Trauma has been called ‘the word of the decade’. Bessel van der Kolk’s book The Body Keeps the Score has been a publishing phenomenon: 245 weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, 35 of those at number 1. Trauma and its impact on people’s lives are prominent ideas in contemporary culture.
What’s a Christian to think about these things? Responses vary.
Some see trauma as one of the most urgent issues a Christian could address. It involves those who have endured some of the very worst experiences of suffering, which many would see as more than sufficient justification for doing whatever we can to learn how to care for them. Of course, we must be alert to trauma and focus our attention upon it.
But others are concerned that all this talk of trauma has become overblown. Everything today, they might suggest, is a trauma. Even trivial events, like missing a train and getting caught in a rain shower, become reasons for declaring: ‘I’ve had such a traumatic morning’. To some, the concept of trauma has been unhelpfully devalued and is best avoided.
Still others would identify trauma as a secular concept that has secular solutions which means it is confusing when Christians try to address it. Trauma studies have their origin in the realm of psychology and mental health. Solutions are rooted in secular therapies that don’t map onto the thinking of the Bible. Trauma, as they see it, isn’t a biblical concept and is best avoided.
Others profoundly disagree. They see the impact trauma has on relationships – how it isolates people and so often brings a sense of shame. They see the ugliness of trauma – how it distorts and damages people and undermines their sense of being made in God’s image. They see how the church can reach out in love toward those who are vulnerable and hurting and see doing so as something utterly in keeping with the character of Christ who showed such compassion for those who suffered.
It is confusing – such different perspectives – each with more than an element of truth about them. Navigating toward a wise, measured, compassionate and biblical response isn’t at all easy.
A lived reality
Trauma has been called the word of the decade for a reason. It isn’t just a dominant cultural concept, it is reflected in people’s lived experience. Trauma sometimes arises through a natural disaster, an accident or a crime. Or it is experienced in the context of military conflict – through something that a person has witnessed, or something they have done. Trauma can be associated with extended suffering through abuse in childhood, including child sexual abuse.
Trauma involves awful suffering. It is an experience for some in our churches and some in our communities. And the gospel speaks to these things. It must do. For we declare that “Christ suffered for you” (1 Peter 2:21); and that because he suffered, he is able “to bring you to God” (1 Peter 3:18). The redemptive work at the heart of the Christian faith – the cross of Jesus Christ – involves suffering. Christians are, or should be, uniquely equipped to speak to the experiences of severe suffering. But that doesn’t mean doing so is easy.
A biblical response
The BCUK national conference in 2025 will address the topic of trauma. We will listen to things being said by our culture – because these are loud voices whose impact is wide reaching – but we will do so within a biblical framework and under the authority of Scripture. The book of Job will be our companion as we seek to understand how someone who experienced all that Job went through can still say, even in the midst of pain and hurt and bewilderment, “I know that my redeemer lives and that in the end he will stand on the earth…I myself will see him with my own eyes – I, and not another. How my heart yearns wit in me!” (Job 19:25-27)
Christ meets us in our suffering. And his grace helps us as we love others who suffer. Whether you are involved in pastoral care as a church leader, church member or vocational counsellor, do join us as we consider these things together.
