Do you know that hauntingly beautiful moment in a story where the narrator zooms the perspective out just enough for you to see that everything is connected? When the shocking realization dawns that the plot was driven by an unseen force the entire time, our experience of the story itself is altered. Reading Kat Armas’s newest book, Liturgies for Resisting Empire, inspires the same feeling of being awakened to the unseen forces that affect our lives.
The dominating influence that Armas outlines throughout her book is “a theology of empire, one so deeply embedded in our faith and our world that we often don’t see it for what it is. It’s a way of thinking that has shaped us, shaped how we see each other, and shaped how we understand divinity.”
Armas seamlessly weaves together a book that unites personal story, biblical and historical research, and present-day theology, and approaches its topic through a feminist and liberative theological lens. As in her two previous books, Armas’s writing is polished in the flow and layout of ideas while retaining a conversational tone. It takes a talented author to recall scenes from a childhood in Miami, evoke the imperialism of the Roman Empire and connect this all back to our understanding of theology in the present day, but Armas is more than up to the challenge.
The layout of the book follows a liturgical pattern, with section titles including “Invocation,” “Reflection,” “Prayer of Resistance” and “Benediction.” Defining empire as “the relationship between a dominant, ruling state and a less powerful one,” she writes that “empire is fundamentally about the extension of control, whether through direct domination or subtle influence.” Empire is the force of power and control that has seeped not only into our imaginations and daily jargon but also into our theology and our understanding of the divine.
Never one to shy away from a tough theological truth, Armas addresses Scripture’s role in creating and upholding empire. She notes, “only by acknowledging the Bible’s complicity in violent ideologies and actions can we begin the work of addressing the injustices woven into its pages.” Armas asserts that we see the harmful influence of the Roman Empire in the glorification of conquest reflected in Scripture and therein in our churches and theology of today.
“Scripture is full of imperial imagery and ideology. Even when it’s subverting it,” she writes. “The imperial metaphors—including submission, warfare, and rulers—have shaped Christian identity and practice for centuries, sometimes in ways that tether faith to power…. It’s a paradox: a text meant to equip communities to resist empire has also been used to uphold it.”
What is her answer to this tangle of empire in which we find our theology ensnared? To confront it, unravel the imperial threads from our faith and move toward a liberated, healed vision of God and community. Reading her book is a great way to start this process of decolonizing our ideas around theology and developing an understanding of how Scripture affects “structural and relational realities of those living under empire and the lasting impact of its power.”
Her chapter “Rejecting Sameness, Embracing Wholeness” includes a powerful explanation of why we are called to decolonize our imaginations. Armas explains another paradox, that of the nation, which “holds out the promise of belonging, but only for those who fit the mold.” Belonging in an empire often requires assimilation; and failing to assimilate places you in harm’s way of nationalism. “[Nationalism] tells you that you’re a part of something but often only by turning you against someone else,” Armas pens. “The threat of the outsider has been a constant tool to unite peoples.”
Throughout the book, Armas speaks to the importance of how we tell stories and whose stories we tell. Decolonizing the stories of Scripture, then, is “an ongoing process of breaking free from a worldview that has shaped how we see God, ourselves, and others.” To do this, Armas explains, we must embrace the wholeness of our knowledge and God’s gifts of wisdom to others. She states: “To truly decolonize, we must learn to hold space for indigenous, native, and non-western wisdom—alternative ways of knowing that are just as valid. To decolonize our understanding of God, we must learn to reimagine the divine through the guidance of those whom empire has tried to silence.”
She goes on to outline how this silencing was enacted in America’s policies and pursuit of Manifest Destiny. First and foremost were the U.S. government’s unjust actions toward Native American peoples, who were ripped away not only from their land but also their way of life, culture and language. European peoples, believing themselves to be chosen by God to expand and redeem other nations, intertwined religion and imperial ambition in incredibly harmful ways. Armas writes, “Christian entanglement with the militarized approach of Manifest Destiny is grounded in the image of Christ as a warrior who conquers rather than communes, who subdues rather than restores.”
Reiterating how this mindset of conquering has seeped into our language, our theology and our imaginations, Armas explains that restoration begins with “reimagin[ing] a Messiah who leads not with domination but with love.”
The final two chapters examine what this restoration could look like through the rejection of dominance and violence for the embrace of connection and peace. Armas writes that “true flourishing is not found in separation and control but in mutuality and interdependence.” She reminds us that Shalom calls for healing, not further hurt. Untangling the knots of empire that have held us hostage does not mean we tie those same knots around another, but instead that we learn to work together toward a better, reimagined world of peace and vulnerability. We are called to see one another as a “reflection of the sacred…not through the lens of power or privilege but through the lens of belovedness.”
Armas further notes that “perhaps this is the truest resistance to empire, the one we must first cultivate within ourselves—to choose vulnerability over violence, peace over power, love over fear.”
Reading this book felt like an awakening for me. Armas’s words made me feel seen and validated in my unease around imperialistic tactics and language in sacred spaces, but they also challenged me to see how interwoven empire was in my own actions. Armas preaches without ever becoming preachy, connecting her research on empire’s impact to our present-day realities of deportation, environmental decline and desire for true belonging.
For anyone who has considered how power structures affect our understanding of Scripture, the divine and our interactions with one another, Liturgies for Resisting Empire holds richness, grace and wisdom.
This article appears in March 2026.
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