Doing practical theology ‘from the place where it hurts’: the significance of trauma theology in renewing a practical theology of suffering

ABSTRACT

Questions of suffering provoke deep challenges to our theological thinking. Despite being an intrinsic part of the human condition, suffering has occupied a problematic space in our theological history. Whilst traditional theologies have leaned on theodicy to account for the presence of suffering, these tend to concentrate the focus on the why of suffering, rather than the who, and the how. Yet questions of suffering are inextricable from the lived experience of suffering bodies. Theologies which neglect the suffering body, I propose, leave it silenced. This article looks to explore how trauma theologies might inform a practical theological response to suffering which takes the suffering body seriously; a response which is necessarily embodied, witnessed, and disruptive.

KEYWORDS:

• Suffering
• trauma
• embodiment
• theodicy
• witness

The question of suffering

Suffering provokes difficult theological questions for which there are no easy answers. And yet suffering is perhaps not so much a question, as a fact. It is a fact of human life that we will, at some point, suffer. Our bodies are finite; their demise is often accompanied by physical dimensions of suffering through illness, injury, or aging. We are living in an environment which is increasingly unstable, with the effects of climate change resulting in dangerous and often catastrophic effects on our landscape. The world is still recovering from the unprecedented impact of a global pandemic. In the UK, we are currently experiencing economic crisis; with the effects of austerity policies still keenly felt, millions are suffering from financial precarity. The political conflicts in Ukraine, Palestine, Afghanistan, and Yemen (to name but a few) rage on. The recent rights movements such as #metoo, Black Lives Matter, #churchtoo and trans rights activism have underscored that inequality and violence continue to leave their mark on our bodies. Suffering, it seems, is as ubiquitous as it is unavoidable. Why then, does it seem so theologically challenging?

Despite being a tradition in which suffering, and indeed what might be considered profoundly traumatic suffering, is at its heart, Christian theology has an uneasy relationship with suffering. Suffering raises uncomfortable questions about God’s presence in the world. John Swinton reflects that this is perhaps what makes suffering so theologically challenging; it disrupts our expectations of life, faith, and God,

… when we encounter suffering, we are silenced. Whether that suffering is present in the diagnosis of cancer in a child or in the trauma of a rape victim, the initial response is silence. There is nothing to say, only overwhelming pain, loss and disorientation to be felt (2018, 97).

Whilst silence is perhaps a natural response to the incomprehensibility of suffering, theological silences can function to render the sufferer invisible; unheard, unseen, and unwitnessed.

However, silence, too, can be uncomfortable. Where silence provokes discomfort, there is often a theological temptation to hasten to provide answers. Traditionally, theology has often turned to theodicy to provide such answers. Theodicies operate to explain, defend, or justify the existence of suffering in God’s creation. Such accounts not only aim to explain the presence of suffering, but also often seek to attribute some meaning, or theological validation, for the suffering itself. Grounding the discussion in these traditional theological responses, I consider how theodicy can be seen to have shaped the ‘theological scripts’ on suffering. In examining theologies which favour resolution-focused responses, I ask how we theologically reflect on sufferings which ‘flip the script’; sufferings which defy explanation, resolution, or purpose?

Turning to the developing field of trauma theology, I consider how such trauma informed responses might challenge solution focused narratives of suffering. Emerging as an area of theological enquiry in the last few decades, trauma theologies can be characterised as: embodied, testimonial, and disruptive. Whilst ‘trauma’, and ‘suffering’ are arguably two distinct terms, I propose that suffering is inextricable from trauma, and therefore trauma can provide a critical lens through which to theologically reflect on suffering. In attending to the ‘who’ and the ‘how’ of suffering, I propose trauma theologies speak to practical theology as a discipline which is responsive to theological gaps and silences, and which looks to lived, embodied experience and practices as being able to inform, reveal, or challenge theological thinking or praxis. In this sense, I propose that trauma theologies may vitally transform the way practical theology responds to experiences of suffering.

Theodicy: the situation-solution paradigm

Theologians have always engaged in the perennial questions of human suffering. In the face of the claim that the divine is in relationship with the world, the question is how to account for the suffering in the world. Is God responsible for the suffering? Does God will it? If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t God fix the situation? (Rambo 2010, 10)

The theological implications of such questions are manifold. The overriding demand implicit in them, however, is simple – why? Asking ‘why’ we suffer strikes deep at the core of our belief about God. In the asking, we are not only questioning the nature of suffering, but the nature of God Themself. Such critical questioning interrupts the theological silence on suffering, demanding a response. Such a response has typically been found in theodicy. Presenting theoretical frameworks through which questions of suffering and God are reconciled theologically, theodicies broadly fall into the categories of defence of God, and defence of suffering. Within ‘defensive’ theodicies, suffering is not a condition which exists in and of itself, but rather, is often perceived to be the result of the problem of evil. The question for theodicy thus is not why do we suffer, but instead, how do we account for God’s goodness in a world in which suffering and evil exists? (Cross 2020, 5).

‘Classic’ theodicy which responds to such questions can be seen to have their roots within Augustinian and Irenaean traditions of theodicy. The Augustinian account, drawing from scriptural interpretations of evil and sin, describes the presence of evil and suffering as an after-effect of creation. Evil is thus not created by God, nor in spite of God, but is a by-product of original sin, and the misuse of the free-will which God has afforded humans. Irenaean theodicy similarly believes in the free-will of humans; however, positions that evil and suffering exists to afford humans the opportunity to fully exercise their free will. This tradition posits that without the existence of bad choices, good choices which enable spiritual formation cannot be made. Within both accounts, however, the existence of suffering, and indeed evil, are not God’s direct responsibility, but rather ours (Cross 2020, 16–19).

Despite being written in the 2nd and 4th centuries (respectively), these formative theodicies can still be seen to influence contemporary theological thought. Robert White, in his volume ‘Who is to Blame … ?’ (2014) develops an ecological theodicy in defence of the goodness of God in the face of natural disasters. Adopting a geological and theological approach, White cites humanity’s culpability in over-population, economic inequality, damaging agricultural advancements and climate change as exacerbating, or indeed causing, many of the ‘natural’ disasters we experience. The responsibility for suffering lies not with God, then, but with us.

Whilst defence of God theodicies seek to eliminate God’s culpability in creating or allowing suffering, defence of suffering theodicies are less concerned with responsibility, and more concerned with purpose. Within the Augustinian account, whilst suffering is perceived to be a consequence of sin, sin is ultimately weakened by our endurance of suffering. Whilst Augustine considered sin as potentially nullified in the face of suffering, Irenaean theodicy instead considers suffering necessary for spiritual growth (O’Donnell 2018, 9). Suffering, within both accounts, fulfils a positive salvific function.

Furthering the Irenaean position in respect to the essential nature of suffering, Philosopher John Hick (2010) affirms that humanity’s free will has been purposefully created to allow for opportunities for spiritual growth. Describing suffering as ‘soul making’, Hick proposes that all suffering, even innocent or seemingly pointless suffering, is potentially educative, character forming, and spiritually enhancing (2010, 27). In his volume Evil and the God of Love, he develops a theodicy in which suffering provides theological meaning by enabling demonstrations of genuine love and compassion for the sufferer. This, he reasons, is its true theological purpose.

Moving beyond paradigms of suffering which emphasise its salvific character, post-Holocaust theological work (emerging from the incomprehensibility of suffering on such a mass scale) challenge the notion that God creates or permits suffering as a kind of soteriological ‘test’. Jürgen Moltmann, one of the foundational voices in this context, instead develops a theology of the cross, citing the crucifixion as evidence that God does merely witness or allow suffering, but rather, suffers with us. In The Crucified God, Moltmann offers a theology in which the suffering God is ‘not only a consolation in suffering, but also the protest of the divine promise against suffering’ (1974, 21). In the resurrection and redemption of Christ, he furthers, we can reimagine eschatology not as a resolution or future promise of salvific fulfilment, but rather, as something which can be found in the everyday persistence of hope in the face of suffering.

Bethany Sollereder (2018) develops a similarly ‘present tense’ theology of suffering, proposing what she terms a ‘compassionate theodicy’. Here, she considers that suffering is not in and of itself spiritually purposeful, but rather, that the practice of theodicy in the experience of suffering can function as ameliorative. Theodicies, she argues, do not necessarily have to hold the answers for the sufferer, but rather, can instead provide the theological tools required to reorientate their suffering in ways which offer theological meaning. She writes,

compassionate theodicy could draw on the resources of religious belief and the sciences to provide alternative frameworks of meaning that allow people to reinterpret their situation in ways that diminish emotional isolation and distress, and thus lower the overall perception of suffering (2018, 795).

The temptation to find meaning in suffering is certainly a heady one. Theodicies which function to make sense of our suffering; whether by defence, solidarity, or salvific promise, have held an enduring allure. Shelly Rambo, however, cautions that whilst theodicies may work to provide explanatory frameworks of suffering, the ‘degree to which explanations are helpful to the healing process is unclear’ (2010, 10). Rather, she furthers, such explanations can often be as equally harmful to the sufferer as suffering from which no explanation or sense can be made. Whilst defence of God theodicies may allow us to reconcile ourselves with a God who permits us to suffer, they may also reinforce potentially harmful tropes of sin and blame within the sufferer themselves. Serene Jones notes that such theologies are particularly damaging to women, who have borne the theological brunt of responsibility when it comes to matters of original sin (2019, 85).

Whilst redemptive suffering paradigms propose to offer some sort of meaning or purpose from the experience of suffering, and indeed some hope in a future salvation and liberation from suffering, this can lead to a glorification of suffering as soteriologically positive, or even necessary. In considering suffering within a redemptive framework, there is an underlying sense not only that we might suffer, but that we ought to – and this has significant implications for victims of violence or oppression. Rambo notes that,

The pressure to get over, to forget, to wipe away the past, is often reinforced by one particular way of reading Christian redemption … This way of reading can, at its best, provide a sense of hope and promise for the future. But it can also gloss over the realities of pain and loss, glorify suffering, and justify violence (2010, 146).

The orthodoxy of such theodicies in adopting a formulaic, universalist approach to suffering arguably generalises the experience of suffering to the extent that the reality of the sufferer becomes obscured. Heather Walton furthers that ‘theologians have perhaps been too ready to use theodicy to bridge the gaps and fissures in human experience in order to enable us to supply a happy ending to all our stories’ (2014, 186).

Presenting theodicy as a product of modernity, Swinton considers the theological compulsion to provide some sort of resolution to the ‘problem of suffering’ to be the result of a post-Enlightenment, Western tradition in which logic, knowledge and reason are given primacy over faith. The theological impulse to rationalise suffering, he asserts, stems from our relative contextual privilege in which suffering is perceived to be aberrant. Early Christians, he suggests, experienced suffering so ubiquitously that it was deemed ‘unexceptional’, and therefore did not require the same level of explanation. Swinton proposes that, ‘within a context in which there is gross, uncontrollable suffering, there is no need for theodicy. However … in a context where it is assumed that suffering is not inevitable, theodicy becomes necessary’ (2018, 39).

Whilst I am somewhat sceptical of the suggestion that questions about God and suffering have ever been unimportant to peoples experiencing significant and enduring hardships¹, ² (particularly given that the formative theodicies discussed above emerged during the early Christian period³), I do however endorse Swinton’s critique of theodicy as intellectualising suffering as a problem to be solved, and not as a lived reality. Amber Griffeon suggests that in this sense the theological privilege of theodicy comes not from its unfamiliarity with suffering, but rather, from its ability to create distance ‘cognitively and emotionally’ from suffering in order to consider it ‘more abstractly’ (2018, 2). She furthers that the ‘cognitive and emotional distance’ cultivated by theodicy is both morally and epistemically harmful as a theological position; it is morally harmful in the sense that it desensitises us from the suffering of others by abstracting it from its lived reality, and epistemically harmful by silencing the experience of the sufferer in favour of explanations (2018, 2).

Katie Cross notes that suffering is far from abstract, writing, ‘human beings do not experience suffering as a philosophical problem to be solved, but as something real near and affecting’ (2020, 22). Terence Tilley asserts that in presenting theoretical problems with theoretical solutions, theodicy is therefore a discourse which is thoroughly ‘impractical,’ in failing to engage with people who suffer (2000, 229). In this sense, I consider theodicy to be incompatible with practical theology as a discipline which seeks to explore ‘the dissonance between theology and lived reality’ (Cross 2020, 8); a dissonance which, I suggest, is all too apparent within traditional theodicies. Despite being a tradition which ‘has a traumatic story as its nucleus’ (Ganzevoort 2008, 19) theodicies reinforce a theological temptation to elide experiences of suffering which run counter to our expectation of the ‘goodness of God’.

Whilst practical theology deals with the complex and the ‘messy’ perhaps better than other sub-disciplines, the epistemological orthodoxy within which it is situated still compels it not only to seek, but to provide solutions. This compulsion is rooted not only within pressures of disciplinary and academic legitimacy, but also in its theological foundations. The danger, however, of recreating a ‘situation-solution’ paradigm within practical theology is that that the lived experience of suffering remains obscured. Situating the practical theological task as one which is ‘descriptive’, ‘interpretative’, and ‘transformative’ (Browning 1996; Cross 2020); I propose that theologies which take suffering seriously must instead examine how suffering is lived, revealed, and resisted in theological practice. Turning to the developing field of trauma theologies, I consider how theologies which are embodied, witnessed and disruptive might speak more authentically to a practical theology of suffering.

Trauma theology

Though trauma and suffering are not new phenomena to the human experience, the field of trauma studies as a means of interpreting traumatic suffering is a relatively recent development. Perhaps the most notable first identifications of ‘trauma’ (as we have come to understand it) emerged in the early twentieth century, in psychological responses to issues of sexual abuse, and the conditions of those post-war. Despite being etymologically associated with ‘wounds’, those who survived such violence often bore no physical injuries; and yet, they bore the marks of trauma which were nonetheless visceral (Scarsella 2020, 43). Such trauma did not cease when the traumatic event was over, but rather, persisted.

Thus, a new understanding of trauma emerged which recognised trauma as distinct from injury, loss, or violence. The development of contemporary trauma studies has recognised that trauma is experienced not only within the body but can also beyond the body in the experience of mental, emotional, and spiritual suffering (Jones 2019, 20). This kind of trauma, whilst perhaps not as obvious or visible as physical wounds, can be insidious, disrupting a person’s perception of themselves and the world around them. The emergence of trauma studies seeks to explore these disruptions, grounding analysis of trauma in how it is lived, experienced, and sometimes re-experienced by the sufferer. Early trauma studies recognised trauma not as the pain experienced during a traumatic event or incident, but rather, ‘the suffering which remained’ (Rambo 2010, 6).

Whilst ‘suffering’ and ‘trauma’ are distinct terms, they are nonetheless intertwined. Whilst not all suffering can necessarily be described as traumatic, I suggest that suffering is an inherent aspect of trauma; thus, trauma theologies are uniquely positioned to offer a distinct theological response to suffering. Rambo writes,

Although some may say that all ‘suffering is suffering,’ there are different expressions of that suffering and its effects that press for renewed theological articulation … The discourse of trauma engages these invisible realities, continually calling attention to what falls outside the lines of what is, or can be, represented. The challenge of theological discourse is to articulate a different orientation to suffering that can speak to the invisibility, gaps, and repetitions (Rambo 2010, 170.)

The discourse of trauma theology, in an attempt to fill these gaps and silences, has developed from interdisciplinary work in trauma studies, drawing insight from diverse fields such as psychology, sociology and medicine. Informed by Post-Holocaust studies on trauma and testimony, feminist theologians such as Serene Jones, Rebecca Chopp, and Shelly Rambo began to introduce the vernacular of ‘trauma’ into the theological vocabulary (Rambo 2020, xv). Influenced by Judith Herman’s pivotal text Trauma and Recovery (1992), this work identified that whilst deeply personal, trauma is also discernibly political, social and religious; and therefore, fraught with issues of power (Rambo 2020, xv). They also identified that traditional theologies of suffering, rather than challenging these traumatic structures, all too often reinforced them.

Karen O’Donnell notes that, ‘rather than seeking to mould experiences of trauma to fit within existing doctrines and theologies, these theologians begin with the experience of trauma as ‘the real’ and allow that experience to inform and challenge doctrine’ (2020, 10). In taking ‘real’ experience as the theological starting point, trauma theologies draw attention to the ways in which traumatic suffering is resistant to language, located in the body, and defiant of ‘easy’ resolutions (Cross and O’Donnell 2022). Trauma theologies which respond to these dynamics are thus characteristically embodied, testimonial, and resistant to simplification. In what follows, I explore these key themes, noting where they can be seen to both challenge traditional theological paradigms of suffering, and hold generative potential for practical theological thinking.

Embodied

Whilst trauma studies have highlighted the particularity of trauma as a condition which exists beyond the physicality of wounding, they nonetheless stress the significance of trauma as a thoroughly embodied experience. Beginning from our initial responses to traumatic stimuli or events, our bodies are implicated; our heart rate elevates, cortisol (the stress hormone) and adrenaline flood the body, affecting our limbs, speech and cognitive processing (Ison 2020, 34). When the physiological responses to trauma cannot be ‘discharged’ from the body, they remain ‘stuck,’ anticipating the threat to persist (Collins 2020, 203). Neurobiological and neuropsychological studies into trauma have noted how trauma continues to impact the body long after the initial traumatic event has passed; indeed, trauma has been shown to have a visible impact on the brain itself.⁴ Trauma is thus increasingly referred to as ‘somatically’ experienced, meaning that traumatic events are not only inscribed on the body, but remain held within the body.⁵

And yet, despite the fact that the body of Christ is a wounded, suffering body, both literally and symbolically, Christian theology has been reluctant to engage with theologies of suffering which take the body seriously (O’Donnell 2020; Rambo 2017). As I have explored above, theodicies which claim to engage with suffering often leave out the material, embodied experience of suffering, ‘glossing over’ and ‘sanitising’ suffering from its corporeal contours (Rambo 2010, 14). Shelly Rambo, in her foundational work on trauma (2010; 2017), instead turns to the crucified body as the theological starting point for engaging with ‘wounded bodies’. Critiquing theodicies which draw from the redemptive symbol of the cross as a form of healing or restoration from suffering she instead proposes a theology of ‘remaining’; a theological attention to bodies which have experienced suffering or trauma that is not, or cannot be, neatly restored or resolved, but rather is lived with and ongoing (2017, 145).

Noting the significance of Rambo’s work as descriptive of the ‘middle space’ between the event of suffering and the aftermath, Elaine Graham notes that, ‘the ‘open wound’ and ‘reminders’ of trauma in the shape of physical, psychological and psychosomatic ailments represent the reality of lived experience for most people and … must be protected as the place from where the theological work must begin’ (2020, 17). Taking the body not only as the site in which trauma is lived and experienced, theological work on trauma also recognises the body as the site on which trauma is often enacted. Black, womanist, feminist and queer theologies are increasingly drawing on discourses of trauma to examine how particular bodies are disproportionately more subject to trauma, both physically, institutionally, and structurally because of the bodies they inhabit (Brown Douglas 2019; Reddie 2022; Brinkman 2022; Collins 2020). Such theologies explore how such trauma ‘remains’ in intergenerational systems of inequality and oppression against marginalised bodies; providing descriptive accounts not only of the lived, embodied experience of trauma, but of the structural forces which produce, and reproduce, trauma in both religious and non-religious contexts (Brown Douglas 2019, x).

Noting the significance of individual bodies on wider theology, Karen O’Donnell observes that, ‘the body of Christ as an ecclesial body is formed of the individual bodies that are members of it. Some of these bodies are traumatised bodies … If individual bodies are traumatised, then the whole body of Christ experiences trauma’ (2021, 11). Adopting a materialist ontological perspective, O’Donnell stresses that the body is not merely the site of theological knowledge on suffering, it is also the site from which all theological reflection takes place. Rejecting the ‘disembodiment’ of intellectual theodicy from the lived reality of trauma and suffering, O’Donnell furthers, ‘rather than claiming persons have bodies, I claim that persons are bodies. Even a brief reflection on the impact that the experience of trauma has … is enough to indicate that one cannot hold to sharp distinctions between body and mind or body and soul’ (2020, 190).

In contrast to the ‘cognitive and emotional distance’ from suffering which theodicy affords the theologian (Griffoen 2018, 2), O’Donnell develops an embodied trauma theology which reflects powerfully on her own experience as ‘doing theology’ from the site of a miscarrying body (2018). In reflecting on how the body influences the way in which we practice theology, O’Donnell highlights that our ontology is inextricable from our own embodied, lived, experience as theologians. This situates theological reflection on trauma as a discourse which is deeply rooted in theological practice and holds particular significance for practical theology as a discipline which draws from lived experience as the starting point for theological reflection. In centring on embodied experience, the descriptive practice of trauma theology attends not only to whose body is experiencing trauma, but how this trauma is expressed, and importantly, by whom.

Witnessed

Yet trauma, like suffering, is characteristically resistant to expression. Just as Swinton has observed that suffering leaves us theologically silent (2018, 97), trauma similarly disrupts our ability to name it. As the physiological changes which occur during trauma trigger our ‘fight, flight, or freeze’ responses, so too do they disrupt the parts of our brain which enable us to verbalise what is happening. Put simply, our resources are diverted elsewhere in our body’s attempt to survive (Warner et al. 2020, 170). Elaine Scarry, in her foundational work on pain, describes its silencing effects,

Pain becomes unsharable in our midst as at once that which cannot be denied and that which cannot be confirmed … whatever pain achieves it achieves through unshareability, and it ensures this unshareability through resistance to language. (1985, 4).

Work on trauma has noted that it’s ‘unshareability’ often manifests in multiple ways. Firstly, the physiological silencing as the body attempts to respond to the traumatic event. Secondly, in the way that trauma proves disruptive to memory; trauma can disorder the way the brain stores its knowledge of the traumatic event, impacting our ability to form a coherent narrative of the trauma experienced. Thirdly, trauma can inhibit a person’s trust and confidence that their trauma will be heard, much less believed (Jones 2019, 15). Rambo notes that the silencing and perceived unreliability of trauma results in a situation in which whose story is heard, and deemed credible, ‘is determined by the social, political, and economic interests shaping remembrance’ (2017, 95). This, she furthers, creates a paradigm in which ‘suffering is scaled, as if measured on the atrocity scale to discern whose trauma is worthy of being represented and remembered’ (2017, 95).

Theodicies which purport to fill the gaps and silences in suffering which cannot be expressed often do so by passing over the experience of the sufferer altogether. The voice of the sufferer remains unheard; instead, it is often spoken over in the theological need to provide answers. The sufferer’s inability to speak to their experience, or provide a coherent account, can arguably become irrelevant when there is a ready solution at hand to answer for them. However, failing to allow space for expression of trauma minimises its impact to the sufferer: leaving them alone in their suffering, invisible to others. This can have significant implications not only for a person’s ability to form relation, but also, in their ability to heal from trauma. Hilary Jerome Scarsella, writing on the importance of belief in one’s ability to make sense and begin to heal from trauma, writes that we are therefore theologically ‘obliged to construct alternative conceptual frames for belief and embodied practices of belief that bear witness to what it means to live as a person who has experienced the world’s attempts to erase them’ (Scarsella 2020, 55).

How do we bear witness, then, to the experience of trauma and suffering which cannot be expressed? Affirming that rather ‘trauma has its own language … the language of the unsayable’, Stephanie Arel and Shelly Rambo note that ‘although trauma cannot always be brought into speech, trauma is communicated and expressed even in the absence of words’ (2018, 19–20). Attending to what she describes as the ‘unspeakable’, Rebecca Chopp draws on principles of trauma theory which recognise the ‘failure of language’ in representing experiences of suffering, yet argues that traumatic silence need not present a theological obstacle (2001, 64). Developing this from a poetic practical theological perspective, Chopp proposes a ‘poetics of testimony’ which is not found in speech; but rather lives in the gaps, fragments and silences which trauma creates (2001, 64).

In contrast to theodicies which seek to provide answers, trauma theologies instead rest with what is not said; they are comfortable in the silence, holding space for the absence of words. Shelly Rambo considers this silence a condition of the ‘middle space’, drawing on Holy Saturday as holding particular symbolic significance for the witness of trauma which is not expressed but rather exists ‘in the midst’ of things. In this sense, trauma theologies draw on witness not in the sense of hearing or speaking, but rather, as a witnessing presence. Cross and O’Donnell note that in listening to the ‘untold stories’ of trauma, we can provide a witnessing presence which offers ‘validation, and acceptance … allowing the traumatised person or group to gain empathy, support, and catharsis’ (2022, 3). Describing this as an ‘off-kilter embrace’ which restores connection with the sufferer, Jones affirms that it is both a bearing with the sufferer, and a ‘bearing up’ by the sufferer in the witnessing of trauma that creates space for expression and healing (2019, 114).

The concept of witness within trauma theology challenges the ways in which we have traditionally responded to suffering. Rambo affirms that ‘with increased attentiveness to the phenomenon of trauma, our understanding of witness has become more textured and multilayered. It is thick witness’ (2010, 20). Through the interpretative lens of trauma, silence does not exist as a theological vacuum, but rather, is charged with theological significance. This troubles our epistemological reliance on language, both textual and spoken, urging us to develop new theological practices of ‘thick witness’ which allow for silence, ambiguity, uncertainty. Rambo notes that, the challenge of trauma is the challenge of witnessing to a phenomenon that exceeds the categories by which we make sense of the world … it is a practice of unmasking, unearthing, and tracking what escapes interpretation’ (2010, 28).

Disruptive

Trauma is a phenomenon which disrupts. It interrupts our physiological and neurological processes, distorts time and memory, defies speech and breaks our social connections (Jones 2019, 114). Describing these conditions as ‘ruptures’, O’Donnell notes that trauma causes ruptures in the body, time, and cognition, disrupting how we feel, know, and make sense of the world (2020, 185). In the same way that trauma can prove rupturing for the individual, it also proves theologically disruptive.

Traditional theologies have been built on orthodoxies which construct our understanding of suffering as a theological problem. Theodicies operate within these theological orthodoxies, responding to ‘the problem’ of suffering and trauma as questions which can be answered. The theological priority is to attend to why suffering exists, whether the answer be God’s will, the result of sin, or as a soteriological opportunity. The physical, emotional, and spiritual reality of suffering becomes obscured; sufferers are not embodied, but rather, merely provide the theoretical conditions to which theodicy can respond.

Anupama Ranawana notes that in contrast, the ‘theology of trauma, rightly, rejects traditional formulations on suffering and the acceptance of suffering and interrogates them, seeking to interpret the impact that trauma has’ (2022, 94). In looking to ‘the impact’ of trauma, rather than the ‘idea’, trauma theologies centre the suffering body as the locus of theological reflection. In this sense, trauma theology disrupts our theological construction of suffering as disembodied, emphasising that suffering cannot be extracted from bodies in material contexts (O’Donnell 2020, 190). This challenges the notion that suffering is a theological problem which can be answered doctrinally: rather, suffering is recognised as an earthly problem in which different bodies experience trauma and suffering as material realities, shaped by structural, historical, and institutional forces.

In this sense, trauma theologies also our rupture our theological thinking on ‘time’. Within traditional theologies, the approach to suffering is decidedly linear; it moves swiftly from the situation (a singular, concluded event) to the solution. Whilst this reading presented trauma within the framework of ‘event-aftermath’, trauma theologies challenge the position that trauma is responsive to a singular event, noting that rather, it can be complex, multiple, and ongoing (Rambo 2017, 5). Rejecting the singularity of an ‘event-aftermath’ theological paradigm, Shelly Rambo instead proposes that trauma necessitates a theology of ‘ongoingness’: noting that traumatic ‘experiences do not respect lines between past, present, and future, that histories of suffering persist in the present, operating powerfully below the surface of conscious life’ (2017, 145).

Trauma theologies which position suffering as ‘ongoing’ are thus particularly resistant to solution orientated paradigms of suffering. In highlighting trauma as ‘the suffering which remains’, trauma theologies reject theological constructions of redemption, restoration or resolution. Ranawana notes that, ‘the experience of trauma dismantles certain theological notions, especially the idea of theology as a ‘fixer’ (2022, 94). Rambo asserts that,

Trauma challenged traditional conceptual frameworks upon which many disciplines strongly relied. If scholars are going to take trauma seriously, they have to confront the status of their own discourses and rethink core assumptions about truth, experience, and knowledge (2010, 25).

In listening to the silence of trauma and suffering and witnessing expressions of suffering which are both unspoken and unwritten, trauma theology tests the epistemological boundaries of what, and who, counts in the production of knowledge. Trauma theology thus disrupts our theological cognition, challenging the primacy of theological paradigms which seek to establish neatly defined borders within which experience can be abstracted and explained. Instead, trauma theology occupies the ‘precarious middle’, in which trauma is unsayable, unknowable, and unresolvable.

Suffering: from theory to practice

Trauma and suffering are not conditions which exist in the abstract; rather, they are embodied, lived, and re-lived. Traditional theological paradigms which rely on theodicies to rationalise suffering miss a vital theological opportunity to engage with suffering ‘in the midst’ of it. In situating suffering as conceptual and predetermined, theodicy lacks the descriptive, interpretative, and transformative dimensions of practical theology as a discourse which engages with the complexity and authenticity of lived experience as the site of profound theological reflection.

Trauma theology challenges these theological orthodoxies, urging us to move from theory to practice. In presenting suffering as embodied, resistant to language, and disruptive of meaning, trauma theology offers a ‘thick description’ of how suffering is actually lived, asking us to hold space for the gaps and silences, and transforming the way in which we come to know, and be, with suffering theologically. These insights prove vital and renewing for practical theology as a discipline which upholds orthopraxy, over orthodoxy (Graham 2020, 20). In this sense, trauma theology blurs the lines between immanence and transcendence, affirming that our theological responsibility is to,

Come alongside the traumatised, remaining with them, listening, holding space for their trauma to be heard in all its raging, torrential glory. It is to feel God’s presence and God’s absence at the same time. It is to hear stories that unsettle, and to view spaces that are profoundly disturbing. It is to realize the very liminal spaces and edges of faith, beyond where we can even imagine them (Cross and O’Donnell 2022, 4).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Leverhulme Trust.

Notes on contributors

Eilidh Galbraith

Eilidh Galbraith Leverhulme Early Career Fellow University of Aberdeen.

Notes

1 Title inspired by a comment from Michelle Gonzalez Maldonado (2016) on her paper ‘Redeeming Race: A Theological Construction of Racialized humanity’, cited by Karen O’Donnell (2020, 3).

2 I consider that the suggestion that the early church perceived of evil and suffering differently, or employed their faith more unquestioningly, neglects the ways in which people historically engaged with religion. Lack of literacy and the orthodoxy established by aural dissemination of scripture would arguably impact the ability to consider such questions (the thornier issue of hereticism for those who might question notwithstanding).

3 It is worth noting that there are contestations in respect to the validity of claims to an Augustinian tradition of theodicy. Terence Tilley argues that ‘Augustine did not write a theodicy. He wrote numerous works to various audiences, for various purposes … Theologians amalgamate Augustinian “themes” … this practice is malpractice’ (2000, 115).

4 In MrI scans of individuals experiencing PTSD or complex trauma, it has been shown that the amygdala (or area of the brain that responds to stress) is often overactive, meaning that the body’s ‘warning’ system of hypervigilance and hyperarousal remains on high alert. Conversely, the prefrontal cortex and hippocampus, the areas of the brain which deal with emotional processing and memory, present as under-active or ‘dysregulated’, meaning that our emotional responses and recollection of trauma may be diminished, or in some cases, more intense. The Science and Biology of PTSD https://www.ptsduk.org/what-is-ptsd/the-science-and-biology-of-ptsd.

5 While I am here articulating the physical symptomology of trauma, I am mindful of the dangers of ‘pathologizing’ trauma (Collins 2020, 210). Rather, in discussing trauma as ‘embodied’, I seek to highlight aspects of the trauma experience which have escaped theological attention, often to the detriment of the sufferer themselves.