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In A Womanist Theology of Worship, author Lisa Allen, a scholar and teacher of liturgical music, begins by explicating the Black Church’s legacy of equating liturgy with justice. She then explores the development of liturgy in the Black Church and how Black congregations adapted liturgies from Euro-descended churches for their own use. Finally, Dr. Allen offers a new paradigm for Black worship that reimagines liturgy through a womanist lens and works to dismantle white supremacy in the Black Church. This paradigm centers African and African-descended cosmological and theological worldviews that employ a liberative hermeneutic of communal empowerment and agency.
Lisa Allen, PhD, is Helmar E. Nielsen Professor of Church Music and Worship and Degree Coordinator for the Master of Arts in Liturgical Arts and Culture at the Interdenominational Theological Center, Atlanta, GA. She has over 40 years of experience as a church musician, liturgist, and educator. Her first text, Worship Matters: A Collection of Essays on the Practical and Spiritual Discipline of Worship, was a finalist for 2016 Georgia Book of the Year Award. Dr. Allen resides in Atlanta, GA, and serves as Coordinator of Practical Ministries for the Sixth Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
