The Rev. Dr. O. Wesley Allen Jr.

Denomination: United Methodist Church (UMC)
Organization: Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX

O. Wesley Allen, Jr. is the Lois Craddock Perkins Professor of Homiletics at Perkins School of Theology Southern Methodist University, in Dallas, Texas.

Before coming to SMU, Dr. Allen served in a range of academic and ministerial settings. He taught preaching and worship at Lexington Theological Seminary in Kentucky and Drew Theological School, Drew University, in New Jersey for a combined thirteen years. An ordained United Methodist, he has served as pastor of churches in Alabama, Connecticut and Georgia, in campus ministry as Director of the Wesley Foundation at Georgia Tech and the Dean of the Chapel at DePauw University.

Wes received his B.A. with a double major in Religion and Ancient Languages from Birmingham-Southern College, his M.Div. from Yale Divinity School, and his Ph.D. in New Testament (with minors in Preaching and Hebrew Scriptures) from the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at Emory University. In the arena of New Testament, Allen specializes in the Synoptic Gospels and Acts. In the arena of preaching and worship, Dr. Allen has special interest in rethinking the role of preaching and liturgy week in and week out in community in a shifting, postmodern world.

In addition to article and book reviews, Wes has published a number of major works in the areas of New Testament studies and homiletics.

His textbooks include Reading the Synoptic Gospels: Basic Methods for Interpreting Matthew, Mark, and Luke (originally published in 2000; revised and expanded 2013); Determining the Form: Structures for Preaching (2008 – part of an eight-volume series Wes edited); and an enhance eBook, Protestant Worship: A Multisensory Introduction for Students and Practitioners (to be released 2019).

Wes has authored books dealing with the intersection of Scripture and preaching: Preaching Resurrection, (2000); Preaching and Reading the Lectionary: The Three Dimensions of the Liturgical Year (2007); Matthew, Fortress Biblical Preaching Commentaries (2013); Preacher’s Bible Handbook (2019); and is currently working on a critical preaching commentary on the Gospel of Mark.

Works of his focusing on homiletical theory and practice include Good News from Tinyville: Stories of Heart and Hope (1999); The Homiletic of All Believers: A Conversational Approach (2005); The ReNewed Homiletic (2010), a collection of lectures he edited from the 2007 conference at LTS), and Preaching and the Human Condition (2016). He has co-authored two books: with Emily Askew, Moving Beyond Heterosexism in the Pulpit (2015); with Ronald J. Allen, Sermon without End: A Conversational Approach to Preaching (2015); and Preaching in the Era of Trump (2017.

Wes’s wife is Bonnie Cook, the executive director of Mental Health America of Greater Dallas; and his daughter is in her final year as an undergraduate student at SMU.