Intercultural Worship and Decolonialization: Insights from the Book of Psalms

This essay unpacks the relationship between an intercultural approach to worship and the vision of decolonization. It argues that for justice and liberation to be front and center in intercultural practices, there is a need to analyze the power dynamics that are present in the midst of a diverse worshipping community. Equally important is that the vision of decolonization needs the intercultural approach because of its ability to build bridges between people who are different, so that the faith community can overcome fragmentation by experiencing truth telling, healing, and transformation. The essay goes on to suggest that the book of Psalms offers rich resources for envisioning an intercultural worship that seeks to embody alternatives to oppressive, exclusionary, and alienating politics of assimilation and segregation. The book of Psalms, which was, for the most part, composed or redacted in the shadow of different empires, proclaimed God’s reign as a faith posture in the face of oppressive empires. This central motif of God’s reign, which appears in psalms of lament and psalms of praise, restores the agency of the oppressed by giving them a voice and holds those who abuse their power accountable. Practices such as lament and praise allow a diverse worshipping community to pay attention to how people experience power differently, and it calls them to be authentic and truthful so that these diverse people may work together towards transformation, justice, and healing.