Trauma and Theology: Prospects and Limits in Light of the Cross

Abstract

The discipline of Christian theology is itself formed around the traumatic narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion. Investigating trauma in order to provide useful accompaniment to trauma survivors is, therefore, theology’s starting point, not a secondary interest. Holding the narrative of crucifixion at its center, this chapter asks whether a discipline constructed in response to traumatic rupture is bound to exacerbate systems of retraumatization or has the potential to empower trauma survivors toward recovery. Building upon the scholarship of late 20th and 21st century womanist and feminist theologians and the significant risk of retraumatization, it engages contemporary psychoanalytic trauma theorists to argue that theology's strength with respect to trauma and contribution to the interdisciplinary task of supporting trauma survivors is its potential as a holding space for diverse stories of both traumatic rupture and recovery.