Becca Whitla – författare

As Canada wrestles with the legacy of colonialism, a new understanding of the church is emerging. Racialized and marginalized voices within the church are daring to make sense of their own experiences and understanding of Christianity, turning their faith traditions into a force for decolonization.Decolonizing Church brings together varied theological voices to explore how Christian scholars and church leaders can reconfigure theology, ethics, and church practices. The volume aims to open conversations about how churches can engage the task of redressing the colonial legacy and its harms, and, in so doing, model the gratuitous disruptive power of the good news. The contributors come from diverse places and communities of identity – Indigenous, immigrant, racialized, LGBTQ2AI, disability, and gender – which shapes the way they speak and write, practice theology, and view church structures. Readers will find a range of genres including storytelling, ethnographic narrative, personal and biblical reflection, and practical wisdom. Drawing on decolonial thinking, the book offers other ways of knowing, being, and doing church.Decolonizing Church blends theory and practice as it addresses justice concerns that are at the forefront for the church, for theological education, and for society at large.

As Canada wrestles with the legacy of colonialism, a new understanding of the church is emerging. Racialized and marginalized voices within the church are daring to make sense of their own experiences and understanding of Christianity, turning their faith traditions into a force for decolonization.Decolonizing Church brings together varied theological voices to explore how Christian scholars and church leaders can reconfigure theology, ethics, and church practices. The volume aims to open conversations about how churches can engage the task of redressing the colonial legacy and its harms, and, in so doing, model the gratuitous disruptive power of the good news. The contributors come from diverse places and communities of identity Indigenous, immigrant, racialized, LGBTQ2AI, disability, and gender which shapes the way they speak and write, practice theology, and view church structures. Readers will find a range of genres including storytelling, ethnographic narrative, personal and biblical reflection, and practical wisdom. Drawing on decolonial thinking, the book offers other ways of knowing, being, and doing church.Decolonizing Church blends theory and practice as it addresses justice concerns that are at the forefront for the church, for theological education, and for society at large.

Becca Whitla uses liberationist, postcolonial, and decolonial methods to analyze hymns, congregational singing, and song-leading practices. By way of this analysis, Whitla shows how congregational singing can embody liberating liturgy and theology. Through a series of interwoven theoretical lenses and methodological tools—including coloniality, mimicry, epistemic disobedience, hybridity, border thinking, and ethnomusicology—the author examines and interrogates a range of factors in the musical sphere. From beloved Victorian hymns to infectious Latin American coritos; congregational singing to radical union choirs; Christian complicity in coloniality to Indigenous ways of knowing, the dynamic praxis-based stance of the book is rooted in the author’s lived experiences and commitments and engages with detailed examples from sacred music and both liturgical and practical theology. Drawing on what she calls a syncopated liberating praxis, the author affirms the intercultural promise of communities of faith as a locus theologicus and a place for the in-breaking of the Holy Spirit.