From the Depths: Preaching in the Wake of Mass Violent Trauma Open Access
Wagner, Kimberly (Spring 2018)
Published
Abstract
Abstract
From the Depths: Preaching in the Wake of Mass Violent Trauma
By Kimberly Renee Wagner
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there were 333 reported mass shootings in the United States in 2017 (where “mass shooting” is defined as an incident where four or more people are shot and/or killed, not including the shooter). Further, six of the ten deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history have happened in the last decade. Mass violence has become an unfortunate part of the American experience. As such, preachers and academics must take seriously the practice of preaching in the wake of violent mass trauma.
This dissertation works to understand the nature of individual and communal trauma experienced in the wake of a traumatic violent incident such as a public mass shooting. And, from that understanding, I seek to construct an emergency post-traumatic homiletic appropriate for the days, weeks, and even months immediately following a mass violent trauma. In conversation with theologian Serene Jones, literary trauma theorist Cathy Caruth, and sociologist Kai Erikson, I define the experience of personal and communal trauma as a wounding of the mind or wounding of communal bonds that occurs when an experience cannot be fully understood in the moment or assimilated into pre-conceived meaning-making frameworks of the individual and/or community. One of the notable features of trauma is its impact on both individual and communal narrative sense. Both individuals and communities as a whole experience what I call “narrative fracture,” marked by a loss of temporality and narrative coherence. This narrative fracture leads to a loss of trust in structures and/or metaphysical realities depended upon before the trauma, anxiety over the future, and communal disintegration and disconnection.
Given the nature of individual and communal narrative fracture experienced in the wake of violent trauma, and in conversation with Paul Ricoeur’s narrative theory, I argue that preachers should preach in a way that names and honors the experience of trauma and narrative fracture. Such acknowledgment and even blessing of the broken reality in sermon content and form is necessary if the preacher and community ever hope to move on to narrative repair or reconstruction.
Finally, I point towards constructive solutions for how a narratively fractured homiletic may look in content and form. In relation to content, I argue preachers should proclaim a christologically grounded eschatology inspired by the work of Jürgen Moltmann. This christologically grounded eschatology summons preachers to speak in the tension between suffering and hope without collapsing one into the other. Considering form, I assert that preacher may honor personal and communal narrative fracture through utilizing a narratively fractured sermon form that is willing to forfeit temporality, coherence, or both as modeled in post-traumatic memoirs. An emergency post-traumatic homiletic, I argue, must take seriously in both sermon content and form, the narratively fractured condition of the congregation before the community might move toward narrative healing.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction………………………………………………………1
Preaching in a Traumatized Congregation…………………...3
Scope of the Project, Methodology, and Chapter Overviews…..6
Minding the Gap: A Homiletics Literature Review…………...11
Chapter 1: Sandy Hook and Mass Shootings in the United States…..27
Mass Violence: Defining a Perplexing Picture…………………..28
Are Incidents of Mass Shootings on the Rise?.............................32
Mass Violence: An American Phenomenon?.................................34
The Shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School……………….35
Chapter 2: The Experience and Impact of Trauma……………….45
The Nature of Trauma………………………….……………..45
Defining Traumatic Events………....………………46
Defining Trauma…………............…………………50
Understanding Collective Trauma………………55
Trauma: A Working Definition………….………………63
Trauma and Narrative……………………………………64
Why Narrative? …………………………………….64
The Impact of Trauma on Narrative…………………..65
Crisis of Temporality………………………….65
Crisis of Coherence…………………………70
Defining Narrative Fracture……………….............79
Chapter 3: Narrative Preaching, Narrative Fracture, and a
Discordant Emergency Homiletic………...................……………...81
The Narrative Homiletical Response………………………….81
Is Narrative Preaching the Answer? ……………………...….89
Ricoeur’s Dialectical Narrative Theory
and the Persistence of Discordance…......................................92
Trauma and Discordance………............………………….106
Chapter 4: What to Say: Eschatology and Post-Traumatic Preaching……109
The Centrality of Eschatology……………………………….110
Jürgen Moltmann’s Location………………………………...113
Moltmann’s Eschatological Foundation: The Cross and Resurrection...116
Moltmann’s Eschatological Theology…………………………….122
Preaching in the In-Between Space: An Eschatological Foundation
for an Emergency Post-Traumatic Homiletic...................................139
Living the Eschatological Tension: An Historical Example………145
Chapter 5: How to Say It: Post-Traumatic Preaching and Sermon Form.…149
Mapping the Journey……………………………………………149
Considering Form…………………………………………153
Sermons and Memoirs…………………………………….156
Model 1: Snapshot Form…………………………………..162
Model 2: Thematic Form………………………………....169
Model 3: Frayed Edges Form………………………..............174
Trauma and Narratively Fractured Sermon Form…………182
Conclusion: Mark 16:1–8 as a Model for Post-Traumatic Preaching……..184
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