street preaching through symbolic action, and preaching through theater and proposes that these are three paradigms among many others in the repertoire of embodied Christian preaching practices among which preachers may choose. Her research interests encompass performance theory, trauma theory, decolonial and queer studies as they relate to and impact worship and preaching.
Rev. Valle-Ruiz has researched the theology of the sermons of Latina clergy and is also the author of “Toward Postcolonial Liturgical Preaching: Drawing on the Pre-Columbian Caribbean Religion of the Taínos” (Homiletic Online Journal, 2015). She co-edited the book Unmasking White Preaching: Racial Hegemony, Resistance, and Possibilities in Preaching (Lexington Books, 2022). Her essays have been published in the Liturgy Journal and in collected volumes such as Preaching in/and the Borderlands (Pickwick Publications, 2020), Preaching the Manifold Grace of God: Theologies of Preaching in the Early Twenty-First Century. Volume 2, (Wipf and STOCK Publishers, 2022), and The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Latinoax Theology, Second edition (John Wiley & Sons, 2023).
Rev. Valle-Ruiz has served as Professor of Theology and Scripture at the Lux Summer Youth Institute in Monmouth College, IL, has provided worship and chaplaincy leadership in interdenominational gatherings, and possesses a background as both an actor and a lawyer. Her professional experience is as varied as her education having also worked as tutor, teacher, curriculum designer, artistic director, associate director for mission involvement, executive director of a not-for-profit, stewardship educator, event planner, artist in residence, worship fellow and director of worship life.
Rev. Valle-Ruiz received a ThM in Homiletics from Princeton Theological Seminary and an MDiv from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. She also holds a JD from the University of Puerto Rico. With a BA in Education with an emphasis in Theater, Valle has continued to combine her study of theology and passion for justice with her work as an actress and an artistic director.
Rev. Valle-Ruiz is a member of the Academy of Homiletics, the North American Academy of Liturgy, and the ARC Creative Collaborative for Theopoetics, among other professional organizations. She has been a fellow with the Forum for Theological Exploration and the Hispanic Theological Initiative/Consortium.
Rev. Valle-Ruiz has been an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) since 2013 and is a member of the Presbytery of San Juan, Puerto Rico.