When I speak to fellow educators about trauma and theological education, I would often joke with colleagues about my suspicion that the real reason why many students decide to attend seminary nowadays isn’t necessarily to study theology or the Bible, but rather to tend to and find meaning from their past spiritual trauma—something, I would suggest, most seminaries are poorly equipped to do. At Fuller Seminary, for example, we are finding that many of our graduates are leaving the ministry prematurely. Not because they do not know their theology or because they are unable to preach or interpret Scripture—they are leaving the ministry because of challenges that are emotional or relational in nature: depression, burnout, marital conflict, conflict with ministry staff. And as the Penner Chair for the Formation of Emotionally Healthy Leaders, I am tasked with the responsibility of helping the seminary consider what theological education might need to look like if we were to take the emotional formation of our students just as seriously as their intellectual formation and their spiritual formation. Beyond important considerations such as student retention and well-being, the emotional formation of students is also a matter of critical importance to position our graduates well for a lifetime of faithful and sustainable ministry to the Kingdom of God.They are leaving the ministry because of challenges that are emotional or relational in nature: depression, burnout, marital conflict, conflict with ministry staff. 

How might one go about engaging emotional preparation for ministry? A good place to start is through the lens of trauma. Two recent studies have looked into the trauma histories of clergy—one study conducted by a team I am a part of 1 and another conducted by friends at Duke Divinity. 2 Drawing from two entirely different samples, we found the same pattern. We found that clergy, on average, reported higher prevalence rates of trauma compared to the general population. But interestingly, it’s not every single kind of trauma that clergy have experienced more often—it’s a specific kind of trauma—childhood relational trauma, trauma that involves people that you know and are in relationship with, people that you are supposed to trust—such as family members and friends. Experiences like growing up with an alcoholic in the family, a family member with mental illness, divorce, sexual trauma. And when I work with patients with such histories in my clinical practice, I have found that these are often the folks who, as children, had to function as the emotional adults in their family to keep their family together. 

There’s both beauty and brokenness behind these patterns. On the one hand, some of the most gracious, generous, compassionate, and generative religious leaders I’ve ever had the privilege of encountering are in fact wounded healers. They have their own history of horrific trauma and through these experiences, they’ve learned to be in greater touch with their humanity and the humanity of others. But there is also brokenness to this story as well. Have you ever heard of the phrase, "hurt people hurt people?" Many forms of abuse of power by spiritual authorities, when you look at where they come from and how they developed, you will often find have a history of trauma as well. Trauma, for example, has also been tied with conditions like narcissistic personality disorder. 3 So, how does the pain of trauma cultivate such different fruit across different people? I don’t have the full answer to this question, but I would like to start exploring offering up some preliminary thoughts and reflections on the topic of trauma from the Word of God and the life of Jesus. And a good place to begin this conversation is with the trauma of Christ’s death on the cross. Accordingly, I would like to draw your attention to John 20:24–29:

Thomas, the one called Didymus, one of the Twelve, wasn’t with the disciples when Jesus came. The other disciples told him, “We’ve seen the Lord!” But he replied, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands, put my finger in the wounds left by the nails, and put my hand into his side, I won’t believe.” After eight days his disciples were again in a house and Thomas was with them. Even though the doors were locked, Jesus entered and stood among them. He said, “Peace be with you.” Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here. Look at my hands. Put your hand into my side. No more disbelief. Believe!” Thomas responded to Jesus, “My Lord and my God!” Jesus replied, “Do you believe because you see me? Happy are those who don’t see and yet believe.”

I would like to suggest that an exploration into this particular narrative through the lens of trauma is not only taking a perspective that is underexplored, but also one that remains quite close to the text. The passage begins with an orientation to time, with special reference to its proximity to the crucifixion: it was still the first day of the week. Imagine, for example, what the experience must have been like for the disciples, just a few days after they’ve seen Jesus publicly dominated and humiliated and violently put to death. Psychologists might accurately describe the circumstances as a collective trauma, which would position the disciples psychologically in the midst of a collective trauma response. Another term that is relevant to this discussion is secondary trauma, which refers to psychological trauma symptoms associated with indirect exposure to trauma, commonly experienced by people who had close contact or an intimate relationship with the one who was traumatized. 4 In the immediate aftermath of collective trauma and/or secondary trauma, common psychological responses include shock, emotional numbness, and disorientation—feeling as if your entire world is upside down. Notably, indirect exposure to trauma is also associated with disruptions to one’s spirituality or religious beliefs. 5

People feel this way because the consequences of the trauma and their exposure to it caused their world to be turned upon its head. Foundational assumptions about the world and foundational relationships that anchored one’s life became upended and one finds themself both subjectively and objectively within a state of perpetual vulnerability, of perpetual vigilance to both real and perceived threat. This was likely the case among the disciples at that moment and this is also often the case with students entering into seminary to prepare for ministry. And it is into this context of valid and felt disorientation, vulnerability, and fear that Jesus speaks the following words: "Peace be with you" (v. 19). And again, "peace be with you" (v. 21). And again, "peace be with you" (v. 26). How might we receive these words from Jesus within the particularities of what we are navigating in our lives? And like the disciples, perhaps these are words that we need to hear from Jesus more than once.

Von Balthasar agreed and added that the scars in Christ’s risen body testify to His 'unique experience of death that is both spiritual and bodily.' The main point that I would like to invite you to consider here is the following: that the resurrected Jesus still has wounds! In verse 20, immediately after proclaiming peace to the disciples, Jesus’s first act was to show the scars on his hands and his side. What do you think about that? That Jesus—post resurrection, post returning from hell and conquering death—that Jesus’s resurrected body still has scars? He does not hide them in shame. On the contrary, it is through these scars that Jesus verifies his identity to his disciples. It is as if these scars established his authority to impart peace to the troubled and vulnerable disciples. The presence and persistence of these scars are intentional and are a living witness to the life and death and resurrection of Christ. Von Balthasar agreed and added that the scars in Christ’s risen body testify to His “unique experience of death that is both spiritual and bodily.”6

 Christ stands in solidarity with us, and in particular, with those of us who, like him, carry wounds. Now, if Jesus still had scars after his trauma, how much more will we, as finite and imperfect human beings, still have scars (physical, emotional) as well? Even in the book of Revelation (5:12), the angels and the elders refer to Jesus as the Lamb who was slain. Even when we reach the final consummation of the Kingdom of God, we don’t forget Jesus’s trauma. Given this, where, then, did we develop this idea that as Christians, if we were to just trust in Jesus, that all of our problems, including our trauma, are going to magically disappear? That if we just trust in Jesus, we are going to be completely healed and move on with life with no history or memory of what happened? Friends, that is an artifact of American Evangelical subculture and not the testimony of Scripture nor is it reflected in the life and witness of Jesus Christ. The wounds of Christ demonstrate that the Word of God is incarnate, that the presence of Christ persists, as Gregory Riley puts it, “in the strict continuity between the two worlds,” 7 in the continuity of the spiritual and the material. Christ stands in solidarity with us, and in particular, with those of us who, like Him, carry wounds. And His presence manifests itself in the form of a resurrected body that still has scars that can be seen and touched. This is the Word made flesh, in the words of 1 John 1:1, “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled.”

And so, with this in mind, I wish to close with a Novena prayer, which I have taken the liberty of adapting for this context and conversation:

Man of Sorrows, help us through the trials and disappointments of life. Help us not to lose heart (even in the context of trauma). May we share with you the joy of having courageously faced up to all the challenges of life. Amen.8