Mountain Standard Regional Update: Theology from Below and Voices for the Voiceless
By Tim Kerber, Mountain Standard Regional Minister
At the beginning of April, I had the opportunity to attend a special event hosted by Elevate Church, which is an African congregation that functions out of VantagePoint Community Church in North Edmonton. Their pastor, Emmanuel Sore, was hosting a book launch for his book about his experiences and reflections of nearly 30 years growing up in a refugee camp.
His book is called Theology from Below and can be found on Amazon. Here is a summary:
The central argument of Theology from Below is that theology beginning “from above” (institutions, doctrine, policy, citizenship, stability) inevitably misses the moral injuries produced by displacement. Theology that begins “from below” starts with lived experience, especially the experience of refugees, and reorients moral reflection around survival, constraint, and wounded dignity.
Refugees are not objects of ministry but theological interlocutors. Their lives expose the limits of abstract moral language about law, justice, and belonging. The book introduces moral injury as structural harm—damage done when systems force people into morally compromising situations and then judge them for surviving.
His book will challenge you and confront the ways that we can have real engagement with those who need our help.
Emmanuel has been passionately serving immigrant families in the northern part of the city of Edmonton, and advocating for the injustices he sees—along with the challenges that make daily living in Canadian culture difficult. And so, his book launch was not just about celebrating this book, but about the opportunity to address some of the challenges he sees on a regular basis.
On this special evening, Voices for the Voiceless was introduced. This new ministry is aimed at helping those who often cannot read or write in their own languages learn how to speak, read and write in English, being led by those who can speak their languages of origin. All proceeds from the evening, and the book went towards giving this ministry some resources to get off the ground.
I encourage you to pick up a copy of Emmanuel’s book, or to reach out to him to chat about how you or your congregation might support and come alongside him, as this ministry gets started. You can reach out to him at: er0406219@gmail.com
Voice for Voiceless https://v4vlaw.org
Theology from Below https://a.co/d/0aM8gbed
And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:16
