Permission to Grieve

“In Permission to Grieve, Toby Castle provides a practical resource for the church through the powerful communal practice of lament. This book is a helpful tool for ministry leaders as they facilitate ways for their congregations to actively respond to the suffering, injustices, and violence of our times.”


—Cindy S. Lee, author of Our Unforming: De-Westernizing Spiritual Formation





“When I was a child growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, I found an incredible amount of solace in reading Lamentations. I never fully understood why until reading Permission to Grieve. The biblical chapter made me feel less alone in my personal suffering and the suffering I witnessed all around me. As Toby Castle brilliantly argues, this is by design. I can only hope that pastors and church leadership across the nation open their hearts to this truth and roadmap. As he makes abundantly clear, the future of the American church depends on it.”


—DeWanda Wise, filmmaker and activist





“Permission to Grieve is an act of radical love. In the same way that being a citizen of any nation requires active engagement, accountability, and thoughtful critique, so we have with the church. Here, Toby Castle dishes out his well-documented observations with a healthy serving of solution. He takes care to carve a path forward. What an absolutely generous and insightful read.”


—Alano Miller, artist and screenwriter





“Forget the façade; grief and suffering are normal parts of the human experience. Being genuinely spiritual in the American Evangelical Christian tradition and being genuinely human are not mutually exclusive pursuits. To pull them apart is to pull apart what God has put together. Toby Castle exposes a flaw in American Evangelicalism, where notions of triumphalism and exceptionalism clash with Scripture and normalize a denialism that weakens both our faith and our witness.”


—Bill Cody, retired evangelical pastor and community leader





“Humans suffer. People experience and witness difficult, exhausting, and painful events. These are part of the human condition. Evangelical churches and pastors too often numb the tragedies of life with cliches which, though well intentioned, ultimately do not ring true. Toby Castle invites us to encounter the events that break our hearts, to even embrace these events, recognizing that God meets us right at the center of our aches. Allow this book to give you the freedom to be venerable and to experience the presence of God in all of life.”


—Kurt Fredrickson, associate professor of pastoral ministry, Fuller Theological Seminary