Incarnating Grace : A Theology of Healing from Sexual Trauma / Julia Feder and Donna Freitas.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Feder, Julia, author.

Freitas, Donna, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Psychic trauma--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Psychic trauma.

Sex--Religious aspects--Christianity.

Sex.

Spiritual healing--Christianity.

Spiritual healing.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (253 pages)

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York, NY : Fordham University Press, [2024]

Summary:

Prioritizes survivors of abuse by reexamining Christian ideals about suffering and salvation More than half of women and almost one in three of men in the United States have experienced sexual violence at some time in their lives. Yet our Christian tradition has failed survivors of sexual violence, who have been taught to believe that traumatic suffering brings us closer to God. Incarnat­ing Grace attempts to save our broken ways of talking about God's grace by unearthing liberating resources buried in the Christian tradition.Christian ideas about salvation have historically contributed to sexual violence in our commu­nities by reinforcing the idea that suffering is salvific. But a God worth worshiping does not want human beings to suffer. Drawing on the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila as well as contemporary political and feminist theologians, philosophers, and legal scholars, author and Associ­ate Professor of theology Julia Feder offers an account of Christian salvation as mystical-political.Feder begins by describing the breadth of traumatic wounding and the shape of traumatic recovery, as articulated by psychologists. Since the fullness of post-traumatic healing requires reserves deeper than those which can be articulated by the secular field of psychology alone, the book then introduces the Spanish Carmelite Saint Teresa of Avila and her theological insights, which are most helpful for constructing a post-traumatic theology of healing. Arguing that God stands against violence and suffering, the book also examines the notion of "senseless suffering," a technical term that comes from Edward Schillebeeckx, a Catholic twentieth-century Flemish priest and theologian. The suffering of sexual violence serves no higher purpose or greater human value and pushes against all ways of making sense of the world as good and orderly. In the following chapters, Feder turns to two Christian virtues that animate post-traumatic recovery, courage and hope, and explores how Christian hope can provide a language to empower courageous activity undertaken toward healing.Incarnating Grace opens a new dialogue about salvation and violence that does not allow evil to have the last word.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Contents

Foreword by Donna Freitas

Introduction: Saving Grace

1. Salvation as Mystical-Political Healing

2. Teresa of Avila: A Saint for Survivors

3. Teresa's Embodied Anthropology

4. The Survivor as Imago Dei: Created for Friendship

5. Edward Schillebeeckx's Theology of Suffering

6. The Story of Jesus and the Mystical-Political Shape of Salvation

7. Courage in the Work of Posttraumatic Healing

8. Recovery and Hope

Conclusion: A Theology of Healing

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index.

Notes:

Includes index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Feder, Julia Incarnating Grace

ISBN:

9781531504748

1531504744

OCLC:

1402022762