In the Current Issue: "Rites for Wounded Communities"
The issue of Liturgy entitled “Rites for Wounded Communities,” guest-edited by David Hogue, explores a wide range of responses in which churches and chaplains have engaged in order to help people affected by disasters and violence come to terms with the after-effects and the on-going trauma. As a professor of pastoral care for many years, Dr. Hogue offers his own insights in addition to the writing of others whose work he solicited. This excerpt is from his Introduction to the issue.–– Melinda Quivik
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Waking up on October 7, 2023, we could hardly have imagined the tragic events of the days, weeks, and months that followed. Stories and video of planned, coordinated attacks on unsuspecting victims in Israel flooded our computer screens, televisions, and newspapers, hour by hour, minute by minute. Glimpses of injured and starving children, of the sick and elderly lying and dying in the ruins of damaged hospitals in Gaza seem too much to bear. Interviews with victims recounting the destruction of their neighborhoods or the loss of a loved one add to their heartbreak and ours. As of this writing, terrorism continues to inflict havoc on thousands of Jews and Palestinians following centuries of animosity, and war threatens to consume the region as well as prompt protests—from both sides—around the world.
That conflict is the most vivid, current example of wounded communities. But terrorism and war are far from new, and while they may inflict the most visible, egregious, widespread harm, human communities experience traumain multiple ways. Shootings at schools, churches, grocery stores, and concerts are becoming almost routine; threats of violence against political, law enforcement, and governmental officials are common as well as the targeting of black, brown, Asian, and LGBTQ + groups. Climate change produces floods, droughts, wildfires, and avalanches that disrupt entire communities, and the historic effects of the Covid pandemic continue to haunt us.
Trauma research has exploded in recent decades as mental health and medical professionals have studied the ways human minds and bodies respond to severe emotional and physical wounding. War, childhood abuse, and sexual assault leave their indelible marks on victims. Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s well-known volume, The Body Keeps the Score, details the immediate and long-term consequences of trauma for individuals, and the clinical diagnosis of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder has become as familiar as cancer or heart disease.
Religious leaders have taken notice. Theologian Shelly Rambo recognized the importance of trauma-informed theology in shaping ministry with suffering persons a number of years ago. “Knowing something about trauma should change the shape of Christian ministry. When we write sermons or offer pastoral care, we can keep in mind three lessons of trauma studies: The past is not in the past. The body remembers. The wounds do not simply go away.”
As community, as neighbors, as friends, we are inclined to respond collectively and collaboratively. Three of the immediate consequences of trauma are disbelief, disorientation, and aloneness/isolation. And so we gather together to mourn, to protest, to remember, to comfort, to try to find meaning and hope. . . We confirm our fears, share our grief, and reconnect in the hope that someday this might all make sense.
This volume samples just a few of the many ways human beings respond to tragic loss collectively. Writers have been invited from among dozens of practitioners, scholars, and religious leaders who have faced trauma in the context of community and shared their stories with me. Several have focused their professional careers on disaster response, while others were drawn unexpectedly into the reality of collective trauma in their own communities.
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David Hogue, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) who has served as pastor, hospital chaplain, pastoral counselor, and seminary professor, is now professor emeritus of pastoral theology and counseling at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, Evanston, IL. The author of Remembering the Future, Imagining the Past: Story, Ritual, and the Human Brain (Wipf & Stock, 2009), he has published chapters and articles on pastoral care, liturgy, and the contributions of the neurosciences to both.
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The full essay including references is available now in the digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 39, no. 2 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.
David Hogue, “Introduction: Rites for Wounded Communities,” Liturgy 39, no. 2 (2024): 1–3.