The first five episodes of this series outlined some of the major themes in how trauma and theology intersect. Now that we know some basics, where do we go from here? In this episode I am joined by three friends who have spent 12 weeks talking about this material and exploring how we might conceive of healing in the aftermath of religious trauma.

Our conversation covered a lot of ground and we concluded that healing is messy! We explore the body, being honest, safety, and how to search for life. Finally, we disuss the concept of hope. Ecotheologians teach us that to heal a traumatized world we must think differently, so if bad theologies have gotten us here, what happens if we flip our ways of thinking? Ivone Gebara suggests new ways of thinking theologically should be more independent, process drive, mind/body bond, contextual, holistic, inclusive, and must make way for emotions.

Hungry and thirsty, we expect to see hope spring up once again in our own womb, in the womb of the earth, out of our entrail, out of the divine that lives with us and renews us. Like the deer, we move forward seeking what will bring us to life, what will enliven our Sacred body with its thousand and one lives. Like the deer, we have sensed the living waters from afar; and now we run towards them, but with no certitudes…barely allowing our goal to keep us alive, to keep us dreaming and to prepare us for the next step on the way. (Gebara)

All of my guest are students at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology

• Madison Drury pursuing a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology
• Emily Knorr pursuing a Master of Arts in Theology & Culture
• Wes Patterson pursuing a Master of Arts in Counseling Psychology

• How do we move forward? (6:15)
• Why we MUST listen to our body (9:45)
• “My body is only ever trying to love me” (12:50)
• Naming the “death” that has occurred and holding complexity is crucial (15:30)
• What does it mean to attend to trauma as a wound that doesn’t heal? (19:00)
• Is it enough just to “sit with” trauma and pain? (24:45)
• “PTSD is woven into our culture. What action could be done if we were more intentional about sitting and holding people’s stories.” (33:15)
• “Being able to help people navigate bad theology is a type of care.” (38:38)
• Judith Herman suggests phases of 1. Safety 2. Remembrance/mourning and 3. Constructing a future (37:40)
• Healing is MESSY! (48:25)

• Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell, Marlene
• Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining, by Shelly Rambo
• Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman
• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence by Judith Herman
• The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection Through Embodied Living by Hilary McBride

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Since leaving evangelicalism, I have been pondering some serious creative blocks, which has become a huge topic for me in my particular theology program. Last year I started asking around and realized I am not alone. Many people who have come out of fundamentalist/evangelical trauma struggle with what to do with their creative side, with many describing a kind of artistic brokenness.

Within the Christian bubbles, so many of us were not trained to listen well or look very deeply at the underside off life, which affected our ability to go very deep into our artistic endeavors.

In this episode, my guests and I talk about what happens to the creative/artistic impulse in white, fundamentalist spaces, and how we might do better at sitting with suffering. Our conversation hits on a number of topics including:

• Artistic brokenness (6:10)
• The church’s tendency to dismiss emotions makes it hard to be an artist (9:00)
• “The creative act requires that the creator is operating out of an authentic self with reference to inner states of being – inner thoughts, feelings, intuition, as opposed to conforming to external models of thought and behavior.” Gelberg (11:30)
• Art as a prophetic voice of what really is (17:00)
• Christian art as empty expression that isn’t driven by anything of substance (19:45)
• We are trained to use our artistic ability to uphold the status quo and not look at the hard things of life. We are not trained to understand or sit with melancholy (21:42)
• The role of melancholy: “A climate of melancholy is necessary in the work of deepening the imagination and creating the condition in which it is possible for our soul to be blessed.” Byrne (22: 56)
• The artist as therapist (31:30)
• Art as action as a companion to witness (38:00)

All of my guest are students at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology

• Alex Grodkiewicz pursuing a Master’s in Theology & Culture
• Carson Taylor pursuing a Master’s in Theology & Culture

• Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining, by Shelly Rambo
• The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron
• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence by Judith Herman
• Gelberg, Steven. “Art and Authority: Foreclosing Creativity in Cultic Groups.” Cultic Studies Review, 9(1), 2010, 232-249.
• Wehle, Dana. “Just Joking: Psychoanalytic Treatment of the Suppression of Creativity in Cults.” in Cultic Studies Review, Vol. 9, No. 1, (2010).
• Cameron, The Artist Way.
• Byrne, Libby. “Living Close to the Wound.” in Tikkun Olam -To Mend the World: A Confluence of Theology and the Arts, Jason ​​Goroncy, ed. Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2014.
• Levine, Steven K. “The Artist as Therapist.” in Poesis: The Language of Psychology and the Speech of the Soul.

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Welcome to the fourth episode of our series on trauma and theology and today we are expanding on the idea that as theology has been impotent to help individuals heal from trauma, it is also complicit in the collective trauma of marginalized groups, our nation and our planet.

My hope is that for the scores of Christians who have never considered how the trauma caused by religion is harming us collectively that this might spark curiosity to think deeper.

Philip Hayes, working towards of Theology an Culture

Holly Greenidge, working towards a Master’s of Divinity

5:45 Definition of collective & historic trauma

12:15 The theological roots that perpetuate collective trauma

15:00 Trauma is embedded in the Biblical narrative

22:00 “whiteness” as collective trauma

27:00 America is where cultures go to die

34:40 What do we do with the exceptionalism of the creation story?

44:20 What does it feel like to lose your culture?

51:00 Is there a solution

• A Different Mirror: A history of multicultural America by Ronald Takaki.

• Exclusion and Embrace, by Miraslav Volf

• Grammar of God by Aviya Kushner

• Holy Resilience by David Carr

• Inspired by Rachel Held Evans

• Longing for Running Water by Ivone Gebara

• My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies, by Resmaa Menakem.

• The History of White People by Nell Painter

• Unsettling Truths: The Ongoing, Dehumanizing Legacy of the Doctrine of Discovery by Mark Charles and Soong-Chan Rah.

• Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining by Shelly Rambo

The post Theology & Collective Trauma first appeared on Dare to Know.

In this episode, we are talking about the bad theology that has led to incredible harm and for women, the LGBTQ community and scores of young people around sexual purity. We will share stories about our own experiences where it was often not okay to be our true selves within religious institutions. Together, we wonder we might hold the tension, and what do we do with the stories we grew up with.

All of my guest are students at The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology

• Kenna Height pursuing a Master’s of Divinity
• Mary Pauline Diaz-Frasene: pursuing a Master’s in Theology & Culture
• Sonja Lund: pursuing a Master’s of Divinity

00:00 Introductions & stories

12:00 Avoidance of the body

15:15 Mistrusting self

20:15 The harms of denying desire

24:00 Women supporting women

38:09 Original sin & the problem of the creation story

• Institutional Betrayal
• Rachel Held Evans
• Grammar of God by Aviya Kushner
• Hebrew Bible by Robert Alter
• Whole-Body Sex: Somatic Sex Therapy and the Lost Language of the Erotic Body by Melissa Walker
• Freyd, J.J (1997) Violations of Power, Adaptive Blindness and Betrayal Trauma Theory. Feminism & Psychology. 7(1):22-32. 29.
• Lorde, Audre. “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” In the Sisters Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Berkeley: Crossing Press, 1984

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In 2011 I made a conscious decision to walk away from evangelical religion, where I had spent most of my life. In the years since, I have worked through many things to discover what I believe about the christian story as I attempt to reshape my personal belief system. In this process I have really struggled with trusting myself and my ability and right to think for myself, make decisions that are in my best interest and with the fear that hung over me to find and live by the absolute truth.

What I have come to learn is that these things are a result of a lifetime of indoctrination in evangelical religious structures; lack of agency, decisions making, fear, and so many more are the symptoms of Religious Trauma Syndrome (RTS), first popularized by Marlene Winell in her book Leaving the Fold. Winell describes RTS as a natural byproduct of fundamentalism with its dualistic thinking, lack of space for bodies, demand for obedience, and toxic identity formation.

In this episode Emily Hedrick and I discuss religious trauma; what it is and how is is harming so many people. Emily will discuss her own story and how she helps people work through trauma to lead more whole lives outside of religion.

Emily Hedrick is a former pastor turned religious trauma informed spirituality coach. She is fascinated by the spiritual technologies employed by religion and curious how humans can use them in the 21st century without exploiting each other. Connect with Emily:

• Website
• Newsletter
• Instagram
• Facebook

13:10 Defining religious trauma

17:50 Psychological benefits of religion

19:20 Difference between spiritual and religious trauma

22:00 How trauma works-manufactured threats

25:00 Feeling it in the body

31:00 Bad theology

37:00 Post religious trauma

• How God Works by David DeSteno
• Leaving the Fold by Marlene Winell, Marlene
• Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining, by Shelly Rambo
• Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma by Ronnie Janoff-Bulman
• The Body Keeps The Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
• Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence by Judith Herman
• https://Journeyfree.com
• https://new.exchristian.net/
• https://www.religioustraumainstitute.com/
• https://dechurched.net/
• https://new.exchristian.net/
• https://www.institutionalcourage.org/

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Trauma affects us all, either through personal experience or as part of the community, and its language has made its way into many areas of public life; education, leadership, mass media, journalism, psychology, and even human resources. In this episode, we will set the stage for this 6-week series where we will explore what theology has to do with trauma, featuring theology students from The Seattle School of theology and Psychology.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining (Shelly Rambo)

Shattered Assumptions (Ronnie Janoff-Bulmam

The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Bessel Van Der Kolk)

Trauma and Grace, Second Edition: Theology in a Ruptured World (Serene Jones)

Trauma and Recovery (Judith Herman)

The post Intro: The Intersection of Theology and Trauma first appeared on Dare to Know.

Welcome to DARE TO KNOW, where truth is treated as a pursuit, and not a destination!

This is my attempt to flex my brain, play with ideas and move away from the group think I experienced in religious circles that just about killed me.

Here we will follow our curiosity and celebrate using our own reason as a way to fully experience the divine in ourselves and in each other in more meaningful ways. It’s about the messy process of growth and the bravery it can take, especially if you have come out of authoritative or fundamentalist spaces where asking questions was not encouraged. We will mess up, get it wrong and adjust when needed.

We are going to kick things off with a limited series on the intersection of trauma, theology and how they have impacted our culture in profound ways. These first six episodes will release every Friday and feature my fellow theology students who will tackle gender and sexuality, collective trauma, the artistic impulse and religious trauma. Its going to be fun!

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