Biographical Sketch:  Don E. Saliers

The Rev. Dr. Don E. Saliers is the William R. Cannon Distinguished Professor of Theology and Worship, Emeritus, at Emory University’s Candler School of Theology.  Educated at Ohio Wesleyan, Yale Divinity School and Cambridge Universities, he received his doctoral degree from Yale University.  Don taught at Yale Divinity School before joining the faculty at Emory in 1974. 

Don has served local churches in rural Ohio and the inner city of New Haven.  For the past 33 years he has been organist/choirmaster at Emory University’s Cannon Chapel, and has contributed to the United Methodist Hymnal, The Book of Worship, and to the recent UpperRoom Worshipbook.  He lectures, preaches and leads retreats widely across North America, and has taught regularly at Notre Dame, St. John’s, Vancouver School of Theology and Boston College.  He has served as president of the North American Academy of Liturgy and the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality.

He is the author and co-author of fifteen books and over a hundred essays and book chapters.  Among his recent publications are Worship As Theology: Foretaste of Glory Divine, Worship and Spirituality, Worship Come To Its Senses, and Music and Theology. In 2005 he wrote A Song to Sing, A Life to Live, with his daughter Emily who is one-half of the Grammy-Award winning Indigo Girls.  Don serves on the editorial board of Weavings, Spiritus, and Worship journals, and was part of the founding of the Academy for Spiritual Formation.

Don is married to Jane Firmin Saliers, a retired children’s librarian.  They have raised four daughters, and live in Atlanta, Georgia.