“With this stunning debut, Kat Armas makes her mark as one of the most brilliant biblical scholars of her generation. Using her own family’s stories and those of overlooked abuelitas in Scripture, Armas takes her readers on a theological tour of the Bible. Because she is an excellent tour guide, she encourages readers to look beyond the obvious and see the wisdom, prophetic truth, and insight these abuelitas offer. Her beautiful and accessible prose brims with hope as she advocates for the marginalized and oppressed women in the biblical text with nuanced and original interpretations. With biblical expertise and sanctified imagination, Armas invites readers to see what la Espíritu Santa has shown her in Scripture and to be transformed by reading the Bible with her. In Abuelita Faith readers will encounter the liberative power of wrestling with the biblical text while they plumb the depths of the riches of Latinas’ wisdom traditions. I am deeply grateful for all the ways Armas has offered me gentle encouragement to see my ancestresses anew—her voice is an important one for our time.”—Karen González, theologian, immigration advocate, and author of The God Who Sees

“Abuelita Faith is a celebration of women as genuine sources of theology. Leading from her own experience as the daughter of Cuban immigrants, Kat Armas shows us how the personal and biblical narratives of everyday women are essential to our journeys toward living unfragmented realities of life and faith. This is a book for churches, seminaries, men, and women.”—Michelle Ami Reyes, vice president, Asian American Christian Collaborative; author of Becoming All Things: How Small Changes Lead to Lasting Connections across Cultures

“Reading Abuelita Faith is like feasting on a faith prepared by generations. Through incisive cultural commentary, beautifully written memories of family, and the retelling of biblical narratives, Armas invites us into a faith that is relational and embodied. She reminds us that theology can be lived, not just theorized by those with the most social power, and that it’s happening precisely in the places where we have been told not to look.”—Hillary L. McBride, psychologist, author, speaker, podcaster

“Kat Armas’s Abuelita Faith is a tour de force. She immediately and boldly draws us into her abuela’s magnetic and wise Cuban embrace while opening up an intimate universe of courageous, faith-filled women inside the biblical narrative and beyond. As Armas tells of her own personal and communal formation under her abuela’s gutsy, loving, and resistant spiritual life, she also carefully analyzes Scripture and evokes a tantalizing humanness in communion with God, family, and the world. Abuelita Faith is not an abstraction, an ideal, or an ideology; it’s a challenging witness to a vigorously embodied hope.”—Mark Labberton, president, Fuller Theological Seminary

“Armas invites us as guests to attend the weekly game of dominoes, sit with her family, hear their stories, and make and create together with familia. She weaves together the wisdom of her ancestors with the stories of women in Scripture, providing insights into how to survive and thrive in one’s faith. Pastors, educators, and those trying to make sense of their own story in light of the biblical story need this book. It will help people undo and heal from generations of patriarchy and envision a faith community that values and is guided by the wisdom, knowledge, and leadership of women.”—Patrick B. Reyes, award-winning Chicano author of The Purpose Gap and Nobody Cries When We Die

“Abuelita Faith does something few writings are able to do for us. It gives us back our memories of God in the places that matter the most: our homes and bodies. Thinking, sensing, doing, and loving in the name of God have become white, male, rational, normative operations in the Western space. But Armas has found God operating powerfully in the underside of academia, the church, and the city—that is, at home, through the wisdom and practice of mujeres luchadoras (women in the struggle) and life givers, true teachers of the Spirit. Armas candidly and easily combines the best of postcolonial theories with biblically informed and ethically reconstructive approaches to everyday life. A must-read for those of us wishing for a different way of doing theology and faith.”—Oscar García-Johnson, associate professor of theology and Latinx studies, Fuller Theological Seminary; author of Spirit Outside the Gate: Decolonial Pneumatologies of the American Global South

“Abuelita Faith offers a master class for those seeking liberation at the intersection of their own stories and Scripture. Many books explore theology, but very few offer such an expansive picture of God told through the eyes and stories of overlooked people. This book invites all of us to greater liberation through finding ourselves in God’s story—the story of our ancestors who showed up and made a way for us.”—Brandi Miller, host of the Reclaiming My Theology podcast

“Abuelita Faith is a tour-de-force debut. Armas brilliantly weaves together Scripture, theology, history, postcolonial and feminist scholarship, personal experience, and culture to demonstrate that powerful named and unnamed women, who through the quotidian have affected the outcome of history, fill not only the Bible but also our lives. These women, including our abuelitas and other mentors, are theologians, teachers, and activists who embody the wise and loving way of Christ. It is at our peril if we fail to embrace them and give them due honor. Overlooking and underappreciating them impoverishes us and the world. Abuelita Faith is compelling, sharp, inspiring. Let us sit at Armas’s feet that we might gain the wisdom we so desperately need to embody abuelita faith ourselves. I anxiously look forward to reading whatever else she publishes!”—Marlena Graves, author of The Way Up Is Down: Becoming Yourself by Forgetting Yourself and 40 Days on Being a Nine: Enneagram Daily Reflections

“Abuelita Faith is perfectly named. Armas presents the undeniably traumatic history of the spirituality of marginalized women in a tender invitation as gentle as a grandmother setting a table. Like all good food, this book is meant to nourish—not only to open us to the lived experience of ‘others’ but to find in their witness a sustaining grace. Armas’s delicate blend of history, experience, theology, and Scripture offers a rich meal that feeds our decolonization and reconstruction of Christian faith long after the last plate.”—Emmy Kegler, author of One Coin Found: How God’s Love Stretches to the Margins and All Who Are Weary: Easing the Burden on the Walk with Mental Illness