A star filled grace

In poetry, liturgy and narrative, Rachel Mann questions the cosy and sentimental view of the festive season and takes seriously the idea that God in Christ is born as a vulnerable outsider who transforms the world in radical ways.

Intended to be usable in a wide range of liturgical and study contexts, this book revisits biblical voices, characters and stories with a sophistication and simplicity that speaks to readers from a diversity of theological and spiritual perspectives.

As Rachel Mann writes, ‘At the centre of the Christmas story is a God who disturbs our concepts of power, authority and status. A young girl becomes the bearer of God and speaks with extraordinary authority. God is incarnated not in the halls of power but among peasants and nobodies. In the Christmas stories, meaning and possibility are constantly played with; identity is reworked and redefined.’