Courage in Chaos: The Importance of Trauma-Informed Adult Religious Education

ABSTRACT

This article explores the powerful influence that trauma can have on individuals and the ways in which this influence might be addressed in the development of adult religious education. It asks how we can facilitate deepening a person's relationship with God and others when trauma has damaged a person's capacity to relate. Suggestions are made for future work by integrating trauma analysis from Judith Herman and Bessel van der Kolk with theological insight from Mary Elizabeth Moore and Rebecca Chopp. Five qualities of a trauma-informed approach to adult religious education are proposed.

Notes on contributors

L. Callid Keefe-Perry is Doctoral Candidate, School of Theology, Boston University, Boston, MA. [email protected]

Zachary Moon is Assistant Professor of Practical Theology, Chicago Theological Seminary, Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Notes

1 We follow Jeff Astley's position in that “Christian Education … marks out those educational processes through which people learn to become Christian and to be more Christian” (2000, 2). That is, this article assumes ARE will be congregationally based and will encourage confessional religious formation in a particular tradition. Although we acknowledge that religious education for children and youth could also benefit from developing an explicitly trauma-informed approach, our focus in this piece is on adult religious education, a decision that comes about as a result of our own experiences and expertise as well as the space limitations of a single article.

2 As far as we have been able to discern, the only piece of published literature explicitly addressing adult Christian education and the long-term effects of trauma is S. Niranjan Rodrigo's 2009 dissertation from Fordham: “How Religious Education and Christian Spirituality Can Restore Lost Trust and Foster Interdependent Relationships Among Adult Children of Alcoholics.” We would love to learn if additional work has addressed this topic.

3 Addressing the realities of trauma as the content of ARE is potentially useful as well. Here though, we consider some of the contours of a trauma-informed approach to other material.

4 This articulation is inspired by the model developed by The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (“Trauma-Informed Approach” 2015).