At the end of April I successfully defended my Master’s Thesis entitled “Trauma in the Differentiated Presence of God.” A PDF is available for download here. Abstract below:
The altered physiology of the trauma survivor provokes questions concerning the spatial and temporal presence and absence of God. This enquiry employs the corpus of Jürgen Moltmann and the biblical witness of the Epistle to the Hebrews in order to investigate the differentiated presence of God in the midst of trauma. The trauma survivor is neuro-physiologically changed by the traumatizing event; Moltmann’s robust theology provides a language for speaking about the god-forsaken spaces, the compressed sense of time, and ultimately the vocabulary for hope and recovery. The author of Hebrews places his audience in the intermediary space of the Israelites wilderness wanderings. Trauma places the survivor in a similar locale: they survived their trauma and yet it persists, so they find themselves waiting for something more. Furthermore, through all these experiences encounters with God are fleeting and strange. The presence of God is currently found to be qualified and provisional. This project concludes that the cruciform community can provide a place of recovery in the liminal locale of the “wilderness” for loving endurance and hopeful anticipation of the coming integration of all things in the full indwelling of God.
Wild and Wandering Cries 