Religious Trauma

This Element explains the causes and impact of religious trauma and suggests philosophical and theological resources for responding to it.

Michelle Panchuk (Author)

9781009539012, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 January 2025

82 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 0.6 cm, 0.259 kg

When religion is the site of abuse and trauma, it can deeply impact a person's ability to relate to God and engage in spiritual practice. As such, religious trauma is ripe for philosophical exploration. Section 1 of this Element provides a brief history of the concept of psychological trauma, contemporary accounts of its neurobiological basis, and its impact on human agency. Section 2 sketches a model of religious trauma through the first-person narratives of survivors and emerging psychological data. Section 3 explores the social epistemology of religious trauma, focusing on how failures of knowledge create space for religious abuse and the insights of survivors may help communities guard against it. The last two sections consider three perennial topics in philosophy of religion from the perspective of religious trauma: the problem of evil, the problem of divine hiddenness, and religious experience.

Prologue
1. Trauma and the human person
2. Religious trauma and religious selves
3. The social epistemology of religious trauma
4. The problems of evil and divine hiddenness
5. Experiencing god, traumatically
References.

Subject Areas: Philosophy of religion [HRAB]