"Liturgies for Resisting Empire" with Kat Armas
The Allender Center Podcast
The Allender Center
4.7 • 648 Ratings
🗓️ 31 January 2026
⏱️ 55 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a country that is hurting and fractured by deep division, many of us are wondering how to remain rooted in love. As followers of Jesus, the question before us is not simply what do we think, but how do we stay human, attentive, and faithful in such a time as this?
In this thoughtful and spacious conversation, Rachael Clinton Chen welcomes theologian and author Kat Armas into a much-needed dialogue about power, imagination, and what it means to remain grounded and joined together in the way of Jesus.
Drawing from her newest book, "Liturgies for Resisting Empire: Seeking Community, Belonging, and Peace in a Dehumanizing World," Kat invites listeners beyond political binaries and party lines into a deeper reckoning with how power has shaped our stories.
Here, empire names more than a political system. It refers to any way of organizing life—political, theological, cultural, or personal—that relies on power and fear to preserve itself, rather than love, humility, and mutual care. Often, its influence goes unnamed, shaping our imaginations, our bodies, our relationships, and even our spirituality.
Against this backdrop, Kat offers liturgies as embodied practices that can steady us, give us language when words feel thin, and help us resist dehumanization together.
This episode is not about debating political parties or policies. Instead, it invites us to slow down, to notice what's been "in the water" all along, and to return our attention to Jesus. We hope this conversation offers something more sustaining than easy answers—a holy resistance shaped by presence, community, and love.
About the Allender Center Podcast:
For over a decade, the Allender Center Podcast has offered honest, thoughtful conversations about the deep work of healing and transformation. Hosted by Dr. Dan Allender and Rachael Clinton Chen, MDiv, this weekly podcast explores the complexities of trauma, abuse recovery, story, relationships, and spiritual formation. Through questions submitted by listeners, stories, interviews, and conversations, we engage the deep places of heartache and hope that are rarely addressed so candidly in our culture today. Join the Allender Center Podcast to uncover meaningful perspectives and support for your path to healing and growth.
At the Allender Center, we value thoughtful dialogue across a wide range of voices, stories, and lived experiences. In that spirit, our podcast features guests and hosts who may hold differing perspectives. The perspectives shared on this podcast by guests and hosts reflect their own experiences and viewpoints and do not necessarily represent the views, positions, or endorsements of the Allender Center and/or The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Spiritual abuse leaves profound wounds. |
| 0:11.0 | It shapes how you trust, how you connect with others, and how you perceive yourself and the world around you. |
| 0:17.0 | At the Allender Center, we are committed to creating spaces where your stories of religious |
| 0:22.2 | harm can not only be heard and understood, but met with the kind of care that leads towards healing. |
| 0:28.2 | I'm Rachel Clinton Chen, and I wanted to personally extend an invitation for you to join me |
| 0:33.5 | for the upcoming story workshop for spiritual abuse and healing. This story workshop was designed |
| 0:39.1 | in response to the countless emails and DMs we've received, expressing a need for more resources |
| 0:44.5 | to navigate past spiritual abuse. Whether the spiritual abuse is rooted in your family of origin, a church |
| 0:50.8 | setting, or a youth or campus ministry, this story workshop is designed to guide you through your stories of harm. |
| 0:57.9 | Our hope is that over this transformative three-day experience, you'll not only find strength in a support of community that truly understands, |
| 1:06.3 | but also learn to reconnect with yourself and rediscover the goodness of God. |
| 1:11.4 | If you're ready to reclaim your story, your sense of self, and your faith, |
| 1:16.1 | I invite you to join us for the next story workshop for spiritual abuse and healing. |
| 1:20.6 | You can find dates and details at the allender center.org slash workshops. |
| 1:55.7 | Thank you. Allander Center.org slash workshops. Marriage is the meeting of two very different stories. |
| 1:59.1 | In some ways, two very different worlds. |
| 2:04.5 | Every one of us carries some degree of loss and heartache and shame into our marriages. And those stories shape how we love, how we protect ourselves, and how we show up |
| 2:12.5 | in our most intimate relationships. I'm Dan Allender and Becky and I want to invite you to join us, |
| 2:20.4 | along with Steve and Lisa Call, for the Allender Center Marriage Conference happening |
| 2:25.1 | February 6th and 7th in the Year of Our Lord, 26. |
| 2:30.7 | It's a time to explore how conflict, how struggles can actually be the context to imagine your |
| 2:39.6 | marriage becoming a place of even greater delight and goodness and life. |
... |
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