Theological Issues

People sometimes say horrific things to people who have been abused. Sometimes it is well-meaning people who simply don’t understand. Sometimes people have to spend so much energy managing their own anxiety, that they minimize the pain, distract, do happy-talk, shame, blame, ignore, motor-mouth . . lots of different things. Whatever the reason, it hurts. And the pain is even more substantial when people invoke God or religious principles as part of their response. That quickly compounds the problem by adding a layer of spiritual abuse on top of whatever emotional abuse is already present.

Theology turns out to be incredibly important in times like this. If our theological resources are shallow–if we are trying to manage with the same theological tool-kit we had in fourth-grade sunday school class–it will increase our vulnerability to this kind of abuse. So this section is intended to be a brief introduction to a variety of theological issues which come up quite commonly in the context of abuse. It’s not complete. It’s not in-depth. But I hope that you will find something that is helpful.

On roughly half of these issues you will find a link to a video at www.recoveryu.com where you will find some lectures I gave at Fuller Theological Seminary on these topics.