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Trauma-Sensitive Theology: Thinking Theologically in the Era of Trauma
The intention of Trauma Sensitive Theology is to help theologians, professors, clergy, spiritual care givers, and therapists speak well of God and faith without further wounding survivors of trauma. It explores the nature of traumatic exposure, response, processing, and recovery and its impact on constructive theology and pastoral leadership and care. Through the lenses of contemporary traumatology, somatics, and the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy, the text offers a framework for seeing trauma and its impact in the lives of individuals, communities, society, and within our own sacred texts. It argues that care of traumatic wounding must include all dimensions of the human person, including our spiritual practices, religious rituals and community participation, and theological thinking. As such, clergy and spiritual care professionals have an important role to play in the recovery of traumatic wounding and fostering of resiliency. This book explores how trauma-informed congregational leaders can facilitate resiliency and offers one way of thinking theologically in response to traumatizing abuses of relational power and our resources for restoration. Jennifer Baldwin is Executive Director of Grounding Flight Wellness Center. She is the editor of Sensing Sacred: Exploring the Human Senses in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care (2016) and Embracing the Ivory Tower and Stained Glass Window: A Festschrift in Honor of Archbishop Antje Jackelen (2015).
175 pages, Paperback
Published September 20, 2018
48 people are currently reading
179 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer M. Baldwin
11 books2 followersJennifer Baldwin (1977- ) was born in Columbus, Ohio , grew up in Philadelphia ,Pennsylvania and moved to Missouri 2002. She has been a summer camp counselor, music teacher, animal assisted therapist, movie extra, daycare teacher, credit card advisor, and distributor for an Mlm company, and a call center representative. But, Mom and author are still the best titles she's ever had. At least until professional Disney guest becomes a thing. Or corgi snuggler.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
January 1, 2026
I really appreciate this text for a couple unique reasons as a resource on trauma, pastoral care, and theology. First of all, this book did not take a tone of disdain when it came to religious communities and theology. It recognizes the importance and place that good theology has in the survivors. Many resources proceed with an assumed conclusion that the Bible and religion is (at least in part) inherently harmful, which is not a belief that I hold. While there is so much to be critical and angry about, this text avoided the long critiques of what was wrong and focused on all the things that could be done in theology.
Second, this book really did offer substantive theological content. Using the perspectives of clinical therapy and science, Baldwin dives into ontology, Christology, soteriology, atonement, and more. She offers frameworks for how to approach these theologies from a place of trauma-awareness and the pursuit of redemption and healing.
While the work does tend to get more and more abstract, and at times I begin to wonder if we’re leaving a historically-informed and grounded hermeneutic, in exchange for conversations about “energies” and Self — I ultimately do not mind this and think that the payoff is well worth the wrestling match. There is much treasure to be mined out of this resource.
Second, this book really did offer substantive theological content. Using the perspectives of clinical therapy and science, Baldwin dives into ontology, Christology, soteriology, atonement, and more. She offers frameworks for how to approach these theologies from a place of trauma-awareness and the pursuit of redemption and healing.
While the work does tend to get more and more abstract, and at times I begin to wonder if we’re leaving a historically-informed and grounded hermeneutic, in exchange for conversations about “energies” and Self — I ultimately do not mind this and think that the payoff is well worth the wrestling match. There is much treasure to be mined out of this resource.
August 23, 2020
This book was best when it focused on the psychology of trauma. Unfortunately, she used the lens of trauma in conjunction with Paul Tillich, to create her own version of the Christian faith. She frequently mischaracterized the doctrines of Christianity, and used those mischaracterizations to demonstrate how they can cause more trauma. Her new version of Christianity that is “trauma sensitive” ends up not being Christianity, but a spirituality that draws on quite a bit of Christian language, albeit language that now has different meanings from traditional credal Christianity. Nonetheless, there are helpful parts throughout the book. Someone who is trained in theology may be able to read the book and gain a deeper understanding of the needs of trauma survivors.
January 28, 2021
I saw this title on Goodreads, and I was immediately interested. I quickly ordered the book, and started it within the same day it came in the mail. The need for good books handling trauma and Christian theology is great. So, it was all the more disappointing that this book did not do a good job.
Jennifer Baldwin gives a decent overview of the components of trauma, but her writing style was the least accessible I have read on the topic. It seemed unnecessarily complicated. She also does an inadequate job handling classic Christian theology. To do this properly is a big job for a short book. However, the premise of the book claims to do so. The bigger problem was that she misrepresents classic Christian theology in several ways. This is a shame because it will cause her good points about the weaknesses the churches and church leaders to likely to be lost on a group that really needs to hear it.
I did find several points of value throughout the book, but its weaknesses significantly outweigh its strengths. I’m still glad I read it, and I will still use it for some reference in the future.
Jennifer Baldwin gives a decent overview of the components of trauma, but her writing style was the least accessible I have read on the topic. It seemed unnecessarily complicated. She also does an inadequate job handling classic Christian theology. To do this properly is a big job for a short book. However, the premise of the book claims to do so. The bigger problem was that she misrepresents classic Christian theology in several ways. This is a shame because it will cause her good points about the weaknesses the churches and church leaders to likely to be lost on a group that really needs to hear it.
I did find several points of value throughout the book, but its weaknesses significantly outweigh its strengths. I’m still glad I read it, and I will still use it for some reference in the future.
March 7, 2022
Read for class. An excellent primer on constructing a trauma-sensitive theology. I thought the first half was particularly helpful in developing an understanding of trauma, and I loved the way she framed her development of a systematic theology. It gave me a lot to think about. My only complaint is that it was a little inaccessible due to the sheer weightiness of the words she used and the length of the paragraphs. It could've been brought down a level to make it more understandable. Otherwise, a definite must-read if you're interested in how churches can respond in more loving and compassionate ways to trauma survivors.
January 13, 2026
Trauma Sensitive Theology book notes
* Religious faith across traditions, fundamentally seek to provide people with a way of understanding the world and their experiences within it
* The black and white rigid, thinking that underlays the good and evil binary, can unwittingly limit theological and pastoral responses to traumatized survivors
* When we use language of violence and assault to describe our displeasure at normal life events, we are robbing survivors of violence and assault of the very language that holds depth and gravity for them
* How we choose to speak about and understand what occurs is influenced by what our society can and will tolerate
* Our identity determines how we engage with the world
* Wounding happens when a part of who we are is exiled by societal structures, family, norms, personal expectations, or life experiences that fundamentally challenge, our belief of who we are or how the world works
* When a person’s vulnerabilities exceed their internal and external resources of support and stabilization traumatic wounding occurs
* Trauma wounding is the overwhelming of a persons somatic and psychological systems
* A tragic reality of traumatic experience is that there is no going back. The person you were prior to the trauma has changed.
* There is always a poll to deny trauma when it is happening, but the first step in healing is naming
* The more one tries to nail down exactly what the soul or self is the more elusive it becomes
* Human beings are wired to pay more attention to experiences and objects that are novel or elicit a strong emotional response. Then the attention we give to every day occurrences.
* Body memories are unfortunately, too frequently neglected in our consideration of the impact of trauma
* The somatic injuries of trauma are left out of the therapeutic model that focuses exclusively on the cognitive dimension of posttraumatic response and can remain a challenge or place of shame for individuals
* Models of care, psychotherapy, or community support are most helpful when they welcome the body as a full participant in survival in Resilience
* When we foster opportunities for people to experience secure relationships of care, we facilitate resiliency and health
* Our first attachments with our primary caregivers, set the template for how we navigate the social world
* Our attachments show up in our sense of the divine
* Resiliency and recovery require awareness of the full scope of the wounding
* In order for recovery and resiliency to be complete holistic care requires inclusion of care for the body restoration of connections in community and reclamation of relationship with the divine and whatever form resonates with the individual
* The demonization of the body as a deceiver and lotus of sin has rendered human persons from our most innate wisdom and compounded the shame associated with traumatic wounding
* We must come to terms with the ways in which we have dramatically rendered body from spirit
* Somatic wisdom includes attention to all human senses
* In all areas of life, we depend on the wisdom of our sensory system to know the world, our current place within it, and to negotiate potential risks
* Except for the senses of hearing and site, and by communion, taste, as a means of participation with the holy, with our other senses, nearly exiled from our corporate and personal spiritual practices.
* The gift of touch and tactile sensation is also minimized as physical contact among worshipers is reduced to handshakes in passing
* If we ignore the importance of the body as a resource for health, we make recovery from a traumatic wounding more difficult
* A person’s degree of resiliency is related to assets, internal positive features, or resources, external positive features.
* Look to community and religious models of care to receive ideas for intervention
* Being in the state of open attunement correlates with areas of the brain that orient us in the world and with alpha brain waves
* Engaged participation in prayer, meditation or mindfulness has the potential to function as a form of Neuro feedback training in that it builds safe familiarity with the experience of Alpha wave alterations of orientation as different from the theta wave alterations of orientation, present as a part of trauma, survival and response
* Due to the close proximity of alpha and Theta waves in their frequency, it is important to hone awareness of the felt sense of active engagement versus disassociative disengagement in order for the practice of prayer or meditation to be restorative rather than reinforcing of a trauma response
* Instead of close, your eyes direct congregants to soften your gaze or direct your intention towards God to create safety
* There may be a felt sense of risk with regard to how acknowledgment of trauma will be received, but we must remember that many for whom we care are already living in the valley of the shadow of trauma
* When we step into patterns of disconnection to protect ourselves from sin we step away from the vulnerability needed to access divine presence.
* Divine connection to the self and God remains ever present and always available to resume trust, attachment, and loving direction.
* We must hold together the experience of wounding while the hope for healing
* Social privilege is getting to not to have to worry about things in order to safely navigate life
* When we are able to notice honor and attend to the tensions of desires, obligations or needs as expressed in our somatic sensations emotions and social roles, we grow deeper and deep in our ability to welcome internal and inter relationality
* We are each a unique product of our unique context
* Theology is the task of interpretation in meaning making and draws on a variety of sources, including holy texts, traditions of thought and practice, contemporary multidisciplinary knowledge and live experience
* What do we think and what can we confess when we think about what makes up our reality in its most foundational level?
* Structure elements characteristics, and categories, build on one another and help us explore the implicit notions that directed an order our experiences in the world
* When faced with the clarity that anything we say about the divine is limited some of opted to only claim what we cannot say
* The stories in the beginning of Genesis, one and in Genesis 2 through three are not scientific accounts or astrophysics or cosmology to reduce them to a scientific claim would be to miss their great significance entirely
* The creation narrative and Genesis one reflects the priestly voice and the one in Genesis two through three emerges from the Yahwist tradition
* The Priestley account emphasizes the generation of order from chaos with a clear almost rhythmic cadence of creature generation while the Yahwest tradition embraces our relationship to earth and intimate connections with divine presence
* All forms of power are ultimately relational
* Sin is abuse of relational power
* Send as abuses of relational power, rather than a given inheritance of humanity is important for survivors of traumatic wounding as those who offered care
* The connections to Divine free energy may be disrupted weekend or eclipsed as parts of us, disconnect and isolate in an effort to protect the self
* Commissions of sin that increase disconnection to divine energy also occur when we are living within a social structure that limits choice
* Restoration of the flow of divine energy through life and relationships is the source of a life authentic at tuned in compassionate wisdom
* Salvation is about healing, soothing, and unburdening the wounds and beliefs consequent to sinful abuses of relational power
* Reconnection of a tuned attachments begin with a noticing of divine presence that has never left or abandoned us
* Participation only requires the courage and curiosity to attend to the still small voice of wisdom and compassion within
* We cannot begin the process of change until we first acknowledge with clarity and courage. The reality of what currently is.
* God has already equipped every living organism with the means of restoring connection
* Religious faith across traditions, fundamentally seek to provide people with a way of understanding the world and their experiences within it
* The black and white rigid, thinking that underlays the good and evil binary, can unwittingly limit theological and pastoral responses to traumatized survivors
* When we use language of violence and assault to describe our displeasure at normal life events, we are robbing survivors of violence and assault of the very language that holds depth and gravity for them
* How we choose to speak about and understand what occurs is influenced by what our society can and will tolerate
* Our identity determines how we engage with the world
* Wounding happens when a part of who we are is exiled by societal structures, family, norms, personal expectations, or life experiences that fundamentally challenge, our belief of who we are or how the world works
* When a person’s vulnerabilities exceed their internal and external resources of support and stabilization traumatic wounding occurs
* Trauma wounding is the overwhelming of a persons somatic and psychological systems
* A tragic reality of traumatic experience is that there is no going back. The person you were prior to the trauma has changed.
* There is always a poll to deny trauma when it is happening, but the first step in healing is naming
* The more one tries to nail down exactly what the soul or self is the more elusive it becomes
* Human beings are wired to pay more attention to experiences and objects that are novel or elicit a strong emotional response. Then the attention we give to every day occurrences.
* Body memories are unfortunately, too frequently neglected in our consideration of the impact of trauma
* The somatic injuries of trauma are left out of the therapeutic model that focuses exclusively on the cognitive dimension of posttraumatic response and can remain a challenge or place of shame for individuals
* Models of care, psychotherapy, or community support are most helpful when they welcome the body as a full participant in survival in Resilience
* When we foster opportunities for people to experience secure relationships of care, we facilitate resiliency and health
* Our first attachments with our primary caregivers, set the template for how we navigate the social world
* Our attachments show up in our sense of the divine
* Resiliency and recovery require awareness of the full scope of the wounding
* In order for recovery and resiliency to be complete holistic care requires inclusion of care for the body restoration of connections in community and reclamation of relationship with the divine and whatever form resonates with the individual
* The demonization of the body as a deceiver and lotus of sin has rendered human persons from our most innate wisdom and compounded the shame associated with traumatic wounding
* We must come to terms with the ways in which we have dramatically rendered body from spirit
* Somatic wisdom includes attention to all human senses
* In all areas of life, we depend on the wisdom of our sensory system to know the world, our current place within it, and to negotiate potential risks
* Except for the senses of hearing and site, and by communion, taste, as a means of participation with the holy, with our other senses, nearly exiled from our corporate and personal spiritual practices.
* The gift of touch and tactile sensation is also minimized as physical contact among worshipers is reduced to handshakes in passing
* If we ignore the importance of the body as a resource for health, we make recovery from a traumatic wounding more difficult
* A person’s degree of resiliency is related to assets, internal positive features, or resources, external positive features.
* Look to community and religious models of care to receive ideas for intervention
* Being in the state of open attunement correlates with areas of the brain that orient us in the world and with alpha brain waves
* Engaged participation in prayer, meditation or mindfulness has the potential to function as a form of Neuro feedback training in that it builds safe familiarity with the experience of Alpha wave alterations of orientation as different from the theta wave alterations of orientation, present as a part of trauma, survival and response
* Due to the close proximity of alpha and Theta waves in their frequency, it is important to hone awareness of the felt sense of active engagement versus disassociative disengagement in order for the practice of prayer or meditation to be restorative rather than reinforcing of a trauma response
* Instead of close, your eyes direct congregants to soften your gaze or direct your intention towards God to create safety
* There may be a felt sense of risk with regard to how acknowledgment of trauma will be received, but we must remember that many for whom we care are already living in the valley of the shadow of trauma
* When we step into patterns of disconnection to protect ourselves from sin we step away from the vulnerability needed to access divine presence.
* Divine connection to the self and God remains ever present and always available to resume trust, attachment, and loving direction.
* We must hold together the experience of wounding while the hope for healing
* Social privilege is getting to not to have to worry about things in order to safely navigate life
* When we are able to notice honor and attend to the tensions of desires, obligations or needs as expressed in our somatic sensations emotions and social roles, we grow deeper and deep in our ability to welcome internal and inter relationality
* We are each a unique product of our unique context
* Theology is the task of interpretation in meaning making and draws on a variety of sources, including holy texts, traditions of thought and practice, contemporary multidisciplinary knowledge and live experience
* What do we think and what can we confess when we think about what makes up our reality in its most foundational level?
* Structure elements characteristics, and categories, build on one another and help us explore the implicit notions that directed an order our experiences in the world
* When faced with the clarity that anything we say about the divine is limited some of opted to only claim what we cannot say
* The stories in the beginning of Genesis, one and in Genesis 2 through three are not scientific accounts or astrophysics or cosmology to reduce them to a scientific claim would be to miss their great significance entirely
* The creation narrative and Genesis one reflects the priestly voice and the one in Genesis two through three emerges from the Yahwist tradition
* The Priestley account emphasizes the generation of order from chaos with a clear almost rhythmic cadence of creature generation while the Yahwest tradition embraces our relationship to earth and intimate connections with divine presence
* All forms of power are ultimately relational
* Sin is abuse of relational power
* Send as abuses of relational power, rather than a given inheritance of humanity is important for survivors of traumatic wounding as those who offered care
* The connections to Divine free energy may be disrupted weekend or eclipsed as parts of us, disconnect and isolate in an effort to protect the self
* Commissions of sin that increase disconnection to divine energy also occur when we are living within a social structure that limits choice
* Restoration of the flow of divine energy through life and relationships is the source of a life authentic at tuned in compassionate wisdom
* Salvation is about healing, soothing, and unburdening the wounds and beliefs consequent to sinful abuses of relational power
* Reconnection of a tuned attachments begin with a noticing of divine presence that has never left or abandoned us
* Participation only requires the courage and curiosity to attend to the still small voice of wisdom and compassion within
* We cannot begin the process of change until we first acknowledge with clarity and courage. The reality of what currently is.
* God has already equipped every living organism with the means of restoring connection
December 17, 2022
The first half of the book provided reiteration of the power of trauma on one's life and belief system. While it provided information on each, trauma and theology, it did not spend as much time as I would have liked on how to integrete theolgy and trauma. In addition, Baldwin does derive from a different theolgy than I do; therefore, I did not find some of her views as accurate. Futhermore, she provided a little information on using some faith-based rituals to help one through trauma, but not enough. Again, I believe there should have been more practicality for how to integrate the two ideas of trauma and theology.
June 17, 2021
First half was fantastic, second half was alright. Not as much embodied theology as I would have liked and also would have liked more on how to work with this material from the pulpit and at the bedside.
February 9, 2021
Great read. Appreciated the practical application.
February 18, 2020
I found this book inspiring. The first half of the book provides concrete ways in which we can think about caring for traumatic wounding. It references excellant sources for those that want to learn more in the area of psychology and the healing of trauma. This was an area I am more familiar.
The second half of the book is from a systematic theology approach which was new to me. This is the area that I found most rewarding. The church can do better in this area and she provides one possible approach.
The second half of the book is from a systematic theology approach which was new to me. This is the area that I found most rewarding. The church can do better in this area and she provides one possible approach.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews