Abstract
During Antje Jackelén’s 2003 Goshen Conference lectures, she explores the challenges and opportunities hermeneutics, feminism, and postmodernism offer the dialogue between religion and science. Her primary assertion is that each of these areas of investigation and discourse both challenge the predominant models of religion and science interdisciplinarity and, through that challenge, can open up productive avenues of exploration and unveil insights and resources for struggles and injustices that emerge in society at large. Narratives and images of life-threatening violence inundate the consciousness of society, families, and individuals leading to the development of traumatic response symptoms in the general population and in the constructs of society. With rates of vicarious traumatization and primary traumatization increasing, there is a substantial need for theological reflection and articulation that is cognizant of the proliferation of traumatic response and responds with awareness, thoughtfulness, and sensitivity. This essay will explore the openings created through Jackelén’s exploration of hermeneutics, feminism, and postmodernism to develop a “trauma sensitive theology” that attends to the neurobiological, psychological, relational, emotional, and spiritual needs of a traumatized individual, family, community, and society.
I say unto you: one must have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star. I say unto you: you still have chaos in yourselves.(Nietzsche)
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Notes
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- 2.
George Will, “Colleges become the victims of progressivism,” Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-college-become-the-victims-of-progressivism/2014/06/06/e90e73b4-eb50-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html. Accessed 24 March 2015.
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Trinity within the Christian traditions, polytheism in other traditions.
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“[T]he One” is Schneider’s designation for the power granted to and through theological traditions of monotheism.
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“Integration” as a psychological term and as a religion-and-science methodology are problematic in that they tend towards the development of a singularity rather than a unity of multiplicity. While I believe that “integration” could provide a fruitful image for trauma sensitive theology at some point in the future, it first requires some intentional rehabilitation from its current usage that has functioned to shame trauma survivors in the awareness and experience of internal multiplicity.
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My understanding of trauma as an abuse of relational power is indebted to the work of James Poling. For his articulation of the abuse of power, see James Newton Poling, The Abuse of Power: A Theological Problem (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1991).
- 10.
Alan Schore notes in his editorial forward, “Posttraumatic states are filled with experiences of rigidity or chaos that continue the devastation of trauma long past the initial overwhelming events.” Trauma and the Body, xiv.
- 11.
While Jackelén offers complexity as an alternative to chaos, she does so from a different frame than the one Keller utilizes. My hunch is that Jackelén and Keller actually share many of the same underlying commitments and the distinction in language is more a matter of audience and resources than substance.
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Somatic Internal Family Systems is developed, as a thread of IFS, by Susan McConnell as a framework for psychotherapy and self-understanding. For more information, see www.embodiedself.net
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Bessel van der Kolk is founder and director of the Trauma Center in Boston and has been at the forefront of traumatology research and trauma therapy for 30 years. His article “The Body Keeps Score” and subsequent monograph by the same title are keystones in clinical awareness of the essential role of the body in surviving and processing traumatic events.
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My use “senses” includes touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight as well as proprioception, interoception, and kinesthetic sensing.
- 15.
Rita Nakashima Brock and Gabriella Lettini theologically and pastorally discusses the notion of “moral injury” in her text Soul Repair: Recovering from Moral Injury after War (Boston: Beacon Press, 2013).
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Baldwin, J. (2016). From Traumatic Disruption to Resilient Creativity: How Hermeneutics, Feminism, and Postmodernism Provide Grounds for the Development of a Trauma Sensitive Theology. In: Baldwin, J. (eds) Embracing the Ivory Tower and Stained Glass Windows. Issues in Science and Religion: Publications of the European Society for the Study of Science and Theology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23944-6_8
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