More Praise for Liturgies from Below

“Liturgies from Below has come to us at a time when racial violence, hunger, migration, and death is on the rise. Rather than rely on the traditional Western canons of liturgical practice and expressions, this book offers a needed corpus of liturgies that will reinvigorate communities of faith to respond faithfully and lovingly to the social and political injustices of this era. For Christian communities seeking to democratize their worship experiences with the voices of those rendered unseen by colonizing elite power, this book is essential.”

—Gregory L. Cuéllar, associate professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, Austin, TX

“Liturgies from Below unleashes the subversive and creative power of prayer that destabilizes dominant forms and acts of worship, by praying with the ‘unwanted’ people and the earth. The ‘unwanted’ people who cry out ‘I can’t breathe’ invite us to breathe God’s breath in the world to bring about healing, justice, and restoration. This book, with imagination and creativity, gathers and weaves these prayers from ‘unwanted’ locations and demonstrates that worship can be a system-threatening and therapeutic spiritual and political act that creates counter-imperial alternatives.”

—George Zachariah, Wesley Lecturer in Theological Studies, Trinity Methodist Theological College, Auckland, New Zealand

“This book confronts Empire, not only in its centering of voices, spaces, and places that are often unheard and marginalized but also in its clear acknowledgment that even Western dominant ways of doing theology do not have the last word. The prayers and liturgies contained in this powerful and useful collection embrace the pain and injustice and the joy and beauty of such voices, places, and spaces in a way that affirms and invites the shalom of a God who acts concretely in history. It invites us as readers to do likewise as we stand in prayerful solidarity and sing the songs of freedom together with all who yearn.”

—Nadine Bowers Du Toit, professor of practical theology and missiology, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa

“What should prayer and worship look like in a world that is seeming more unjust and less hopeful each day? Liturgies from Below shows how worship that occurs in contexts of war, poverty, dehumanization, and hopelessness engenders courage and inspires resistance to oppressive structures. It demonstrates forcefully that worship should never be an exercise that lulls us into indifference, or even worse complacency, to injustices around us, but worship should inspire us to become catalysts for change. An essential resource for every Christian community that seeks to worship faithfully and live out its calling as people committed to justice.”

—Raj Nadella, Samuel A. Cartledge Associate Professor of New Testament, Columbia Theological Seminary, Decatur, GA

“Liturgies from Below touches the mind, stirs the heart, and ennobles the ...