Decolonial Challenges and Opportunities

This essay is oriented around three questions. How has the emergence of post/decolonial discourse been reflected in academic theological-liturgical scholarship and liturgical practices? Are there resulting liturgical shifts which may be named as “renewal”? What are the implications for the ways in which we reframe, identify, and interpret liturgical renewal? What follows will map post/decolonial liturgical moves, their impact on worship scholarship, and offer pointers on necessary ongoing work. As a pastor-minister from a Lutheran tradition in Guyana with Hindu and Muslim antecedents, I have moved across multiple ecclesial communities, ending up in the United Reformed Church in England, Wales, and Scotland. Across these traditions my work has included leadership roles, ministerial formation, Christian education, and intercultural and antiracism work. I have written prayers, liturgies, songs, essays, and blogs across theological disciplines. While located in Britain, it is not the space/place from where I write, think, and engage. I write, think, and engage from Guyana-Caribbean, in a place where I dwell, configured by the European colonial matrix of power and multiple ongoing legacies. The point of this brief note is to locate myself as an outsider to liturgical scholarship and an insider to liturgical practice.