Description: Much like theology itself, the experience of trauma has the potential to reach into almost any aspect of life, refusing to fit within the tramlines. A follow up to the 2020 volume "Feminist Trauma Theologies", "Bearing Witness" explores further into global, intersectional, and as yet relatively unexplored perspectives. With a particular focus on poverty, gender and sexualities, race and ethnicity, and health in dialogue with trauma theology the book seeks to demonstrate both the far reaching and intersectional nature of trauma, encouraging creative and ground-breaking theological reflections on trauma and constructions of theology in the light of the trauma experience. A unique set of insights into the real-life experience of trauma, the book includes chapters authored by a diverse group of academic theologians, practitioners and activists. The result is a theology which extend far into the public square
Brief description: Karen O'Donnell is Academic Dean at Westcott House, Cambridge. A feminist, ecumenical, practical theologian, her interdisciplinary research interests span theology, spirituality, and pedagogy. She is the author of several books with SCM Press, including The Dark Womb, which was longlisted for the 2023 Michael Ramsey Prize.
Review Quotes: "The greatest theological challenge we currently face is how to witness with passionate integrity to losses that cannot be healed and suffering that does not go away. This brave and inspiring collection teaches us to attend both to the intense particularity of trauma and the way trauma is structured in collective relationships. It creates a space for the Spirit's 'new making' in contexts that lie beyond repair."--Heather Walton, University of Glasgow, UK