Trauma is as old as human existence. For as long as human beings have resided on our planet, we have lived through experiences that overwhelm our capacities to cope. Yet humanity has survived. We have adapted socially, psychologically and even genetically to the effects of trauma. Some of these adaptations support our well-being, making us stronger to face future challenges. But some of our adaptations trap us in patterns of fear and isolation, generation after generation.
What makes the difference for adapting well? When we can name trauma, recognize human trauma responses and seek justice, we can live into a better future. Theology can help us do this.
When we can name trauma, recognize human trauma responses and seek justice, we can live into a better future. Theology can help us do this.
For people of faith, the ongoing challenge is to reconcile experiences of trauma with our theology. We must adapt theologically. Traumatic experiences shake our frameworks of meaning and understanding. Trauma has the potential to separate us from ourselves, from one another and from God. The more we bring reflection on trauma into our theologies, the more whole and connected we can become.
The words “trauma” and “theology” are not often written or spoken together, though both have Greek origins. In ancient Greece, traûma referred to a physical wound. The word “theology” derives from the Greek theología, referring to words about God. Human words about God – our logical pursuit of trying to understand God – don’t often come up in the same conversations about the human experience of being wounded. The exception is the age-old question that haunts every generation: Why did God let this harm occur? This question, the problem of theodicy, has been spinning unanswered in human minds for as long as trauma has impacted us.
While theology has a long human history, the modern concept of trauma is relatively new. When the psychiatric study of trauma developed in the twentieth century, trauma was considered rare. In 1980, the American Psychiatric Association officially recognized trauma as a mental illness: post-traumatic stress disorder. Since then, the study of trauma and the treatment of its symptoms have become part of professional training in many fields, not only psychiatry. “Trauma” is now a household term, with the #trauma hashtag trending across social media. It’s high time for theology to join the conversation.
Trauma + theology
How might we reconcile trauma with theology? This integrative work is part of my teaching at Eastern Mennonite University. Over more than 20 years, thousands of people have participated in our Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR) training, both online and onsite. STAR teaches participants about the impact of trauma on individuals and communities and empowers them with strategies for healing and resilience.
What we found over the years, however, was that many participants wanted more. They had only just begun the journey of discovery. Though they had gained basic understandings of trauma, cycles of harm and how to interrupt the cycle, they still had deep questions about suffering, evil, healing, forgiveness and reconciliation. They yearned for theological reflection on trauma.
To address this gap, I created a course to supplement STAR through Eastern Mennonite Seminary. My students take STAR training first to learn about the impact of trauma on the body, brain, beliefs and behaviors. Then they take the Theological Reflections on Trauma course, which offers structured space for further processing of and interaction around tough questions. This online course brings what students have learned about trauma into conversation with theological sources including Scripture and Black, womanist and mujerista theologies. Together, we dig deeper into the implications of trauma for self-understanding, relationship to community and images of God. We imagine how the life-affirming resources of community, spirituality and religious practices can weave a net of care and empowerment in the ongoing reality of trauma.
Trauma, in some form, is with us wherever human beings are present.
Theology is not only or always a resource for responding to trauma. Sometimes theology causes trauma. Because of their experiences in church spaces, my seminary students are quick to add spiritual abuse to the list of harms people experience. When spirituality is intertwined with other forms of harm, the impact is exponential because trauma distorts views of self, others and God. Rather than faith being a resource for resilience in the face of trauma, spiritual abuse can turn God into a perceived perpetrator of harm. Theological reflection on trauma acknowledges the terrible power of theology to inflict and deepen harm.
When we engage in theological reflection on trauma together, we do not fish for people’s stories of harm. Personal narratives are not for consumption. Treating them as tales to be heard and told can be a form of spiritual abuse. Unless someone is ready and willing to speak, asking people to share painful experiences only causes more pain.
Yet we can assume that trauma exists in our faith communities, even if no one ever mentions it. This assumption makes acknowledging the reality of trauma necessary, so survivors know they are not alone in their pain. For those who are ready, talking about trauma in the congregational setting communicates that we can bring our whole selves to church, wounds and all. Trauma, in some form, is with us wherever human beings are present. Even if we haven’t experienced it ourselves, we certainly encounter it in Scripture.
Trauma in the Bible
Throughout Scripture, we read about raw human experience. What does it mean that Judeo-Christian sacred texts tell stories of trauma? As Phyllis Trible wrote more than 40 years ago in Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives, the Bible is a mirror that reflects both the holiness and horror of life. The Bible describes human experience in all its hopeful and harsh realities. Within its pages abound examples of how people of faith have engaged in theological reflection on trauma. Across many generations, for instance, Israelites sought to make sense of the traumas of slavery, desert wanderings, the destruction of their beloved city and exile. The Hebrew Bible itself is a collection of theological reflections on trauma. So too, in the New Testament, Jesus’ followers try to make sense of the trauma of his execution. Paul’s theology is an exercise in theological reflection on trauma. These biblical theologies adapted to the challenges of life after – and sometimes still amid – trauma.
Approaching Scripture with a willingness to acknowledge trauma can open new ways to appreciate its insights. If we read the Bible looking only for moral principles to apply to our lives, we will come up short when we stumble across its stories of trauma. Without theological reflection on trauma, what will we do with the Israelites’ genocide of the Canaanites? How can we understand the way Scripture explains violence as God’s will? If we approach Scripture with the expectation that everything we read is God’s instruction for faithful living, the violence and trauma in Scripture can either make our faith
rigid or create a crisis of faith.
Traumatic experiences shake our frameworks of meaning and understanding.
When we approach Scripture as theological reflection on trauma, though, we can honor it as the hopeful attempt of people of faith to adapt to difficult experiences. Naturally, not all of these adaptations are admirable. Rather than viewing every character’s action as a shining example of faith, we can ask ourselves: Might this surprising behavior be a trauma response? This question can help us make sense of confusing actions taken by biblical heroes. In 1 Kings 19, for instance, Elijah finds God’s presence not in the forces of nature but in the sheer silence — a story many Christians love to cite, especially in spiritual formation contexts. But immediately afterward in the text, Elijah seems to hear God commanding a massacre. How do we reconcile the images of God in the full story? If we can recognize how the entire narrative depicts Elijah as a wanted man fleeing for his life, we might interpret his revenge fantasy as a trauma response. Just because biblical writers portray violence as God’s command does not mean we must literally interpret it as such. Theological reflection on trauma helps us discern between scriptural adaptations to trauma that perpetuate harm and those that interrupt its cycle with justice.
Narratives often hide victims. We can read with attention to whom a text does not center or name.
Another trauma-informed question we can bring to Scripture is this: Do any characters – obvious or hidden – suffer harm in this text? Narratives often hide victims. We can read with attention to whom a text does not center or name. Uncovering hidden characters and recognizing the harm they suffer are the tasks of important theological work that serves justice. Bringing this question to Scripture teaches us to ask similar questions of our own contemporary narratives. In the stories we tell about our own histories and communities, does anyone suffer harm? Who is hidden from view in the stories we tell?
Trible argues that truth-telling about trauma in Scripture can yield new beginnings. Bringing a trauma lens to our study of Scripture shows us how trauma can be individual, collective or systemic. It can be the silent experience of one person in a community; it can be the collective experience of a group; it can be perpetrated by an entire social system. Noticing trauma in Scripture prepares us to respond to trauma in our lives and communities with truthful acknowledgment, preparing the way for justice and transformation of the cycles of harm. We can resolve to break the cycles of harm that exist today just as ancient peoples did in Scripture, and the resources of Scripture can inspire us to forge a new path.
Language for naming
Reflecting theologically offers incredible potential for wholeness and healing, because it gives us language to name hard realities. Experiences of trauma are coded as implicit memory, which means we often cannot access or comprehend them. When we engage in theological reflection, we bring hard things into our consciousness, wrestling with human experience in light of beliefs and understandings about God. Theological reflection on trauma is most powerful when done in a community that is committed to safety and that holds difficult experiences together with the goals of justice and peace to restore wholeness and connection.
Human beings come to know and experience God in many ways, often without logic or language attached. We feel divine presence in and through our bodily senses and connect emotionally with faith companions and religious rituals. As human beings with the capacity for thought, we naturally bring these embodied experiences into conscious awareness and develop ideas about God that grow from them. We also create practices – like hospitality, service and activism – that help us put our theological commitments into action. This cycle of embodied experience and conscious thought makes up theological reflection.
Because trauma, by definition, overwhelms our coping ability, it doesn’t connect to the sense-making parts of our brain. Theological reflection is either absent or short-circuited. Part of what makes trauma so terribly powerful, other than the sheer horror of the experience itself, is the unconscious way it stays with us. Trauma lives in implicit memory, where we have no sense of time or logic. For this very reason, theological reflection on trauma has the potential to take away trauma’s hidden power over us, helping us hold an experience in our conscious awareness to try and integrate it with our faith. As a result, the memory won’t stay the same, and neither will our theology. Both can adapt, and that can be a very good thing.
Reflecting theologically offers incredible potential for wholeness and healing, because it gives us language to name hard realities.
In theological reflection on trauma, we draw from resources within our faith tradition that offer words to name our overwhelming human experience. Psalms of lament give voice to anger and felt distance from God: “Why do you sleep, O Lord? Awake, do not cast us off forever! Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?” (Psalm 44:23-24). Laments bring language to the isolation and fear that result from trauma, while affirming our longed-for connection to God. Repeating psalms of lament holds out hope that God is powerful, just and responsive.
Theology offers words that carry the weight of tradition and divine inspiration. Just as the misuse of spirituality and faith can deepen harm, the just use of theology can instill courage and open new beginnings. Theology empowers us to name atrocities as evil. Theology affirms that because God suffers, God can help us. Theology points toward liberation and wholeness as God’s intent for all of creation.
Toward a hopeful future
When ministry leaders and congregations engage in theological reflection on trauma, they can grow in compassion. Reflecting theologically on trauma raises new awareness of Christian interpretation and sensitivity in trauma-informed rituals. We see Abraham and Sarah’s faithfulness in a more complicated way, against the reality of their oppression and their abandonment of Hagar and Ishmael. We realize that the land on which many church buildings stand was stolen from displaced Indigenous peoples, and we take responsibility for this legacy. We recognize the triggering impact on survivors of abuse when the Eucharist refrain “This is my body, broken for you” is repeated aloud in worship. We approach our religious practices by considering how someone impacted by trauma might experience a given practice.
Signs of trauma are all around us. They show up in our own bodies, and we can observe them in others. The invitation is to pay attention and respond with care and compassion. Overwhelming, panic, anxiety, anger and fear are not signs of weakness; they are natural adaptations to trauma. Even an apparent lack of emotion can be a trauma adaptation. Christian communities are called to accompany one another in rejoicing and mourning, staying present through the ups and downs of trauma responses as an expression of Godly love.
Ultimately, theological reflection on trauma leads to action. Communities that seek to be trauma-informed will not merely reflect on trauma on an intellectual level; they will be compelled to build resilience, seek education and pursue justice. Regular practices like mindfulness, contemplative prayer, time spent in nature, journaling, art, music, adequate sleep, good nutrition, daily walks and aerobic exercise strengthen the resilience of both survivors and their companions. These practices connect us with our inner life, our bodies and God. Congregational members may attend training courses, like STAR, to learn more about the signs of trauma and how to support survivors. Pastors may learn about trauma in order to be more sensitive to trauma in preaching, worship and pastoral care. Congregational leaders may review safety policies to ensure they protect vulnerable participants.
When ministry leaders and congregations engage in theological reflection on trauma, they can grow in compassion.
The purpose of theological reflection in the face of trauma is, as mujerista theology founder Ada María Isasi-Díaz affirms, to seek justice. Justice is a survivor-centered goal that does not force forgiveness or reconciliation. By distinguishing between the goals of justice and reconciliation, we can recognize how divine action and human action each play a role in opening a hopeful future in the wake of trauma. Just as Karl Barth understands Jesus’ saving work as reconciliation, we await the mystery of God’s action to bring reconciliation. Human beings don’t create reconciliation; it is a divine response that emerges in the faithfulness of human activity. We can journey toward it, and justice is the path. Reconciliation cannot be forced or required in response to trauma. It depends on truth-telling and repentance, both of which are beyond any person’s power to force out of another. We can do our part by acting justly: naming the reality of trauma, accompanying survivors with sensitivity and taking preventative measures to stop the cycle of harm.
Responding faithfully to trauma takes a community. The experience of trauma holds a terrible power — the power to isolate people from themselves, others and God. But that power can be tamed. By engaging in theological reflection on trauma, faith communities can transform the wounds of trauma into a more just, hope-filled future.
