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Featured Book for March 2026

Liturgies for Resisting Empire: Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World

by Kat Armas

“A thought-provoking look at the intertwining of religion and social control.”–Publishers Weekly

● Explains what “empire” is in our modern day
● Gives practical spiritual guidance for resisting empire’s daily influence
● Explores how early Christians navigated imperial pressures
● Unpacks how empire influences how we see ourselves and others

Everyone wants to belong.

What does true belonging look like when the society you live in is not something you want to “belong” to?

In Liturgies for Resisting Empire, Cuban American theologian and writer Kat Armas provides a roadmap for Christians seeking a countercultural way of living that prioritizes community and humanity over dominance and power.

Armas combines spiritual practices and biblical theology to help us create authentic belonging to God, ourselves, each other, and creation. She begins by examining how empire affects us daily through its pervasive ideologies and systems of control. Drawing from decolonial and postcolonial biblical interpretation, she explores how the New Testament church resisted Roman imperial power while building communities centered on God’s kingdom values rather than worldly dominance.

This book offers hope for Christians struggling to live faithfully within systems of exploitation and oppression. Armas provides practical spiritual disciplines, community-building strategies, and theological frameworks that empower readers to resist empire’s dehumanizing effects while cultivating spaces of authentic belonging and liberation.

Discover a spiritual way of life that you actually want to belong to–one liturgy at a time.

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Video Conversation

Audio Recording

Additional Author Links

KatArmas.com

Community Questions

Community Questions from Claudia Love Mair

Part I

  1. Each chapter of Liturgies for Resisting Empire begin with an invocation, and a parable or fable before the benediction that illuminates wisdom the empire has tried to erase. Name a story you’ve heard that is full of subversive wisdom.
  2. Read the prayer of confession, acknowledging our complicity--we are all complicit--on page 1-2. Without judgment name a way that you have been complicit in supporting dominance that you benefit from over sustainability.
  3. On page 5, Kat tells the Quechua story about the hummingbird doing what it can to put out a forest fire. There is so much metaphorical fire to put out. What is a small thing you do as an act of resistance? What is your drop of water?

Part II

  1. Kat begins to break down the meaning of “empire” on page 14. How would you define empire? Would you add something to Kat’s words? Would you take something away?
  2. “Throughout history, empire has been skilled at selling us the narrative it wants us to believe… We have the power to break free and find new ways of being and belonging.” (page 18) Give an example of someone in your community breaking free of the empire’s false narratives.
  3. Where are you embracing joy today?

Part III

  1. Kat writes about the troubling dream she had of being surrounded by mannequins. (pages 25-26) She writes, “I was desperate for true connection. And I was beginning to realize the problem wasn’t just an individual church or institution but the whole system.” Describe a time when you longed for connection in a specific church or institution only to realize later that where you were cultivated in conformity, rather than true connection.
  2. We are urged to embrace the reality of a messy incarnation (page 38), rather than the sanitized one we were given. What would a realistic version of Christ’s birth look like to you?
  3. In the benediction on page 43, Kat writes, “May fear release its grip and pride be surrendered so our eyes be opened to see the world as it is, as it yearns to be.” Imagine opening your eyes, softened by grace, to see the world as it truly is. Describe what is beginning to come into view.

Part IV

  1. Chapter 6 deals so much with bodies, and highlights Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (page 114), which he gave after healing bodies that were sick, oppressed, disabled, and cast aside. Imagine if you were there. What “blessed are” would you be? What would Jesus have healed in you?
  2. Kat writes about the paradox of wage labor on pages 118-121. She describes a hurried, commodified version of leisure instead of the kind of leisure that was once woven into the fabric of life. Examine how you experience leisure. Is there anything you would change?
  3. The final chapter is “Rejecting Violence, Embracing Peace.” (page167) What does a peaceful home, a peaceful community, and a peaceful world look like to you? And what are some ways you can cultivate that peace?
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