Scholarly Resources from Concordia Seminary

From the Rest to the West: Lessons in Worship from the Global South

This session offers glimpses into practices of worship, particularly musical practices and the theologies and ecclesiologies imbricated with them, that arise from Christian heartlands outside the Euro-American axis. Speaking from a postcolonial and decolonialist perspective, the presenter counters the normativity of Euro-American worship practices in the history of Christianity. He offers a list of considerations gleaned from extensive experience and ethnographic research in the Global South that establish a constellation of worship and musical practices that escape and resist these Euro-American normativities. The presenter offers practical advice for planning and leading worship that takes into account the fraught entanglements that characterize the history of Christianity in the West.