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This article examines student engagement with chaplaincy services through a pilot survey administered at a private liberal arts college (n = 1043). Almost half of the respondents reported engagement with campus chaplains, which varied by religious tradition and race. Respondents who had engaged with chaplains were more likely to report integrating spirituality into daily life, feeling supported in wrestling with life's big questions, and experiencing spiritual growth. They were not more likely to feel they were resilient or could manage stress. The authors encourage researchers to build on the model and findings presented here to identify empirically how chaplaincy services affect students.

The present study tested a hypothesized model of the degree of belief in penal substitutionary atonement (PSA) predicting a negative association with a sense of responsibility for reducing pain and [...]

Howard Thurman is attuned to bodies under threat. In this article, I argue that his use of vignettes offers a distinctive rhetorical strategy for addressing collective trauma. Through closely examining "The Third Component," a sermon preached in 1958, I display his distinctive contribution to working with traumatic memories. In relying on a third memory--a memory of communing in the Presence of total regard--he connects religious experience to the somatic efforts to heal bodies from trauma. I make the case that, for Thurman, the work of racial justice depends on spiritual practices to hone attention and enable the awareness necessary for the work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Life following an overwhelming event of violence is fundamentally changed. Survivors struggle to reconcile their present experience of life--reconfigured through trauma--with their experience of faith. When individuals and religious communities try to put the events behind them and proclaim the good news before its time, they fail to attend to the ongoing realities of a death that do not go away. This essay explores a theology that witnesses to what remains. Key words: Spirit, Trauma, PTSD, Redemption, Hurricane Katrina, Combat, I am standing in Deacon Julius Lee's backyard. There is nothing there, except for the cement sidewalk pieces and remnants of a washed-out foundation.(1) As I look to the right. [...]

Great works of literature and sacred texts have always engaged the perennial question of human suffering. Sacred texts contain powerful literary depictions of suffering, from the wrestling of Jacob to [...]

by Thomas G. Long Eerdmanns, Grand Rapids, 2011. 172 pp. $25.00. ISBN 978-0-8028-6514-4. NOTED PREACIIER AND HOMILETICIAN Thomas Long approaches the perennial questions of God and human suffering with pastoral [...]

To authenticate to the full-text of this article, please visit this link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-0025.2009.01549.x Byline: Shelly Rambo (1) Author Affiliation: (1)Religious and Theological StudiesBoston University745 Commonwealth AvenueBoston, MA 02215USAsrambo@bu.edu

While the post-9/11 wars have reshaped war as understood and practiced by the United States, theological discourse about war has changed very little. Highlighting distinctive dimensions of twenty-first-century war, I argue that existing theological discourse is insufficient to address these new realities. These “new wars” press up against existing theological frameworks for interpreting war and call for different modes of thought and action. This article proposes three angles for theological engagement—the traumatic, the interreligious, and the aesthetic. Taking the theological classroom as a starting point, I envision a new approach that prepares religious leaders for effective theological engagement about war. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The following is a panel discussion between four theologians about their recent theological work at the intersection of trauma and Christian theology. This conversation highlights the ways in which current (or recent) studies in trauma have impacted and reshaped the classic questions of Christian faith: Where is God in the suffering? Does God will suffering? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay offers a theological analysis of trauma, recognizing the difficult questions posed by trauma, which indwells a person's or community's body long after the first traumatizing event(s) has passed. The research draws upon a case study, psychological trauma studies, and neuro-biology in dialogue with a fresh reading of Mark 5:25 – 34, the story of the hemorrhaging woman. The analysis concludes with theological constructs that are significant for understanding trauma and trauma-healing. These are: the importance of bodily encounter, the accent on Jesus' role as witness to radical suffering and healing, and the time-extensive nature of healing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author discusses the ending of the book "The Road" where author Cormac McCarthy gave optimism to the future of a boy whose father died after the apocalypse. She argues that the hostility of the environment where men became cannibals for survival, made the readers question what would become of the child left by his father. She concedes the need of McCarthy to give an illusion of happiness to the son who found a family who will look after him.

Johannes A. van der Ven/Jaco S. Dreyer/Hendrik J.C. Pieterse, Is There a God of Human Rights? The Complex Relationship between Human Rights and Religion. A South African Case (International Studies in Religion and Society. Vol. 2), Leiden-Boston (Brill) 2004, XX a. 642 p., ISBN 90-04-14209-6, EUR 60,00/US$ 80,00. ( Norbert Mette) Don S. Browning/M. Christian Green/John Witte Jr. (eds.), Sex, Marriage, & Family in World Religions, New York (Columbia University Press) 2006, 461 pp., ISBN 0-231-13116-x, $ 65.00 ( Friedrich Schweitzer) Kä Mana, Christians and Churches of Africa. Salvation in Christ and Building a New Society, New York (Orbis Books) 2004, 108 pp., ISBN 1570755442, $ 18.00. ( Esther Acolatse) Angela Kaup, Junge Frauen erzählen ihre Glaubensgeschichte. Eine qualitativ-empirische Studie zur Rekonstruktion der narrativen religiösen Identität katholischer junger Frauen (zeitzeichen 18), Ostfildern (Schwabenverlag) 2005, 432 S., ISBN 3-7966-1187-7, EUR (D) 35,00. ( Norbert Mette) Heinrich Schmidinger/Michael Zichy (Hg.), Tod des Subjekts? Poststrukturalismus und christliches Denken (Salzburger theologische Studien 24), Innsbruck (Verlagsanstalt Tyrolia) 2005, Broschur, 302 S., ISBN 3-7022-2655-9, EUR (A) 29,00. ( Norbert Mette) Friedrich L. Schweitzer, The Postmodern Life Cycle. Challenges for Church and Theology, St. Louis (Chalice Press) 2004, 152 pp., ISBN: 0-8272-2998-4, $ 21.99. ( Gordon S. Mikoski) Bradford Hinze, Practices of Dialogue in the Roman Catholic Church. Aims and Obstacles, Lessons and Laments. New York and London (Continuum) 2006, ix + 326 pp., ISBN 0-8264-1721-3, $ 39.95. ( Stephen B. Bevans) Joyce Ann Mercer, Welcoming Children. A Practical Theology of Childhood, St. Louis (Chalice Press) 2005, xii + 292 p., ISBN 0-827242-51-4, $ 29,00. ( Bert Roebben) Sharon D. Welch, After Empire. The Art and Ethos of Enduring Peace, Minneapolis (Fortress Press) 2004, 237pp., ISBN: 0-8006-2986-8, $ 18,00. ( Shelly Rambo) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I explore the witness of Mary Magdalene for its potential to contribute to discussions of survival and healing taking place in discourses of trauma. Through a reading of the Johannine text and an examination of Hans Urs von Balthasar's depiction of Mary's witness in Heart of the World, I claim that the obstructions of Mary's witness are constitutive of what it means to witness between cross and resurrection. Through her ‘unseeing’, she testifies to the unique configuration of divine love between death and life. Mary's witness not only provides an entrance into thinking about the experience of ‘middleness’ in trauma, it opens up a rich pneumatology in the wake of the cross. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]