Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience: Pastoral and Clinical Insights (Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies) [1 ed.] 9780367029111, 9780429001185, 0367029111

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“What does theology have to do with resilience? In this collection of essays, White and Cook have brought together an insightful and thought provoking collection of responses from within the Christian tradition. The answers that emerge challenge some assumptions within the social sciences and have wide relevance for pastoral and clinical practice. This is a very welcome and needed addition to the burgeoning field of resilience studies.” – Harold G. Koenig, Director, Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University, USA “How best to cope with life’s difficulties – how to be resilient – is a question of perennial importance, which is perhaps particularly pressing today. These wide-ranging essays open up fresh and life-giving perspectives on the issue.” – Walter Moberly, Professor of Theology and Biblical Interpretation, Department of Theology and Religion, Durham University, UK “This text is a novel contribution to research on resilience, exploring new ways to think about relevant concepts and understand how the legacy and heritage of theology can impact on the modern day. This volume enables researchers to think differently about ways to improve societal and individual resilience to negative impacts of hazard and risk.” – Louise Bracken, Professor, Executive Director – Institute of Hazard Risk and Resilience, Wilson Chair in Hazard and Risk, Department of Geography, Durham University, UK

Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience

In recent years, resilience has become a near ubiquitous cultural phenomenon whose influence extends into many fields of academic enquiry. Though research suggests that religion and spirituality are significant factors in engendering resilient adaptation, comparatively little biblical and theological reflection has gone into understanding this construct. This book seeks to remedy this deficiency through a breadth of reflection upon human resilience from canonical biblical and Christian theological sources. Divided into three sections, biblical scholars and theologians provide critical accounts of these perspectives, integrating biblical and theological insight with current social scientific understandings of resilience. Part 1 presents a range of biblical visions of resilience. Part 2 considers a variety of theological perspectives on resilience, drawing from figures including Thomas Aquinas, Martin Luther, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Part 3 explores the clinical and pastoral applications of such expressions of resilience. This diverse yet cohesive book sets out a new and challenging perspective of how human resilience might be re-envisioned from a Christian perspective. As a result, it will be of interest to scholars of practical and pastoral theology, biblical studies, and religion, spirituality and health. It will also be a valuable resource for chaplains, pastors, and clinicians with an interest in religion and spirituality. Nathan H. White is Director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience and a chaplain for the US Army. Christopher C.H. Cook is Professor of Spirituality, Theology & Health in the Department of Theology & Religion at Durham University, an Honorary Minor Canon at Durham Cathedral, and an Honorary Chaplain with Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust (TEWV).

Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies

The Routledge New Critical Thinking in Religion, Theology and Biblical Studies series brings high quality research monograph publishing back into focus for authors, international libraries, and student, academic and research readers. This open-ended monograph series presents cutting-edge research from both established and new authors in the field. With specialist focus yet clear contextual presentation of contemporary research, books in the series take research into important new directions and open the field to new critical debate within the discipline, in areas of related study, and in key areas for contemporary society. Religious Truth and Identity in an Age of Plurality Peter Jonkers and Oliver J. Wiertz Envisioning the Cosmic Body of Christ Embodiment, Plurality and Incarnation Aurica Jax and Saskia Wendel Laudato Si’ and the Environment Pope Francis’ Green Encyclical Robert McKim Theology Without Walls The Transreligious Imperative Jerry L. Martin A New Theist Response to the New Atheists Edited by Joshua Rasmussen and Kevin Vallier Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience Pastoral and Clinical Insights Edited by Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ religion/series/RCRITREL

Biblical and Theological Visions of Resilience Pastoral and Clinical Insights

Edited by Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook

First published 2020 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2020 selection and editorial matter, Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: White, Nathan H., editor. | Cook, Chris (Christopher C.H.), editor. Title: Biblical and theological visions of resilience : pastoral and clinical insights / edited by Nathan H. White and Christopher C. H. Cook. Description: Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY : Routledge, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019042408 (print) | LCCN 2019042409 (ebook) | ISBN 9780367029111 (hardback) | ISBN 9780429001185 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Resilience (Personality trait)—Religious aspects—Christianity. Classification: LCC BV4597.58.R47 B53 2019 (print) | LCC BV4597.58. R47 (ebook) | DDC 233/.5—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042408 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019042409 ISBN: 978-0-367-02911-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-429-00118-5 (ebk) Typeset in Sabon by Apex CoVantage, LLC The following is the authors’ own work and does not represent the official views of the US Army Chaplain Corps, the US military, or the US government.

This book is dedicated to our wives, Caroline and Joy. You have been examples of resilience, weathering life’s storms with grace and wisdom. We are honoured to partner with you in the journey of life.

Contents

Forewordxii JOHN SWINTON

Acknowledgementsxiv List of Contributorsxv   1 Introduction: biblical and theological visions of resilience1 NATHAN H. WHITE AND CHRISTOPHER C.H. COOK

SECTION 1

Biblical visions of resilience17   2 ‘To do you good in the end’: the wilderness experience in Israel’s communal memory (Deuteronomy 8)

19

NOEL FORLINI BURT

  3 Singing stories together: relationship and storytelling as resources for resilience in the book of Psalms

32

REBECCA W. POE HAYS

  4 Struck down but not destroyed: images of resilience from the book of Jeremiah

45

JONATHAN D. BENTALL

  5 Traumatic speech and the rejection of narrative in Lamentations

58

DAVID JANZEN

  6 Abide in me: a Johannine theology of resilience ANDREW J. BYERS

70

x  Contents   7 Complements to the notion of human resilience: Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians as a test case

84

STEVEN J. KRAFTCHICK

  8 Resilience in 1 Peter: faithfulness and hope in the face of adversity

98

KATHERINE M. HOCKEY

SECTION 2

Theological visions of resilience111   9 Resilience and music in the early Church

113

CAROL HARRISON

10 Virtue and resilience: Aquinas’ Christian approach to virtue applied to resilience

124

CRAIG STEVEN TITUS

11 The certainty of God’s promises: Martin Luther’s pastoral use of the Gospel

139

CARL L. BECKWITH

12 ‘The science of the Cross’: Edith Stein and resilience

153

PETER TYLER

13 Resilient unto death: resilience through the lens of Dietrich Bonhoeffer

167

JENNIFER MOBERLY

14 ‘A simple and warm common humanity’: Self-transcendence and restless resilience in Jürgen Moltmann’s theology

181

ADAM J. POWELL

SECTION 3

Practical visions of resilience197 15 Clinical applications of resilience JOANNA COLLICUTT

199

Contents xi 16 Pastoral reflections on resilience

216

PAGE BROOKS

17 Concluding reflections: transforming resilience

229

CHRISTOPHER C.H. COOK AND NATHAN H. WHITE

Index237

Foreword

When strength looks like weakness I don’t know if you have ever seen those beautiful and startling pictures of trees that have been exposed to high winds and storms over time. Their roots remain fixed and sturdy, but the branches have been moved to take strange shapes that mirror the pressures of the wind on them as they have been blown around over the years. If they were not able to bend with the wind the branches would break and the tree would wither and die. The key to the tree’s survival is to bend and reshape in response to the storms that blow around it. The new shape of the tree is quite different from the previous shape; recognisable as the same tree, but different. The tree is changed but is no less beautiful. If the tree does not break, it is reshaped into something new and potentially even more interesting than before. It strikes me that this is a useful illustration of what resilience is and why it might be important for psychological health and theological understanding. As Christians we know that we are rooted and grounded in love (Eph. 3:17). That grounding in love will never change. Nothing can separate us from the love of God (Rom. 8:38). And yet suffering and trauma always changes us. Our roots remain firm, but the impact of the storms means that we can never be the same as we were before. We need to learn how to bend and flex in response to the poundings of life’s storms. Walter Brueggemann talks about the psalms of lament as being a response to trauma and suffering.1 As we experience trauma and brokenness, we find ourselves without words and without orientation. The lament psalms help reorient us to the new situation that emerges as we try to leave our trauma behind and build our lives within a new orientation that is connected with the past but which feels very different. God’s love remains sure, steadfast, and unchanging, but our perceptions of the world and ourselves within it are flexible and constantly shifting. In order to cope with the vicissitudes of this life we need to find resilience. The idea of resilience relates to the personal and corporate resources that a person has available to them that will enable them creatively to frame and to reframe their experiences in such a way as to enable the possibility

Foreword xiii of hope and redemption in situations where neither seem possible. At a psychological level resilience means developing modes of coping with stress, trauma, suffering, and disappointment that enable us to continue to live life in all of its fullness even in the midst of the difficulties that mark this life. Theologically, resilience is not eradicating or avoiding suffering. When James tells us to ‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds’ (James 1:2) he informs us of two things. Firstly, Christian life inevitably involves suffering. Utopian ideas that Christians cannot or should not suffer are just that: utopian ideas! A cross-shaped faith recognises that we exist in that difficult tension between the cross and the resurrection; a tension that painfully and paradoxically reminds us that the victory is won but that the battle is not over. But James also reminds us that we can find joy even in the midst of suffering. Karl Barth tells us that ‘Jesus Christ enters human existence as the great joy which shall be to all people’.2 Jesus is our joy. Even in those dark places where all hope seems to have gone, Jesus our joy sojourns with us. Resilience has to do with helping those of us who find ourselves in such places to hold on to the joy of Jesus in the midst of the wildest storms. The trees survive because they bend with the wind. What at first looks like weakness turns out to be strength. Learning how to faithfully bend with the storms is at the heart of this book. The authors who have taken the time to think and write about resilience have done so with the sole intention of helping all of us together to love God more fully and to care for one another in ways that bring about flourishing and connection. If we take time to read and think together around the various issues that are raised in this book, we will be changed. We will be strengthened and enabled to bend with the storms and faithfully hold on to God and one another until that time when there will be ‘no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away’ (Rev. 21:4). John Swinton University of Aberdeen 20 August 2019

Notes 1 Walter Brueggemann, Spirituality of the Psalms (Minneapolis, MI: Augsburg ­Fortress, 2001). 2 Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics. The Doctrine of God, Volume 2, Part 1: The Knowledge of God (London: Bloomsbury, 1957), 374.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank each of the contributors to this volume, whose expertise has enhanced our understanding of resilience through biblical and theological insight. Thank you for lending your expertise to this important subject. We are grateful for the many ways that we have been shaped to understand the significance of resilience – specifically by experiences in the armed forces of the US and UK as well as in pastoral ministry more widely. Many thanks to all who have supported and encouraged us along the way in these experiences and in the publication of this volume. We also wish to extend thanks to the publishing team at Routledge, especially Jack ­Boothroyd and R. Yuga Harini, who have been a pleasure to work with and who have eased the publication process along the way. We would be remiss if we did not also thank our wives and families for their patience with us while working on this project.

Contributors

Carl L. Beckwith is Professor of History and Doctrine at Beeson Divinity School, Samford University. He is the editor of Martin Luther’s Basic Exegetical Writings (Concordia) and a contributor to The  Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Martin Luther. His other books include Johann ­Gerhard’s  Handbook of Consolations (Wipf and Stock), Ezekiel and ­Daniel in the Reformation Commentary on Scripture series (IVP), The Holy Trinity in the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics series (Luther Academy), and Hilary of Poitiers on the Trinity (Oxford). Beckwith also serves as Associate Pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church (LCMS) in Hanceville, AL. Jonathan D. Bentall completed a PhD in Old Testament at Durham University. He is currently an adjunct professor in Seattle, Washington, teaching theology and biblical studies at both Seattle Pacific University and Northwest University. His doctoral dissertation is entitled ‘Jeremiah’s Temple Sermon and the Hermeneutics of Tradition: A Theological Reading of Jeremiah 7:1–15 and 26:1–24’. Page Brooks serves as a senior pastor and a professor of theology and culture. He writes in the areas of postmodernity, church, and culture. He earned a Th.M. from the University of Stellenbosch (South Africa) and a PhD from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. He has also served as a US Army reserve chaplain for over 16 years with multiple tours of duty overseas and for natural disasters. He is married with three children. Noel Forlini Burt holds a PhD in Biblical Studies and Early Christianity from Drew University. She is a lecturer in the Department of Religion at Baylor University, where she teaches courses in biblical studies and Hebrew. Forlini Burt believes the Old Testament is a deep well from which Jewish and Christian readers can draw in their own spiritual formation. She has a particular interest in bridging the Church and the Academy, helping both to encounter God through the biblical story. She is currently pursuing certification in spiritual formation through the Upper Room Academy for Spiritual Formation and certification in spiritual direction through Truett Seminary.

xvi  Contributors Andrew Byers serves as Director of the Free Church Track in Missional Leadership and Lecturer in New Testament at Cranmer Hall, St John’s College, Durham University. He is the author of Ecclesiology and Theosis in the Gospel of John (Cambridge, 2017), TheoMedia: The Media of God and the Digital Age (Cascade, 2013), and Faith Without Illusions: Following Jesus as a Cynic-Saint (IVP, 2011). His writing has appeared in publications such as New Testament Studies,  Novum Testamentum, and Christianity Today. He has served in various forms of pastoral ministry for 13 years in both the US and the UK. Joanna Collicutt is Karl Jaspers Lecturer in psychology and spirituality at Ripon College Cuddesdon (an Anglican seminary) and also lectures in psychology of religion at the University of Oxford. After many years practising as a clinical neuropsychologist in the British National Health Service she undertook theological studies and became director of the masters programme in psychology of religion at Heythrop College, University of London, where she also ran undergraduate courses in neuroscience and positive psychology. She has authored several books and many research articles; her latest book, Neurology and Religion, is jointly edited with Alasdair Coles and published by Cambridge University Press. Christopher C.H. Cook is Professor of Spirituality, Theology & Health, and Director of the Centre for Spirituality, Theology & Health, at D ­ urham University. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, with research doctorates in medicine and theology. Ordained priest in 2001, he is an honorary minor canon of Durham Cathedral, and Honorary Chaplain for Tees, Esk & Wear Valleys NHS Foundation Trust. His books include Hearing Voices, Demonic and Divine (2018), Spirituality, Theology and Mental Health (2013), and Spirituality and Narrative in Psychiatric Practice: Stories of Mind and Soul (edited with Powell & Sims, 2016). Carol Harrison read theology at Lady Margaret Hall Oxford and returned there in 2014 as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity and Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Her first job was at Hull University. After a year she moved to Durham, where she worked in the Department of Theology and Religion for 25 years, eventually becoming Professor of the History and Theology of the Latin West. She specialises in the study of Saint Augustine and is currently working on a Theology of the Voice. She was appointed FBA in 2018. Rebecca W. Poe Hays is Assistant Professor of Christian Scriptures (Old Testament/Hebrew Bible) at the George W. Truett Theological Seminary of Baylor University. Her research interests centre around the rhetorical power of story and storytelling, particularly in Hebrew poetry. Her articles have appeared in scholarly journals including the Journal of Biblical Literature, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament, and

Contributors xvii Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, and she is the co-editor of C.S. Lewis Remembered: Collected Reflections of Students, Friends & Colleagues  (Zondervan) and The Good, the True, and the Beautiful: Meditations (Chalice). Katherine M. Hockey is Lecturer in New Testament in the School of Divinity, History and Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. She came to Aberdeen in 2017 as the inaugural Kirby Laing Postdoctoral Fellow in New Testament Studies, becoming Lecturer in 2019. Between 2012 and 2016 Katherine undertook her PhD at Durham University and then worked at the University of Exeter as Postdoctoral Research Associate between 2015 and 2017. Her revised doctoral thesis has been published in the prestigious Society of New Testament Studies Monograph Series as The Role of Emotion in 1 Peter (Cambridge University Press, 2019). She is co-editor of Muted Voices of the New Testament: Readings in the Catholic Epistles and Hebrews (Bloomsbury, 2017) and Ethnicity, Race, Religion: Identities and Ideologies in Early Jewish and Christian Texts, and in Modern Biblical Interpretation (Bloomsbury, 2018). David Janzen is Associate Professor of Old Testament/Hebrew Bible at ­Durham University. His writings on trauma theory and biblical literature include  The Violent Gift: Trauma’s Subversion of the Deuteronomistic History’s Narrative (T&T Clark, 2012) and Trauma and the Failure of History: Kings, Lamentations, and the Destruction of Jerusalem (Society of Biblical Literature, 2019). Steven J. Kraftchick is Professor of the Practice of New Testament Interpretation at Emory University, Candler School of Theology in Atlanta, Georgia. His primary areas of interest are in Pauline studies, New Testament theology, biblical hermeneutics, and the intersection of theology and technology. Jennifer Moberly is an ordained minister in the Church of England. She is a tutor at Cranmer Hall, Durham, where she teaches ethics and spirituality. In addition to these areas, her other main area of research is on Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology and ethics. Jennifer Moberly is married to ­Walter, and they have two children. Moberly’s publications on ­Bonhoeffer include The Virtue of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics, an essay on the translation of the Ethics, and a co-authored essay (with Medi Ann Volpe) on Bonhoeffer’s influence on Rowan Williams, in Engaging Bonhoeffer (edited by Matthew D. Kirkpatrick). Adam J. Powell is a junior research fellow in the Department of Theology and Religion at Durham University, a recipient of Durham’s International Fellowships for Research and Enterprise, a member of the interdisciplinary project Hearing the Voice (funded by the Wellcome Trust), and an affiliate of Durham’s Institute for Medical Humanities. His research

xviii  Contributors tends to blend history, theology, and social science to investigate issues of identity, crisis management, and spiritual experience among minority religious communities – past and present. He is the author of Irenaeus, Joseph Smith, and God-Making Heresy (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press) and Hans Mol and the Sociology of Religion (Routledge) as well as co-editor of Sacred Selves, Sacred Settings: Reflecting Hans Mol (Ashgate/ Routledge). Craig Steven Titus is Professor of Integration at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences and Director of the Department of Integrative Studies at Divine Mercy University (Sterling, Virginia). He received his doctorate of sacred theology from the University of Fribourg (Switzerland). Dr Titus has published numerous book chapters and journal articles in, for example, Journal of Positive Psychology, Journal of Psychology and Christianity, and The Thomist. He wrote Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude: Aquinas in Dialogue with the Psychosocial Sciences (Catholic University of America Press) and was co-editor of A Catholic Christian Meta-Model of the Person: Integration with Psychology and Mental Health Practice (Divine Mercy University Press, 2019). Peter Tyler is Professor of Pastoral Theology and Spirituality and Director of the Centre for Initiatives in Spirituality and Reconciliation (InSpiRe) at St Mary’s University, Twickenham, London. His most recent work is Christian Mindfulness: Theology and Practice (SCM, 2018). The website for InSpiRe is www.stmarys.ac.uk/inspire. Nathan H. White is the executive director of the Institute for Faith and Resilience based in Lafayette, Louisiana. He holds a PhD in theology from Durham University and has extensive experience as a chaplain and pastor. He has written on the application and integration of theological and scientific knowledge for Oxford University Press and Springer Science. His most recent work is A Persistent Fire: The Strategic Ethical Impact of World War I on the Global Profession of Arms (co-edited with Timothy Mallard) (NDU Press, 2019).

1 Introduction Biblical and theological visions of resilience Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook

Though the term ‘resilience’ has come into vogue in recent years to describe the phenomenon of positive human adaptation despite adversity, resilience itself is not new – human beings have employed various strategies for sustaining well-being despite difficulty for millennia. Yet today discussion regarding resilience has perhaps never been more relevant. Its presence within many meta-discourses in Western society is often an all-but-assumed presupposition. For example, amidst the political discourse surrounding those in the millennial generation who have been termed ‘snowflakes’ is a subtext of an implied lack of resilience – these individuals possess a veneer of personal stability so thin that it is as ephemeral as a snowflake, so the polemic goes. Nevertheless, what might be termed a growing ‘obsession’ with resilience in Western society is indicative of exactly the inverse – a burgeoning lack of well-being experienced amidst perceived difficulty by those in Western culture at large. This trend is especially pronounced in younger generations where indications, both anecdotal and evidential, abound. However one may desire to measure this phenomenon – be it an exponential rise in anxiety and depression, increasing suicide rates, unprecedented rates of addiction, or a general trend towards a sense of lack of purpose – the data are alarming in their consistency and persistence within the West. Those in Western society, as a whole, seem to be growing less resilient rather than more (Gray 2015; Pistorello et al. 2017; Flatt 2013; Burstein, Agostino, and Greenfield 2019; Twenge et al. 2019). Critics point to various factors as potential contributors to this mounting lack of resilience. Western individualism (Harvey and Delfabbro 2004) and a lack of community/relational connection are often singled out (Luthar, Barkin, and Crossman 2013), as are the advent of new technologies and digital media (Twenge et al. 2019) and what could be termed ‘helicopter parenting’ (Haidt and Lukianoff 2015). The roots of these phenomena may be debated, but the reality of their existence is increasingly hard to ignore. To counter a growing sense of the fragile nature of human existence within Western society, a number of stratagems have been proposed as means of increasing resilience among those who are deemed to lack it. These

2  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook approaches have varied from the optimistic – positive thinking and positive self-image as cure-alls – to the pugnacious – a Nietzschean ethic of ‘willto-power’ and Stoic virtue as prescriptions du jour. Yet could it be that the roots of this societal epidemic go deeper than cursory self-help or fashionable treatments may cure? If so, what means can be utilised to address it? While the term ‘resilience’ is new in advent of use when referencing human behaviour (within the last 40–50 years), the positive adaptation to adversity that the term describes is as old as the human experience of difficulty. This is to say nothing of the term itself, which dates back to the 17th century in English, not to mention its more ancient Latin predecessor, resilire (Alexander 2013, 1260; Onions 1967, 759). Although ‘resilience’ has a rich and diverse history, ‘few scholars seem to be aware of the term’s long and distinguished history’, creating an impoverished understanding of how the term and concept could be used today (Alexander 2013, 1258–59). Perhaps the sources that have sustained Western civilisation to this point may shed some light on the phenomenon of resilience, which, it turns out, is not so new after all. To this end, this volume seeks to uncover and appropriate insights from the Judeo-Christian tradition. It is our contention that resources from this tradition – found in canonical texts and the work of theologians through the centuries – can helpfully inform modern discussions of resilience. We believe that resources such as these can provide a much-needed perspective on resilience that is currently missing in modern academic discourse – a discourse that too often is stunted by naturalistic materialist assumptions.

What is ‘resilience’? While the construct of resilience has undergone intense scrutiny in social scientific studies of human behaviour, the complexities underlying resilient adaptation are often not well understood. In addition to the use of resilience within many academic fields – ranging from psychology to ecology, political theory, and engineering – resilience has become a part of everyday discourse, being used to describe everything from sports teams that overcome various setbacks to the purported effect of various self-help treatments.1 Indeed, one expert notes that something called ‘resilience’ appears to have proliferated across multiple, at best partially connected, domains of life. Resilience, whatever it is, appears now to be everywhere; the latest iteration of the promise of security . . . offered as a desperate hope of survival in a world of roiling crises, and demanded of subjects, populations and systems. (Anderson 2015, 60) If anything, however, the wide use of the term has muddied rather than clarified its meaning and value (Anderson 2015, 60). Scholarly usage of the term ‘resilience’ has increased eight-fold during the past 20 years (Panter-Brick

Introduction 3 and Leckman 2013, 335), leading to the suggestion that ‘resilience is a “meme” or conceptual unit capable of “extraordinary replication” ’ (PanterBrick 2014, 438).2 Definitions of the construct abound.3 In the field of psychology, resilience could generally be understood as ‘positive adaptation or development in the context of risk’ (Masten 2013, 580). Another definition highlights the fluid nature of the construct: resilience is the ‘process of harnessing biological, psychosocial, structural, and cultural resources to sustain wellbeing’ (Panter-Brick and Leckman 2013, 333). This concept, then, beyond promising to counterbalance generalised societal anxiety,4 purports to transform the anxiety into something positive. Resilience could be said to possess the fabled Midas’s touch – whatever it encounters turns to gold. Yet, as with Midas, the exact means of this occurring remains somewhat mysterious. The substance of the concept is simultaneously both vague and ubiquitous. Resilience, Catherine Panter-Brick argues, makes ‘intuitive sense but often elude[s] simple definition’ (2014, 432) – a difficulty that lies partially in the metaphorical nature of the concept itself. The flexibility of the term is evident in that ‘resilience has been frequently redefined and extended by heuristic, metaphorical, or normative dimensions’ (Brand and Jax 2007, 23). Drawn from the physical sciences where it was used to describe the ability of various materials to bear heavy loads (McAslan 2010, 2; Alexander 2013, 1262–63; ‘Resilience, n.’ 2014), ‘resilience’ is now used across many academic disciplines, including the natural sciences (Holling 1973; Hughes et al. 2005), economics (Pendall, Foster, and Cowell 2009; Pickett, Cadenasso, and Grove 2004), geology (Brown 2014; Manyena 2006), and sport science (Sarkar and Fletcher 2014), as well as in society at large. Amidst the variety of definitions of the construct, resilience in human beings is generally seen to include three core components: (1) the experience of significant risk or adversity, (2) the utilisation of resources to cope amidst adversity, and (3) a positive outcome (Windle 2011, 159). We shall therefore briefly consider these in turn. Overcoming adversity Resilience would not be needed apart from the presence of a substantial stressor (or stressors)5 that would normally lead to negative outcomes. The causal connection between extreme adverse circumstance and long-term negative health outcomes is well established (Amstadter, Myers, and Kendler 2014, 279; Bruce 2006; Mundy and Baum 2004), and can include negative effects such as acute stress reactivity (Loman and Gunnar 2010; Heim et al. 2000) and psychopathology (Nelson et al. 2002; Kilpatrick et al. 2003). Some have seen resilience as a rejection of the necessarily causal relationship between adversity and a negative outcome (Yehuda and Flory 2007, 435–36). Resilience has also been described ‘as a counter-narrative to discourses of vulnerability and social suffering’ (Panter-Brick 2014, 439)6 – a

4  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook vision of resilience also containing ideological implications wherein resilience offers ‘a powerful narrative, embraced by the political discourse of the left, which endorses civil society, and by the politics of the right, which holds individuals responsible for their own actions’ (Panter-Brick and Leckman 2013, 335). But if resilience possesses the ability to empower individuals in such a way, how does it do so? Significantly, many of the mechanisms of action by which positive resilience outcomes are promoted have been identified. Researchers have termed these ‘protective’ and ‘promotive’ factors. Utilising protective and promotive factors Protective and promotive factors have been dubbed ‘the defining attributes of resilience’ (Windle 2011, 164). These are significant not only because they could be said to be descriptive of the mechanisms by which positive resilience outcomes are achieved, but also because they could be understood as possessing predictive power in the promotion of resilience (Hjemdal et al. 2006, 195). These protective/promotive factors can generally be categorised as: (1) individual (e.g. psychological, neurobiological), (2) social (e.g. family cohesion, parental support) and (3) community/society (e.g. support systems generated through social and political capital, institutional and economic factors). (Windle 2011, 157)7 Within a diversity of studies, a broad and consistent consensus has emerged regarding the identity of protective and promotive factors, ‘suggesting that fundamental adaptive systems support and protect human adaptation and development in the context of adversity’ (Masten 2013, 579). Some researchers have highlighted the following as among the most significant contributors to resilience: positive emotion and optimism, loving caretakers and sturdy role models, a history of mastering challenges, cognitive flexibility including the ability to cognitively reframe adversity in a more positive light, the ability to regulate emotions, high coping self-efficacy, strong social support, disciplined focus on skill development, altruism, commitment to a valued cause or purpose, capacity to extract meaning from adverse situations, support from religion and spirituality, attention to health and good cardiovascular fitness, and the capacity to rapidly recover from stress. (Southwick and Charney 2012, 80) Though factors such as these can be identified as having an effect on positive resilient adaptation, it is vital to recognise that resilience, being the outcome of a dynamic interplay of many ‘time-variant and context-dependent

Introduction 5 variables’ (Tol, Song, and Jordans 2013, 455), is more than the summation of individual protective and promotive factors. In essence, one cannot simply fashion a ‘shopping list’ of predictors for resilience due to the ‘complexity and limitations of resilience’ (Tol, Song, and Jordans 2013, 449). Yet resilience is coherent as a concept only because of the unique working of protective and promotive factors. Because resilience necessitates the experience of significant adversity, it must be understood as ‘not the mere absence of risk, but rather the presence of protective factors or processes that buffer effects of adversity’ (Hjemdal et al. 2006, 194–95). Achieving a positive outcome While adversity and protective/promotive factors may be quite common, the presence of a third factor – a positive outcome – determines whether a response actually is resilient or non-resilient. The positive outcome assumed within the construct of resilience has been variously identified as ‘positive adaptation’ (Luthar, Cicchetti, and Becker 2000; Rutter 1999) or the absence of psychopathology (Nigg et al. 2007; Luthar 2006). The related concept of ‘flourishing’ has also been suggested as the goal of resilience, but some see this construct as being more at home in the realm of positive psychology where the aim is good outcomes for all people rather than just those facing significant adversity (Luthar 2006). Not all conceptions of a positive outcome are helpful or feasible. In particular, the idea that the ‘positive outcome’ of resilience is co-terminus with the absence of psychopathology has been challenged: ‘in the words of ­Almedom and Glandon (2007), defining resilience as the absence of a disorder is akin to defining health as the absence of disease’ (Bonanno and Diminich 2013, 381). Something beyond the absence of psychopathology must identify resilience. Further, popular conceptions of this positive outcome, broadly conceived, such as happiness, ‘everything working out’, or lack of perceived difficulty are not, in the end, adequate measures of the kind of human flourishing to which the resilience concept purports to aspire. Even the more technical designation of ‘well-being’ as a measure of health, which itself could include constructs such as happiness and resilience, could be misleading (Atkinson 2011). This may be one of the areas in which biblical and theological sources can provide the most insight in relation to modern conceptions of resilience. The depth of reflection upon human flourishing, health, and well-being within the Judeo-Christian tradition offers much-needed perspective to modern discussions.

Resilience and environment Conceptions of resilience are contextually dependent and influenced by environmental considerations. The construct identified as ‘resilience’ has

6  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook been shown to be moderately heritable, roughly on par with depression (Amstadter, Myers, and Kendler 2014, 278). ‘[G]enetic constitution and enduring environmental influences contribute roughly equally to the latent construct of resilience’ (Amstadter, Myers, and Kendler 2014, 278). Resilience interventions focus on changeable factors such as human decisions and environmental influences. This may be accomplished ‘upstream’ through attempting to change broad cultural and environmental conditions that are unfavourable to resilient adaptation, as well as ‘downstream’ through individual- and community-specific interventions such as the introduction of protective and promotive factors. These models themselves are dependent upon viewing resilience through the lens of environment, sometimes termed a ‘social-ecological model of resilience’ (Panter-Brick 2014, 441).8 One of the most significant constructs to impact resilient adaptation is the construction of human meaningfulness. Meaning, as construed by an individual or culture, has much more effect upon resilience outcomes than biomedical literature has suggested in the past (Panter-Brick 2014, 435).9 Again, this lacuna draws attention to one of the areas in which biblical and theological texts may provide additional insight.

Why the need for this book? Multivalent approaches to understanding resilience are increasingly recognised as crucial for evaluating a construct with this level of complexity. For instance, a group of prominent resilience researchers agreed that resilience is a complex construct and it may be defined differently in the context of individuals, families, organizations, societies, and cultures. . . [and therefore] needs to be approached from a multiple level of analysis perspective. (Southwick et al. 2014) Analysis from the vantage point of multiple disciplines and at multiple levels is necessary to provide an adequate accounting of resilience (Cicchetti 2010; Cicchetti and Blender 2006) and also begins to bridge the gap between clinicians and researchers in the implementation of resilience principles ­(Cicchetti and Valentino 2007). Religion and spirituality (R/S) have increasingly been understood as vital aspects of human lived experience and necessary components of multiplelevel analysis of human behaviour. In particular, a growing consensus exists among scholars and practitioners that R/S have an important role in promoting positive human resilience outcomes.10 Because of this, Andrew Hatala (2011) has proposed a four-factor model of resilience encompassing a spiritual component.11 Because R/S deal with questions of ultimate purpose, meaning, and human flourishing, they may have much to add to discussions regarding human resilience.

Introduction 7 A World Health Organization (WHO) report found R/S to be significantly positively-correlated with quality of life across 18 countries (WHOQOL SRPB Group 2006). Another WHO report categorised spirituality as a resource that is ‘essential to psychological wellbeing’ (Friedli 2009, iii). On the whole, research indicates that religiosity and psychopathology are inversely related12 with a possible causal relationship between R/S and some positive resilience outcomes (Kasen et al. 2012). The positive effects of R/S may be seen most clearly in circumstances of significant adversity (Kim 2008; Koenig, Larson, and Larson 2001), such as for cancer patients ­(Balboni et al. 2007; Holt et al. 2012), individuals with severe and/or chronic pain (Büssing et al. 2009; Wachholtz, Pearce, and Koenig 2007; Wiech et al. 2008), and those whose ailments exceed the ability of modern medicine to heal (Koenig 2002). Particular attention from serious scholars of religion has been sparse as of yet, and thus a need exists for more sustained research into the influence of R/S on the phenomenon that has come to be labelled ‘resilience’. Several recent works have highlighted religious emphases significant for resilience (Allain-Chapman 2012; Shooter 2012; Stump 2012; Carr 2014), yet practitioners have also stressed the need for more research on R/S responses to trauma (Walker and Aten 2012). It is our contention as Christian theologians that theology has an important contribution to make to research on resilience. The diverse collection of contributions within this volume centre around seeking to address the question, ‘How can human beings not only survive but also thrive in the midst of adversity?’ from the perspective of Christian theology.

Resilience: between two worlds Social science research has been undertaken to understand individual and communal influences that effect resilience outcomes. In this regard, much progress has been made in the past thirty years. Factors identified as significant for enabling positive resilience outcomes within the context of adversity include many that are significant components of R/S (hope, relationship, etc.). While studies utilising social scientific methodologies have indicated the importance of R/S for resilience, much less effort has been expended in attempting to understand these findings from philosophical and theological vantage points. A growing number of helpful resources for theological reflection on resilience exist (Titus 2006; Schreiter 2016; Sedmak 2017), but these are not widely known, and a vast array of resources within the JudeoChristian tradition remain unused in this discussion. The following chapters suggest various ways in which Judeo-Christian scriptures and theologians within the Christian tradition may contribute insights for better understanding human resilience to adversity. These insights in turn suggest possible applications in pastoral and clinical settings, but also ways in which contemporary visages of human life and

8  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook well-being may be challenged, sharpened, and re-assessed. We believe that these insights will be beneficial not only within the fields of biblical studies and theology but also more broadly within the humanities and social sciences, where a depth of textual and historical tradition may ground a relatively new concept within a wider vision of human well-being. We hope that this book will be important not only for faith communities or theologians; these issues are fundamental also to a deeper understanding of the social science of resilience. For instance, much research relies upon objective criteria, such as frequency of service attendance or frequency of prayer, to measure religiosity. These are useful factors because they are quantifiable, but objective measures can be misleading in that they do not reveal much insight into the self-understanding of individuals being studied. Motivation for church attendance can be just as significant in its overall impact upon potential outcomes as the fact of attendance itself. What an individual thinks he or she is ‘doing’ through prayer can be as varied as each individual who prays. Thus, theological assessment of subjective motivation is a necessary part of understanding the impact of factors associated with R/S. Further, these individuals’ R/S self-understandings are informed by a variety of canonical texts and historical traditions with which many social science researchers may be unfamiliar.

What this book sets out to do Provide biblical and theological insight The depth of theological perspective needed to address the topic of resilience to human adversity – itself an integral aspect of human experience – requires a re-appropriation of the theological resources of scripture, tradition, and reason. This volume seeks to bring these resources to bear upon the construct of resilience through the work of a group of leading Christian biblical scholars and theologians. We believe that biblical and theological perspectives on human resilience to adversity exhibit a richness, complexity, and nuance not often found in contemporary discussions surrounding this topic. The scope will necessarily be limited and selective, and reflects the backgrounds and interests of its editors and authors. Its purview includes only resources from the Judeo-Christian tradition, and even these are not exhaustive, but hopefully they are representative. There are certainly many other contributions utilising a variety of biblical and theological sources that would have made excellent additions to this project, and perhaps several that one could argue should have been included, but have had to be excluded due to space restrictions. What has been included represents what we hope to be a beneficial start to fruitful scholarly debate and crossdisciplinary collaboration. We hope that the book will be read widely, and it is intentionally addressed to a diverse audience. We hope that the material will be of interest not only

Introduction 9 to biblical and theological scholars but also to scholars in fields as diverse as psychology, philosophy, history, and sociology as well as practitioners in human health services and pastoral care. The aims of this volume are also practical. This book is not a reflection upon resilience for its own sake; rather, the further aim of the depth of exegetical and theological insight is implementation in pastoral and clinical realms. Move beyond current formulations of resilience Though acknowledging the multifaceted and beneficial resources already found within a diversity of fields for understanding human resilience to adversity – including trauma studies and their interaction with the fields of biblical studies and theology – this project seeks to break new ground beyond these domains and therefore we will not revisit well-trodden territory. This volume moves past an apparent impasse of some areas of trauma studies not only to assess the trauma experienced by an individual but also to disclose resources that enable individuals to overcome these traumatic experiences. While doing so, we must also realistically recognise that resilience may not always be an end to be pursued. In fact, some have suggested that a focus upon resilience paradoxically can reinforce narratives of disempowerment and insecurity as the status quo of human existence, leading to a nihilistic and meaningless existence (Evans and Reid 2013). No doubt, the construct may be misused – perhaps in part due to incomplete or inherently flawed understandings of the concept – but this does not discredit possible positive contributions made through it. It is our contention that current understandings of resilience, in contemporary culture as well as in much academic scholarship, are incomplete and inadequate descriptions of human responses to adversity. Limited by myopic visions of human flourishing and stunted by epistemological assumptions confined to secular materialistic humanism, these descriptions of resilience fail fully to describe the experience of many individuals. A ‘pull yourself up by your own bootstraps’ approach to resilience that prizes a Nietzschean ‘power to will’ as the highest expression of human flourishing overlooks the experience of a vast segment of the population – the weak and powerless – whose resilience in the face of difficulty often is displayed through a different form of strength. It is this ‘strength in weakness’ that has been prized in many segments of the Christian tradition. Not content to make this claim on ideological grounds alone, many in this tradition have put this belief into action by serving orphans, widows, the sick, and the oppressed.13 In this way and in many more, the Christian tradition serves as a repository of resources – both intellectual and practical – that are helpful for reassessing the modern construct of resilience.

10  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook This volume does not seek to offer simple platitudes or ‘quick fix’ solutions to address contemporary deficits in resilience; rather it seeks to provide substantive resources for the deep reflection that is needed to address and rectify an increasing lack of resilience within Western society.

Notes 1 With the common but reverential use of the term, resilience has gained a status of perceived universal benefice and immunity to critique. For instance, if something is ‘resilient’ it is also invariably deemed to be ‘good’ and ‘desirable’. This assumed beneficence is potentially problematic due to the inability of the core construct itself to sustain positive moral valuation on its own. 2 Panter-Brick is here utilising terminology from Alastair Ager (2013, 489). 3 Cf. (Cook and White 2018). 4 Cf. (Christopherson, Michie, and Tyler 2010). 5 Interestingly, ‘stress’ is also a term derived from descriptions of physical materials. See (van der Kolk et al. 2005). 6 Cf. (Almedom et al. 2010). 7 Cf. (Garmezy 1991; Werner 1995). 8 See also (Ungar 2012). 9 Indeed, human meaningfulness as well as what constitutes ‘trauma’ are context dependent (Carr 2014, 254). We would do well, then, to exercise care when seeking to map contemporary understandings of these concepts onto sources from other times and cultures. 10 See, for example, (Peres et al. 2007; Foy, Drescher, and Watson 2011; Smith et al. 2012). 11 He notes, ‘it is therefore argued that there are four factors leading to resilience: (a) physical and biological strengths; (b) psychological resourcefulness; (c) interpersonal or emotional skills; and (d) spiritual capabilities. Following a transactional, organizational analytic perspective, resilience becomes the dynamic interaction between these four interrelated factors’ (Hatala 2011, 34). 12 See (Cook and White 2018) for a fuller review of the literature regarding R/S and resilience and (Koenig, King, and Carson 2012) for an extensive overview of research on R/S and health more generally. 13 While the Christian tradition is not without blemishes in its history – even major ones – the overall emphasis upon serving the downtrodden is clear. Many hospitals, schools, orphanages, and other service-oriented institutions were founded by, and as a result of, individuals expressing deeply held Christian beliefs.

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12  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook Interventions’. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1094 (1): 248–58. https://doi.org/10.1196/annals.1376.029. Cicchetti, D., and K. Valentino. 2007. ‘Toward the Application of a MultipleLevels-of-Analysis Perspective to Research in Development and Psychopathology’. In Multilevel Dynamics in Developmental Psychopathology: Pathways to the Future, edited by Ann S. Masten, 34:243–84. The Minnesota Symposia on Child Psychology. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Cook, Christopher C.H., and Nathan H. White. 2018. ‘Resilience and the Role of Spirituality’. In The Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health, edited by Dinesh Bhugra, Kam Bhui, Samuel Wong, and Stephen Gilman, 513–20. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. Evans, Brad, and Julian Reid. 2013. ‘Dangerously Exposed: The Life and Death of the Resilient Subject’. Resilience 1 (2): 83–98. https://doi.org/10.1080/21693293 .2013.770703. Flatt, Alicia Kruisselbrink. 2013. ‘A Suffering Generation: Six Factors Contributing to the Mental Health Crisis in North American Higher Education’. College Quarterly 16 (1). http://collegequarterly.ca/2013-vol16-num01-winter/flatt.html. Foy, David W., Kent D. Drescher, and Patricia J. Watson. 2011. ‘Religious and Spiritual Factors in Resilience’. In Resilience and Mental Health: Challenges Across the Lifespan, edited by Steven M. Southwick, Brett T. Litz, Dennis Charney, and Matthew J. Friedman, 90–101. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Friedli, Lynne. 2009. Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities. WHO Regional Office for Europe Copenhagen. www.euro.who.int/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/100821/ E92227.pdf. Garmezy, Norman. 1991. ‘Resiliency and Vulnerability to Adverse Developmental Outcomes Associated with Poverty’. American Behavioral Scientist 34 (4): 416– 30. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764291034004003. Gray, Peter. 2015. ‘Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges’. Psychology Today (blog). September 22. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/freedomlearn/201509/declining-student-resilience-serious-problem-colleges. Haidt, Jonathan, and Greg Lukianoff. 2015. ‘The Coddling of the American Mind’. The Atlantic, September. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/ the-coddling-of-the-american-mind/399356/?utm_source=SFFB. Harvey, J., and P.H. Delfabbro. 2004. ‘Psychological Resilience in Disadvantaged Youth: A Critical Overview’. Australian Psychologist 39 (1): 3–13. https://doi.org /10.1080/00050060410001660281. Hatala, Andrew R. 2011. ‘Resilience and Healing Amidst Depressive Experiences: An Emerging Four-Factor Model from Emic/Etic Perspectives’. Journal of Spirituality in Mental Health 13 (1): 27–51. https://doi.org/10.1080/19349637.2011.547135. Heim, Christine, D. Jeffrey Newport, Stacey Heit, Yolanda P. Graham, Molly Wilcox, Robert Bonsall, Andrew H. Miller, and Charles B. Nemeroff. 2000. ‘Pituitary-Adrenal and Autonomic Responses to Stress in Women After Sexual and Physical Abuse in Childhood’. JAMA 284 (5): 592–97. https://doi.org/10.1001/ jama.284.5.592. Hjemdal, Odin, Oddgeir Friborg, Tore C. Stiles, Jan H. Rosenvinge, and Monica Martinussen. 2006. ‘Resilience Predicting Psychiatric Symptoms: A Prospective Study of Protective Factors and Their Role in Adjustment to Stressful Life Events’. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy 13 (3): 194–201. https://doi.org/10.1002/ cpp.488.

Introduction 13 Holling, C.S. 1973. ‘Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems’. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4 (January): 1–23. Holt, Cheryl L., Emily Schulz, Lee Caplan, Victor Blake, Vivian L. Southward, and Ayanna V. Buckner. 2012. ‘Assessing the Role of Spirituality in Coping Among African Americans Diagnosed with Cancer’. Journal of Religion and Health 51 (2): 507–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-011-9453-0. Hughes, T., D. Bellwood, C. Folke, R. Steneck, and J. Wilson. 2005. ‘New Paradigms for Supporting the Resilience of Marine Ecosystems’. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 20 (7): 380–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2005.03.022. Kasen, S., P. Wickramaratne, M.J. Gameroff, and M.M. Weissman. 2012. ‘Religiosity and Resilience in Persons at High Risk for Major Depression’. Psychological Medicine 42 (3): 509–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0033291711001516. Kilpatrick, Dean G., Kenneth J. Ruggiero, Ron Acierno, Benjamin E. Saunders, Heidi S. Resnick, and Connie L. Best. 2003. ‘Violence and Risk of PTSD, Major Depression, Substance Abuse/Dependence, and Comorbidity: Results from the National Survey of Adolescents’. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 71 (4): 692–700. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.71.4.692. Kim, Jungmeen. 2008. ‘The Protective Effects of Religiosity on Maladjustment Among Maltreated and Nonmaltreated Children’. Child Abuse & Neglect 32 (7): 711–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2007.09.011. Koenig, Harold G. 2002. ‘An 83-Year-Old Woman with Chronic Illness and Strong Religious Beliefs’. JAMA 288 (4): 487–93. https://doi.org/10.1001/ jama.288.4.487. Koenig, Harold G., Dana E. King, and Verna B. Carson. 2012. Handbook of Religion and Health. 2nd ed. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Koenig, Harold G., David B. Larson, and Susan S. Larson. 2001. ‘Religion and Coping with Serious Medical Illness’. Annals of Pharmacotherapy 35 (3): 352–59. Loman, Michelle M., and Megan R. Gunnar. 2010. ‘Early Experience and the Development of Stress Reactivity and Regulation in Children’. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 34 (6): 867–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2009.05.007. Luthar, Suniya S. 2006. ‘Resilience in Development: A Synthesis of Research across Five Decades’. In Developmental Psychopathology, Vol 3: Risk, Disorder, and Adaptation, edited by Dante Cicchetti and Donald J. Cohen. 2nd ed., 739–95. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons Inc. Luthar, Suniya S., Samuel H. Barkin, and Elizabeth J. Crossman. 2013. ‘ “I Can, Therefore I Must”: Fragility in the Upper-Middle Classes’. Development and Psychopathology 25 (25th Anniversary Special Issue 4pt2): 1529–49. https://doi. org/10.1017/S0954579413000758. Luthar, Suniya S., Dante Cicchetti, and Bronwyn Becker. 2000. ‘The Construct of Resilience: A Critical Evaluation and Guidelines for Future Work’. Child Development 71 (3): 543–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00164. Manyena, Siambabala Bernard. 2006. ‘The Concept of Resilience Revisited’. Disasters 30 (4): 434–50. Masten, Ann S. 2013. ‘Risk and Resilience in Development’. In The Oxford Handbook of Developmental Psychology: Vol 2: Self and Other, edited by Philip David Zelazo, 579–607. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. McAslan, Alastair. 2010. ‘The Concept of Resilience: Understanding Its Origins, Meaning and Utility’. Torrens Resilience Institute. www.torrensresilience.org/ images/pdfs/resilience%20origins%20and%20utility.pdf.

14  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook Mundy, Elizabeth, and Andrew Baum. 2004. ‘Medical Disorders as a Cause of Psychological Trauma and Posttraumatic Stress Disorder’. Current Opinion in Psychiatry 17 (2): 123–27. Nelson, Elliot C., Andrew C. Heath, Madden, M. Lynne Cooper, Stephen H. Dinwiddie, Kathleen K. Bucholz, Anne Glowinski et al. 2002. ‘Association Between SelfReported Childhood Sexual Abuse and Adverse Psychosocial Outcomes: Results from a Twin Study’. Archives of General Psychiatry 59 (2): 139–45. https://doi. org/10.1001/archpsyc.59.2.139. Nigg, Joel, Molly Nikolas, Karen Friderici, Leeyoung Park, and Robert A. Zucker. 2007. ‘Genotype and Neuropsychological Response Inhibition as Resilience Promoters for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder, and Conduct Disorder Under Conditions of Psychosocial Adversity’. Development and Psychopathology 19 (3): 767–86. https://doi.org/10.1017/ S0954579407000387. Onions, C.T., ed. 1967. The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Panter-Brick, Catherine. 2014. ‘Health, Risk, and Resilience: Interdisciplinary Concepts and Applications’. Annual Review of Anthropology 43 (1): 431–48. https:// doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102313-025944. Panter-Brick, Catherine, and James F. Leckman. 2013. ‘Editorial Commentary: Resilience in Child Development – Interconnected Pathways to Wellbeing’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 54 (4): 333–36. https://doi.org/10.1111/ jcpp.12057. Pendall, R., K.A. Foster, and M. Cowell. 2009. ‘Resilience and Regions: Building Understanding of the Metaphor’. Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 3 (1): 71–84. https://doi.org/10.1093/cjres/rsp028. Peres, Julio F.P., Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Antonia Gladys Nasello, and ­Harold G. Koenig. 2007. ‘Spirituality and Resilience in Trauma Victims’. Journal of Religion and Health 46 (3): 343–50. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-006-9103-0. Pickett, S.T.A., M.L. Cadenasso, and J.M. Grove. 2004. ‘Resilient Cities: Meaning, Models, and Metaphor for Integrating the Ecological, Socio-Economic, and Planning Realms’. Landscape and Urban Planning 69 (4): 369–84. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.landurbplan.2003.10.035. Pistorello, Jacqueline, Trevor N. Coyle, Nadia Samad Locey, and Joseph C. ­Walloch. 2017. ‘Treating Suicidality in College Counseling Centers: A Response to Polychronis’. Journal of College Student Psychotherapy 31 (1): 30–42. https://doi.org /10.1080/87568225.2016.1251829. ‘Resilience, n’. 2014. In OED Online. Oxford University Press. www.oed.com/view/ Entry/163619. Rutter, Michael. 1999. ‘Resilience Concepts and Findings: Implications for Family Therapy’. Journal of Family Therapy 21 (2): 119–44. https://doi.org/10.11 11/1467-6427.00108. Sarkar, Mustafa, and David Fletcher. 2014. ‘Ordinary Magic, Extraordinary Performance: Psychological Resilience and Thriving in High Achievers’. Sport, Exercise, and Performance Psychology 3 (1): 46–60. https://doi.org/10.1037/spy0000003. Schreiter, Robert J. 2016. ‘Reading Biblical Texts Through the Lens of Resilience’. In Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, by Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, 193–208. Semeia Studies 38. Atlanta: SBL Press.

Introduction 15 Sedmak, Clemens. 2017. The Capacity to Be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength. Theology and Mission in World Christianity. Vol. 5. Leiden; ­Boston: Brill. Shooter, Susan. 2012. How Survivors of Abuse Relate to God: The Authentic Spirituality of the Annihilated Soul. Farnham, UK: Ashgate Publishing. Smith, Bruce W., J. Alexis Ortiz, Kathryn T. Wiggins, Jennifer F. Bernard, and Jeanne Dalen. 2012. ‘Spirituality, Resilience, and Positive Emotions’. In The Oxford Handbook of Psychology and Spirituality, edited by Lisa J. Miller, 437–54. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Southwick, Steven M., George A. Bonanno, Ann S. Masten, Catherine Panter-Brick, and Rachel Yehuda. 2014. ‘Resilience Definitions, Theory, and Challenges: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’. European Journal of Psychotraumatology 5: 25338. https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v5.25338. Southwick, Steven M., and Dennis S. Charney. 2012. ‘The Science of Resilience: Implications for the Prevention and Treatment of Depression’. Science 338 (6103): 79–82. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1222942. Stump, Eleonore. 2012. Wandering in Darkness: Narrative and the Problem of Suffering. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Titus, Craig Steven. 2006. Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude: Aquinas in Dialogue with the Psychosocial Sciences. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Tol, Wietse A., Suzan Song, and Mark J.D. Jordans. 2013. ‘Annual Research Review: Resilience and Mental Health in Children and Adolescents Living in Areas of Armed Conflict – a Systematic Review of Findings in Low- and Middle-Income Countries’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 54 (4): 445–60. https:// doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12053. Twenge, Jean M., A. Bell Cooper, Thomas E. Joiner, Maria E. Duffy, and Sarah G. Binau. 2019. ‘Age, Period, and Cohort Trends in Mood Disorder Indicators and Suicide-Related Outcomes in a Nationally Representative Dataset, 2005–2017’. Journal of Abnormal Psychology 128 (3): 185–99. https://doi.org/10.1037/ abn0000410.supp. Ungar, Michael, ed. 2012. The Social Ecology of Resilience: A Handbook of Theory and Practice. New York: Springer. van der Kolk, Bessel A., Susan Roth, David Pelcovitz, Susanne Sunday, and Joseph Spinazzola. 2005. ‘Disorders of Extreme Stress: The Empirical Foundation of a Complex Adaptation to Trauma’. Journal of Traumatic Stress 18 (5): 389–99. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20047. Wachholtz, Amy B., Michelle J. Pearce, and Harold Koenig. 2007. ‘Exploring the Relationship Between Spirituality, Coping, and Pain’. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 30 (4): 311–18. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-007-9114-7. Walker, Donald F., and Jamie D. Aten. 2012. ‘Future Directions for the Study and Application of Religion, Spirituality, and Trauma Research’. Journal of Psychology and Theology 40 (4): 349–53. Werner, Emmy E. 1995. ‘Resilience in Development’. Current Directions in Psychological Science 4 (3): 81–85. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.ep10772327. WHOQOL SRPB Group. 2006. ‘A Cross-Cultural Study of Spirituality, Religion, and Personal Beliefs as Components of Quality of Life’. Social Science & Medicine 62 (6): 1486–97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.08.001.

16  Nathan H. White and Christopher C.H. Cook Wiech, Katja, Miguel Farias, Guy Kahane, Nicholas Shackel, Wiebke Tiede, and Irene Tracey. 2008. ‘An FMRI Study Measuring Analgesia Enhanced by Religion as a Belief System’. Pain 139 (2): 467–76. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2008.07.030. Windle, Gill. 2011. ‘What Is Resilience? A Review and Concept Analysis’. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology 21 (2): 152–69. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0959259810 000420. Yehuda, Rachel, and Janine D. Flory. 2007. ‘Differentiating Biological Correlates of Risk, PTSD, and Resilience Following Trauma Exposure’. Journal of Traumatic Stress 20 (4): 435–47. https://doi.org/10.1002/jts.20260.

Section 1

Biblical visions of resilience

2 ‘To do you good in the end’ The wilderness experience in Israel’s communal memory (Deuteronomy 8) Noel Forlini Burt Introduction As David Carr notes, the themes of suffering and resilience are woven throughout the Bible: ‘The Bible’s distinctive themes and emphases can be traced back to century after century of crisis. It certainly contains texts about other aspects of human experience – joy, gratitude, love, wonder, and the like. Nevertheless, it was during periods of crisis that the overall structure and emphases of the scriptures were shaped the most. Thus suffering, and the survival of it, was written into the Bible’ (Carr 2014, 4). In the Hebrew Bible, the Babylonian exile functioned as the central trauma in the Israelites’ communal memory. Nevertheless, the experience of the wilderness, narrated in Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers – and retold in Deuteronomy – narratively prefigures the exile even as it functioned as a metaphor for the exilic community to understand their displacement.1 The (re)tellings of the wilderness experience in Deuteronomy address three audiences: the audience of the story world itself, who are about to enter the Promised Land; the exilic audience who is composing this story and whose own experience of landlessness was a trauma akin to wilderness wandering; and contemporary Jews and Christians, who may draw solace from what Belden C. Lane (1998) refers to as the ‘fierce landscape’ of spiritual or emotional wilderness. Deuteronomy (re)interprets the wilderness experience in multiple chapters, each time clearly straining to reconcile the harshness of the experience with the goodness of Yahweh (Deut. 1–4, 8–10, 29, 32). In particular, Deuteronomy 8 wrestles narratively with the affliction of the wilderness, alongside the solace provided inside of that experience. Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy 8 clearly outlines the trauma involved: disorientation and loss, the perception of divine abandonment, and physical and existential lack. Nevertheless, Moses’ speech also conveys the consolations of the experience: the unexpected provision of a God who cannot be categorised but who can nevertheless be trusted (Deut. 8:2–10). Much of the didactic thrust of Deuteronomy involves the passing down of Torah to successive generations (Deut. 6:1–9; 11:18–21; 12:28; 29:10–15; 30:1–6). This is possible because the Israelites have experienced Yahweh in a personal, experiential

20  Noel Forlini Burt way as they wandered through the wilderness. They are not to be people who stand at a spiritual distance, unable to articulate all that Yahweh has done. Rather, the speech of Yahweh in this hard place has enabled them, at long last, to be people who have a ‘heart to understand’ (Deut. 29:4) and who are able to speak about Yahweh as his people (Deut. 29:10–15). The fierce landscape of the wilderness has served as a place to ‘test’ them, forming them into people who belong to Yahweh. The wilderness is therefore an experience that destroys illusions of self-efficacy and highlights the power of Yahweh (Deut. 8:11–18). In short, the wilderness exposes, makes vulnerable, wounds, in order to heal individuals of the illusion that blessing is a result of their own effort. All of this affliction is done, the writer of Deuteronomy attests, ‘to do you good in the end’ (Deut. 8:16). There is a purposeful pedagogy to the wilderness, one that is transmittable well beyond the pages of the Hebrew Bible. When properly remembered, wilderness experiences can be assimilated as narratives of resilience for the people of God. This chapter will explore Deuteronomy 8 in light of psychosocial ideas of resilience, arguing that wilderness is a trauma that, when properly remembered, can cultivate resilience for the people of God in every generation.

Defining resilience Carr’s scholarship, as well as the program unit devoted to Bible Through the Lens of Trauma at the Society of Biblical Literature, demonstrates increased conversation among scholars in the fields of biblical studies and trauma studies.2 Nevertheless, such discussions can tend to focus on trauma while largely ignoring resilience. In his survey of the scant scholarship that does intersect the Bible with resilience, Robert J. Schreiter notes with apparent frustration that resilience is taken for granted as ‘the capacity to bounce back after disaster’ (Schreiter 2016, 194). Referencing the German Widerstandskraft, ‘the capacity to resist’, Schreiter acknowledges that resilience is linked to resistance but argues that it is more than that. Resilience, he claims, ‘tries to formulate the capacities that make resistance possible and help sustain it’ (Schreiter 2016, 195). Among those capacities that make resistance possible, Schreiter draws upon Clemens Sedmak (2013) to point to three activities: thinking, remembering, and believing. For Sedmak, thinking is a work of imagination that allows individuals or groups to develop alternative possibilities, taking ‘cognitive dissonance’ and putting that dissonance into context. This kind of thinking ‘reframes’ the current situation (Schreiter 2016, 197). Sedmak also argues that memory is not merely an ‘archive of the past’. Rather, it is an individual or group’s relationship with the past ‘from the vantage point of the present’. As such, memory forms the basis for identity, ‘endow[ing] the present, visible world with a deeper meaning’ (Schreiter 2016, 200). Drawing on the mnemohistoric work of Jan Assman and Jeffrey Alexander, as well as Sedmak, Schreiter notes that ‘traumatic memory’ that has been

‘To do you good in the end’ 21 assimilated into a narrative allows the subject to ‘domesticate’ that memory by putting it into a chain of causality and meaning. The Bible, particularly Deuteronomy, is replete with stories that showcase all that God has done for Israel. It is in transforming trauma into something usable that a community can create meaning when a situation appears meaningless. Finally, Sedmak claims that believing is the third element that leads to resilience. Believing, for Sedmak, means trusting the community and God – trusting the others and the Other. This trust, for Sedmak, allows vulnerability to ‘flower’ (Schreiter 2016, 201). For Sedmak, vulnerability is an ‘openness’ that allows for individuals to be susceptible to grace and assistance (Schreiter 2016, 199). Verwundbarkeit, vulnerability, largely characterises the wilderness experience as retold in Deuteronomy. It is this vulnerability that opens the Israelites to the Lord’s provision and presence, compelling them to think, to remember, and to believe in the goodness of the experience. Resilience is not about forgetting or nullifying the trauma of an experience. Rather, resilience is about choosing to remember it not as meaning(less) but as meaning(full). It is this ‘fullness of meaning’ which carves out space for continued assimilation of the memory into the larger narrative of human life. Deuteronomy 8 is just such a narrative, one that seeks to wrestle with the wilderness experience honestly by examining its desolation and its consolation. In doing so, the community telling the story is able to make meaning from it, even to acknowledge that the experience has been intended for ‘good’ (Deut. 8:16). For this reason, Deuteronomy 8 is an example of communal resilience crafted into narrative.

Remembering the wilderness: desolations Moses begins his speech by outlining what it will take to live (‫( ) חָיָה‬ḥāyāh), to multiply (‫( ) רָבָה‬rāvāh), and to possess (‫( ) יָרַׁש‬yārash) the land (Deut. 8:1). He ends his speech with a warning that what has happened to the other nations – destruction (‫'( ) אָבַד‬āvad) (Deut. 8:20) – may also happen to the Israelites. Like much of Deuteronomy, which counsels obedience to Yahweh so that blessing can be received (Deut. 6; 7; 9; 28; 30), the entire speech juxtaposes remembrance and forgetfulness through the use of the Hebrew verbs ‫( ָזכַר‬zākar) (‘remember’) (Deut. 8:2, 18) and ‫( ׁשָכַח‬shāchaḥ) (‘forget’) (Deut. 8:11, 14, 19). Here, remembrance is tied to the whole of the wilderness experience, its hardship and the provision of God in the midst of that hardship. Remembrance serves as a bulwark against forgetfulness, which leads to haughtiness of spirit and, ultimately, ‫'( אָבַד‬āvad) (‘destruction’, ‘loss of way’, ‘extermination’) (Deut. 8:20). The tangible and spiritual provisions of God – manna, clothing, and endurance – are central to remembering the wilderness experience (Deut. 8:2–5). Nevertheless, it is that very provision that ironically highlights the basic, physical deprivations of the wilderness. Tucked just beneath the consoling language of provision lies the traumatic core of the wilderness experience.

22  Noel Forlini Burt This traumatic core appears in the second verse of Deuteronomy 8. When Moses tells the Israelites to remember ‫'( אֶת־ּכֹל־הַּדֶרְֶך‬eth-kōl-hadderek) (‘the whole way’, ‘the entire way’) (Deut. 8:2) that Yahweh has brought the Israelites during the 40-year trek in the wilderness, what at first sounds comforting strikes a jarring note. The three verbs following the purpose clause ‫לְמַעַן‬ (lemaʻan) (‘for the purpose of’, ‘so that’) brings this into sharp relief. The Israelites are to remember that Yahweh brought them through the wilderness for the purpose of ‫( עַּנֹתְָך‬ʻannōteka) (‘afflicting you’, ‘humbling you’, ‘making you feel your dependence’), ‫( לְנַּסֹתְָך‬lenassōteka) (‘to put you to the test’, ‘to try you’), and ‫( לָדַעַת‬lādaʻath) (‘to know’) what was in the Israelites’ hearts, whether or not they would keep the commandments (Deut. 8:2). While the language of divine ‘affliction’ and divine ‘testing’ appears troubling, even more disturbing is Yahweh’s seeming lack of knowledge about the Israelites’ fidelity apart from this testing. Is the wilderness journey akin to the bet with the Satan in Job, for the purpose of proving Job’s faithfulness, not just to Job himself, nor to the Satan, but to the Yahweh himself? Just like the devastation that Yahweh allows Job to endure, the wilderness experience also appears to be calculatingly orchestrated by God. In Exodus 13:18, the use of the Hiphil vav conversive ‫( ַוּיַּסֵב‬vayyassēv) (‘and he caused to turn’) brings out the causative nuance of the verb’s lexical form ‫סָבַב‬ (sāvav) (‘to surround’). The verbal stem and the syntax is clear – it is God who causes the Israelites to turn, to take, as the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) aptly translates it, the ‘roundabout way’ of the wilderness (similarly, translations such as the Common English Bible (CEB), Complete Jewish Bible (CJB), and New Living Translation (NLT)). Exodus 13:17 notes God’s reasoning for this – fear that the Israelites would turn around if they faced war. Nevertheless, this ‘roundabout way’ of the wilderness involved an experience that was traumatic at the level of physical deprivation, automatically provoking theological dissonance. The wilderness also involved carnage akin to war, with the majority of the wilderness generation, Moses included, dying and never entering the land (cf. Num. 11; 14; 15:32–36; 16; 32:48–52; and Deut. 34, to name a few). The actual wilderness experience, as narrated partially in Exodus and more fully in the Book of Wilderness itself, Numbers, highlights the jarring nature of the experience. Fear of the pursuing Egyptians (Exod. 14), lack of water (Exod. 15:22; 17:1), the uncertainty of food (Exod. 16), warfare and fear of warfare along the way (Exod. 17:8–16; Num. 13), Moses’ disappearance almost as soon as he helped them escape Egypt (Exod. 32), and strife between the leaders themselves (Exod. 32; Num. 12), are traumatic elements of the experience. It is for this reason that Moses can narrate the harsher elements of the experience honestly, here and elsewhere in Deuteronomy. One way Moses ‘remembers’ the wilderness is as a wasteland. In Deuteronomy 8, Moses refers to the wilderness as ‘great and terrible, an arid wasteland with poisonous snakes and scorpions’ (Deut. 8:15a NRSV). Elsewhere, Moses refers to it as ‘a howling wilderness waste’ (Deut. 32:10b

‘To do you good in the end’ 23 NRSV). Embedded into the language Moses uses here is the root word ‫ּתֹהּו‬ (tōhū) (‘formlessness’, ‘confusion’, ‘unreality’, ‘emptiness’, ‘wasteland’). Used sparingly in the Hebrew Bible,3 the word is used most notably in Genesis 1:2 in conjunction with the word ‫( ּבֹהּו‬bōhū) (‘emptiness’). Taken together, the two words convey that the primordial emptiness was akin to an uninhabited wilderness space. When brought into conversation with other places where ‫ ּתֹהּו‬is used, including Genesis 1:2, the use of ‫( ּתֹהּו‬tōhū) in Deuteronomy 32:10 highlights the chaotic nature of the wilderness experience. Robert Barry Leal puts it this way: ‘Wilderness is Israel’s historical entry into the arena of chaos which, like the darkness before creation, is “formless and void”, and without hovering wind (Gen. 1:2). Wilderness is the historical form of chaos and is Israel’s memory of how it was before it was a created people. . . . Wilderness is formless and therefore lifeless’ (Leal 2004, 71). This lifelessness is all the more striking because it is life being taken away. What is implied here is a kind of un-creation. The complaints of the Israelites centre predominantly around what is lacking in the wilderness – water and food, things they had in Egypt (Exod. 16:1–2; 17:1–3). Avivah Zornberg characterises the wilderness space as ‘inimical to human life’, a landscape that does not ‘yield to human demands’ (Zornberg 2015, xii). Zornberg continues, ‘[Wilderness] frustrates the need for food and drink, but also the basic demand for direction, for markings to indicate a human mapping of blank space. No human steps have trod this sand, it stares back at the traveler indifferently – pathless, bewildering to human imagination’. Already ‘traumatized’ by Egypt, Zornberg notes, the Israelites are ‘swallowed’ by this ‘senseless place’. The deprivation, the lack of direction, and the perception of divine abandonment create theological dissonance, raising questions of intent and trust. Why must fidelity to God be ‘tested’ through hardship? Can a God who willingly, knowingly, brings his people into wilderness, truly be trusted? At best, the wilderness is liminal space that brings people to the very edge of what they can withstand, but that will, in the end, bring them to the Promised Land. At worst, the sojourn in the wilderness is not sojourn at all – it is the place Yahweh has brought them to die. Either way, the promises of God to bring the Israelites out of slavery starkly contrast their lived experience of the wilderness, a space as chaotic as primordial creation. The narrative wrestles with the starkness of the experience honestly, ‘remembering’ it as a time of desolation.

Remembering the wilderness: consolations In Deuteronomy 8, Moses promises the Israelites that the Promised Land is ‫( טֹוב‬ṭōv) (‘good’) (Deut. 8:7–10). In contrast to the desertification of the desert, or wilderness, the Promised Land will overflow with all that the wilderness has lacked – water, bread, fruits and vegetables, and metals. Moses also tells the people that in this good land, they will live in fine houses, own

24  Noel Forlini Burt many animals, and possess silver and gold (Deut. 8:12–13). In short, in the Promised Land, the Israelites will transition from scarcity to abundance. In this ‘good’ land, they will lack nothing (Deut. 8:9). Yet Moses also refers to the wilderness experience as ‘good’ (Deut. 8:16). In what ways is the wilderness ‘good’? If the wilderness experience has been stark, dark, and desolate, is there an alternate way to ‘remember’ it? Deuteronomy 8 and the larger scope of the wilderness narratives highlight multiple attestations of ‘good’, but here I will highlight two: provision of manna and the presence of God. Moses ‘remembers’ the wilderness as a place where Yahweh fed the Israelites with manna (Deut. 8:3). The use of the Hiphil form ‫( ַו ַּיאֲכִלְָך‬vayya'achileka) in Deuteronomy 8:3 highlights the provisional nature of the feeding – ­Yahweh ‘caused’ the people to eat the manna. The first time the Israelites encounter manna, it was immediately following their escape from Egypt. They crossed the Red Sea (Exod. 14:21–31), sang a rare song of praise to Yahweh (Exod. 15:1–21), and crossed into the wilderness of Shur, where they could not find water. They then travelled onto Marah where they murmured about thirst, with Yahweh providing for their need, and then onto Elim (Exod. 15:22–27). Crossing over into the wilderness of Sin, the Israelites then experienced hunger for the first time (Exod. 16). Murmuring against Moses and Aaron, Yahweh responded by providing manna, to which the Israelites responded: ‫( מָן הּוא‬mān hū') (‘What is it?’) (Exod. 16:15; cf. Num. 11:4–9; 21:5). Wrapped up in the etymology of the word ‫( מָן‬mān) itself is mystery, or ‘whatness’. Through this ‘whatness’, Yahweh does a totally new thing – this is not provision that their forefathers had known (Deut. 8:3). Rather, this provision was particular to the wilderness space. Commentators such as Jack R. Lundbom offer explanations for the nature of the ‘whatness’, characterising it as sweet pinhead to pea-sized drops on Sinai tamarisk bushes during the three to six weeks of early summer (May and June), or possibly the excretion not of the tamarisk itself but of scale insects that suck the sap from it (Lundbom 2013, 349). While explanations for what the manna might have been are intellectually intriguing, the theological significance of the manna is more arresting. According to Zoltán Schwáb, based on its usage in Deuteronomy 8:16, it is possible to view the manna as an ‘affliction’ (Schwáb 2017, 539). In his commentary on the passage, Schwáb avers that the phrase ‘in order to afflict you’ (Deut. 8:16) may refer to the whole wilderness experience. Manna may refer to one of the most ‘delightful’ parts of the experience. On the other hand, based on its usage in Deuteronomy 8:16, he allows that it is more likely that the manna did serve as an ‘affliction’ akin to the scorpions in the dry desert. When considering the Israelites’ negative response to the manna throughout the narrative (cf. Num. 11:4–6), as well as the fact that ‘affliction’, from the Hebrew root ‫( ָענָה‬ʻānāh), is a Leitwort in Deuteronomy 8 (Deut. 8:2, 3, 16), such a reading does seem plausible. This mysterious food is not what the Israelites actually wanted. As Zornberg notes, the nature of its appearing and disappearing kept the Israelites in perpetual suspense:

‘To do you good in the end’ 25 ‘The manna, which is in general celebrated precisely for its plentitude (enough for each person) and for its regularity (it falls every day), is at the same time a figure for continual suspense: will it fall again tomorrow? It is the very opposite of the gratification called pat be-sallow: lit., bread in the basket – the confidence that one has all one needs for the future’ (Zornberg 2015, 74–75). The fact that this bread could not be kept in storage overnight or it would go bad (Exod. 16:19–21) not only forced trust that Yahweh truly would provide each day. It also meant that there was always just enough, no more and no less than what was truly needed. Security for the future could not be accounted for – the nature of the provision forced the Israelites truly to dwell in the present moment. The Israelites are perpetually looking back throughout the narrative, longing for Egypt (Exod. 14:10–12; 16:1–3; 17:1–3; Num. 11:1–6). Deuteronomy holds in exquisite tension past, present, and future. Nevertheless, the suspension not only of the narrative itself in the wilderness space (from Exodus 13 through Deuteronomy 34, almost the entirety of the Pentateuch) – but also the daily holding of breath around whether Yahweh would provide or not – forced the Israelites to truly dwell in the wilderness. It forced them to truly dwell with God. All that mattered was this present moment, and the Lord’s provision. Glorified reveries about the past, and fantasies or hopes towards the future, necessarily fell underneath the weight – and the waiting – of the present moment. They were utterly dependent upon the grace of Yahweh and had to believe that he was trustworthy. They could not procure the manna for themselves. All they could do was bend down, pick it up, and give thanks to God. The ‘affliction’ of the manna, then, actually served to curve their ears to the present moment – and to the presence of Yahweh. It is in fact the presence of Yahweh that is the primary manifestation of the ‘good’ in the wilderness (Deut. 8:16). In this theological exploration of the wilderness, Leal calls wilderness the place of ‘critical encounter’ (Leal 2004, 64). Leal writes: ‘Divine encounter and call are wilderness related, if not wilderness dependent’ (Leal 2004, 102). For Leal, ‘critical encounter’ is divine encounter – it is the place where, when all seems lost, Yahweh offers succour and, frequently, calls a person to a particular mission. As Moses recalls the period of wilderness wandering in Deuteronomy 8, experiences of the Presence – not only the provision – linger in the background. In the wilderness, experiences with God are both cataphatic and apophatic. On the one hand, images abound in the wilderness for those with the eyes to see them. Yahweh introduces himself to Moses first at a bush that burns without being consumed (Exod. 3). Fire is frequently an expression of theophany, a manifestation of God (e.g., Isa. 6). Throughout the wilderness wandering, Yahweh manifests presence in a pillar of cloud and fire: ‘And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night. The pillar of cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night did not depart from before the people’ (Exod. 13:21–22 ESV).

26  Noel Forlini Burt Clouds, like fire, are associated with the presence of the God throughout the Bible (e.g., Gen. 9:13; Matt. 17:1–13; cf. Lk. 9:28–36; Lk. 21:25–28; cf. Mk. 13:26; and Acts 1:9, to name a few). The medieval mystical The Cloud of Unknowing is a notable text in the Christian tradition that also explores this image. Beyond clouds and fire, mere images that evoke knowledge of God, in the wilderness the Israelites also experience Yahweh cataphatically, through actual words. It is in wilderness where Yahweh speaks, offering words throughout the journey, notably the Ten Words at Sinai (Exod. 20:1–21; cf. Deut. 5:1–21). Zornberg notes that classic Jewish midrashic sources have pointed to the etymological link between the Hebrew ‫( ּדָבָר‬dāvār) (‘word’) and ‫מִדְבָר‬ (midvār) (‘wilderness’). Wilderness is closely associated with issues of ‘language and utterance’ (Zornberg 2015, xii). Ein midbar ela dibbur, declares Shemot Rabbah 2:5, ‘Wilderness is nothing but utterance’, a ‘cryptic playing’ Zornberg notes, with the roots of the two words. Indeed, the minor prophet Hosea expresses Yahweh’s longing for the relationship cultivated in wilderness space, precisely because it was a moment of speech and listening (Hos. 2:16). For this reason, Zornberg states, the wilderness becomes ‘precious in memory’ (Zornberg 2015, xxi). The Hebrew terms for ‘wilderness’ and ‘words’ are ‘set together, in all their eclectic tension’, as Zornberg notes: ‘Out of the wilderness once issued the voice of divine revelation, as well as voices of human mistrust, which brought the core fantasies of the people into view. There, the people once heard its own voice as it struggled with God’s word and His light. In this way, Israel came to know God in naked reality’ (Zornberg 2015, xxi). Ultimately, all of this language is meant to convey Moses’ most important point: Man does not live on bread alone but on the word of God. While Yahweh does provide manna, it is Yahweh himself that nourishes. It is not provision, but Presence, that matters. Christian tradition repackages this idea in the figure of Jesus himself, who feeds the 5,000 and reproves them for wanting bread only: ‘Jesus answered them, “Very truly, I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves” ’ (John 6:26 NRSV). In true Johannine fashion, Jesus offers a long teaching that is intended to illustrate something about who he is: Then Jesus said to them, “Very truly, I tell you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” They said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. (John 6:32–35 NRSV)

‘To do you good in the end’ 27 In Christian tradition also, it is God himself, not what God provides, that nourishes. The ultimate ‘good’ of the wilderness, then, is the very word and presence of God (Deut. 8:16). In this way, it is not the bread or the cataphatic God, imaged and imagined through fire, cloud, or actual words that is at the heart of critical encounter. It is instead the Presence himself – beyond words, beyond images – beyond – that is the true gift of wilderness. A God of apophatic seduction woos his children to trust, to love, and to wait. As Carol Ochs says, ‘Desert is also a name for God’ (Ochs 1993, 298). Wilderness is a place where the absence of God may be palpably felt, but it is a place where, paradoxically, God’s presence is also felt. As Ochs reminds us, however, ‘Presence neither guarantees a desired outcome nor prevents a feared one. . . . Presence is real, and therefore it makes a profound difference, but the difference is not one of outcome but of meaning. Where there is no Presence, all that occurs can be understood as chance, luck, fate. But with Presence, all that occurs opens up to relatedness and meaning’ (Ochs 1993, 305). It is the making of meaning – and the choice to acknowledge the Presence of God in the midst of wilderness – that is at the heart of resilience.

Pastored in the wilderness ‘Do you believe that God desires your well-being?’ It was a question that pierced the void of my own wilderness experience, demanding my response. My answer was honest – ‘I want to believe that he does’. This is surely the same question the Israelites grappled with in the wilderness. If we step away momentarily from the pages of the Hebrew Bible, we must acknowledge that this is a central question for all people of faith. The question is not if we will traverse wilderness terrain. The question is how we will choose to respond when we do. In the midst of wilderness, can we choose to believe that God desires our well-being? It is our response to God in the wilderness that determines not only whether personal transformation will take place but also, perhaps more primarily, what direction that transformation will take – euformation or disformation. It is our response to God in the wilderness that determines whether we will simply remain there, or display resilience and find a path forward. In the context of wilderness experience, resilience can be defined in three ways: the courage to engage God honestly in the midst of pain; the choice to fold wilderness experiences into the larger narrative of our lives, making it a useable part of our story; and the capacity to share our wilderness experiences with others. First, resilience happens when we choose to confront God rather than hide behind false piety. In the Hebrew tradition, the forefather of the faith wrestles with God (Gen. 32:22–32). Legs coil around one another as questions of who God is penetrate the dark night. Likewise, we are to engage God not as a concept but as a Person, one with whom we are in a dynamic, complex relationship. In any real relationship, we may feel adoration, anger,

28  Noel Forlini Burt disappointment, or joy – in short, the whole spectrum of human emotion. We are to engage all of these emotions with God. When we wrestle honestly with the Person of God, the whole of life in relationship with God opens up. Instead of distance created by false piety, we experience genuine intimacy with God. In the context of the Hebrew tradition, it is in the wilderness where the Israelites are truly formed as the people of God. The numerous complaints against God in the wilderness, while evidence of a strained relationship, is still relationship. It is in wilderness where this relationship is tested, brought to the near-breaking point, as evidenced by the familiar Hebrew word ‫ָענָה‬ (‘afflict’, ‘to humble’, ‘to make dependent’) (Deut. 8:16). This ‘affliction’ causes the Israelites to recognise their vulnerability and thus, their dependence on Yahweh. The experience shatters illusions of self-sufficiency, demonstrating just how vulnerable the Israelites truly are, not just in wilderness space but in every space. It is this very vulnerability that, while painful, ultimately allows for an intimate relationship with God, whether in the wilderness or in the Promised Land. Walter Brueggemann states: ‘Moses has sketched two contrasting scenes, one of remembered wilderness scarcity, the other of anticipated abundant land that is anticipated. The two scenes are so different. And yet, in the imagination of Moses and in the purview of YHWH, wilderness and good land are exactly the same. The point of it all is that in both circumstances, in every circumstance, YHWH gives what is needed’ (Brueggemann 2001, 108–9; emphasis in original). In both places, God is faithful in provision and in Presence. In both places, gratitude is the acceptable response. And, in both places, identity is formed not around where the people are but on the one to whom they belong. Just as a man disciplines a son, Yahweh your God is ‫( ְמיַּסְֶר ָּך‬meyassreka) (‘disciplining you’) (Deut. 8:5). This father/son language is appropriate, given that this was Yahweh’s intention from the beginning: ‘Then you shall say to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, Israel is my firstborn son” ’ (Exod. 4:22 NRSV). Moses’ speech in Deuteronomy 8 hinges on the recognition that wilderness is not callous testing merely for the sake of testing. Instead, it is a ‘test’ for Yahweh’s son, Israel, which is intended to form them into the people of God. Choosing to believe that Yahweh desired his people’s well-being was one step towards the cultivation of resilience. Choosing to believe that God desires our own well-being in the midst of wilderness experience likewise cultivates resilience. Second, resilience happens when we choose to fold our wilderness experience into the larger narrative of our lives. As Richard Rohr has said, if we do not transform our pain, we will transmit it (Rohr 2007, 24–25). Moving forward from the wilderness means we must choose to ‘remember’ the experience as one that has pastored us. Drawing on the work of Assman and Alexander, Schreiter frames resilience primarily around communal ability to make meaning out of trauma. Because traumatic memory is often ‘fragmented and undigested’, it can become an obstacle to identity formation

‘To do you good in the end’ 29 until it is ‘absorbed into a coherent network of memory’ (Schreiter 2016, 200). However, when trauma is assimilated into narrative, a ‘chain of causality and meaning’ or ‘anamnestic resilience’ can occur (Schreiter 2016, 200). Resilience occurs not because the experience has been forgotten but because it has been reframed. Deuteronomy 8 makes meaning out of the traumatic wilderness experience by reframing it around the ‘good’ that the Lord has done through it. The wilderness experience, as narrated in Deuteronomy 8, has not been meaning(less). Rather, it has been meaning(full). This fullness of meaning, which is able to produce resilience in the lives of the Israelites, centres on vulnerability and identity formation. The experience is meaning(full) because it was intended to increase the faithfulness of the people. The experience is also meaning(full) because it has demonstrated the faithfulness of the God to whom they belong. Resilience occurs precisely because the community has chosen to narrate and to frame the experience in this way. Narrating the experience in this way does not negate the hardship of the experience. It is still an arid place with scorpions and snakes (Deut. 8:15). It has still been a painful place. What gives the experience meaning is to recognise that wilderness is not only barren – it is also creative. Wilderness is a space that forms in the way that discipline forms a child (Deut.8:5). Wilderness is a space that pastors. Beyond the world of the story itself, biblical authors drew on the wilderness experience to describe their own, later experiences of exile. Robert L. Cohn describes the ways the biblical authors used the wilderness wandering intertextually: The Pentateuchal narrative presents a portrait of Israel in the wilderness in which the characteristics of liminality are refracted. The wilderness setting. . . [is] analogous to metaphors and behaviors characteristic of other social and religious phenomena of transition. By retelling, rewriting, and reediting the story of the wilderness trek, the exilic authors gave expression to their own fears and hopes as they experienced “liminality” in exile. (Cohn 1981, 19) The biblical writers living in exile drew on the image of wilderness to convey their own feelings of loss, abandonment, and transition (Jer. 2; Ezek. 20; and Hos. 2, to name a few). The image of the wilderness, then, was one that was portable and lasting, easily transmutable to diverse experiences of pain. Folding the wilderness experience into the larger narrative of the Israelites’ life with God, then, made the experience usable, and it made the people resilient. Choosing to acknowledge the reality of our own wilderness experiences – as both painful and pastoring – cultivates resilience in our own lives. Finally, our own experiences of wilderness can also be used to pastor others. Theologian Frederick Buechner speaks eloquently about ‘stewarding’ our pain (Buechner 2017). Part of this stewardship entails sharing our

30  Noel Forlini Burt pain with others in order to care for them. Indeed, the Christian tradition understands pain as something that produces compassion for the other, as Paul affirms: ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all consolation, who consoles us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to console those who are in any affliction with the consolation with which we ourselves are consoled by God’ (2 Cor.1:3–5 NRSV). Resilience happens when we choose to share our pain with others for their good. Robert Mulholland puts it this way: our own spiritual formation is a process of being conformed to the image of Christ for the sake of others (Mulholland 1993, 15). Embedded in the heart of our own spiritual formation – and in the heart of resilience – is attention to the face of the other. Indeed, the image of wilderness is one that is portable and lasting, speaking to the heart of human experience well beyond the pages of the Bible. As Ochs poignantly reminds us, ‘The desert is teaching that to be human is to be vulnerable’ (Ochs 1993, 302). It is this vulnerability, Verwundbarkeit, which gives the wilderness image its power – vulnerability is universal. As theologian Henri Nouwen attests, ‘The most personal is the most universal, the most hidden is the most public, and the most solitary is the most communal. What we live in the most intimate places of our beings is not just for us but for all people’.4 Spiritual growth and resilience occur when we use our wilderness experiences to pastor others. In the end, the three hallmarks of resilience – the courage to engage God honestly, the choice to fold wilderness experiences into larger narratives, and the capacity to share those experiences with others – cannot happen apart from God. Human resilience cannot happen apart from grateful dependence on the one who is faithful in every space, wilderness and Promised Land. Human resilience is dependent upon the God who makes that resilience possible in the first place, by giving us eyes to see springs of water hidden in plain sight (Gen. 21:19), the diligence to stoop down and pick up the manna from the ground (Exod. 16:4), or the divine inspiration to craft narratives such as Deuteronomy 8 that do not nullify hardship but that imbue them with meaning.

Notes 1 The Book of Deuteronomy is typically associated with the reform of King Josiah in the seventh century BCE. Deuteronomy surely entailed additional editorial and authorial layers dated to the exilic period (586–538 BCE). It is believed to be appended to the Pentateuch as a whole in the post-exilic period. In light of this complex compositional history, Deuteronomy 8 was likely composed prior to the exile, the Southern Kingdom looking on in horror at the fall of the Northern Kingdom. The thematic thrust of Deuteronomy 8 fits the historical crisis facing the Southern Kingdom in light of a resurgent Assyria and emerging Babylon, serving as a bulwark for Yahweh’s steadfast protection (e.g., keeping the commandments, Deut. 8:1, 6, 11; remembering the Lord’s goodness in the midst of wilderness wandering, Deut. 8:2–5, 15–16; trust in the new place the Lord is bringing the people, Deut. 8:7–10; and a call not to forget the Lord in prosperity,

‘To do you good in the end’ 31 Deut. 8:18–20). While the composition of the text was assuredly prior to the exile, its final editing, including its attachment to Genesis-Numbers, occurred after the exile. Thus, Deuteronomy 8 could be read not just by an audience hopeful for the Lord’s protection from foreign domination – it could also be read by audiences in the exile wondering whether they would ever reach the land, and after the exile, recounting the Lord’s goodness. As a story about resilience, then, Deuteronomy 8 is historically, thematically, and theologically portable. For useful discussions of the compositional history of Deuteronomy, see (Levinson 2004) and (Coogan 2011). 2 www.sbl-site.org/meetings/Congresses_ProgramUnits.aspx?MeetingId=33 3 For example, Deut. 32:10; 1 Sam.12:21; and Isa. 24:10; 45:19. 4 See https://henrinouwen.org/meditation/what-is-most-personal-is-most-universal/

Bibliography Brueggemann, Walter. 2001. Deuteronomy. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Buechner, Frederick. 2017. A Crazy, Holy Grace: The Healing Power of Pain and Memory. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Carr, David M. 2014. Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. Cohn, Robert L. 1981. The Shape of Sacred Space: Four Biblical Studies. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Coogan, Michael D. 2011. The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lane, Belden C. 1998. The Solace of Fierce Landscapes: Exploring Desert and Mountain Spirituality. New York: Oxford University Press. Leal, Robert Barry. 2004. Wilderness in the Bible: Toward a Theology of Wilderness. New York: P. Lang. Levinson, Bernard M. 2004. ‘Deuteronomy’. In The Jewish Study Bible, edited by Adele Berlin and Marc Zvi Brettler, 356–450. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lundbom, Jack R. 2013. Deuteronomy: A Commentary. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. Mulholland Jr., Robert. 1993. Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press. Ochs, Carol. 1993. ‘Presence in the Desert’. Cross Currents 43 (3) (Fall): 293–306. Rohr, Richard. Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality. Cincinnati: St Anthony Messenger Press, 2007. Schreiter, Robert J. 2016. ‘Reading the Bible Through the Lens of Resilience’. In Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, edited by Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, 193–208. Semeia Studies 38. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Schwáb, Zoltán. 2017. ‘Faith and Existential Security: Making Deuteronomy 8 Respond to a Current Sociological Theory’. The Journal of Theological Studies 68 (2): 530–50. Sedmak, Clemens. 2013. Innerlichkeit und Kraft: Studie über epistemische Resilienz. Freiburg: Herder. Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. 2015. Bewilderments: Reflections on the Book of Numbers. New York: Schocken Books.

3 Singing stories together Relationship and storytelling as resources for resilience in the book of Psalms Rebecca W. Poe Hays Psalm 69 is a prime example of the diverse expressions of human experience and emotion present in the book of Psalms.1 Over the course of 36 verses,2 the psalmist moves from groans of despair to shouts of praise. She3 describes, on the one hand, feeling overwhelmed (vv. 1–2, 14–15); exhausted (v. 3); misunderstood, slandered, mocked, and persecuted (vv. 4a, 7a, 9–12); confused (vv. 4b – 5); alienated by loved ones (vv. 8, 20–21); hurt, enraged, and embittered (vv. 22–29); and ignored by God (v. 17). On the other hand, she voices joyful confidence that God is characterised by steadfast love (vv. 13, 16), saves those in need (v. 33), and restores the wounded (vv. 35–36). She even goes so far as to reassure others that her understanding of God is true and reliable (v. 32) despite the fact that the psalm itself gives no indication that her distressing situation has changed! One might say that the psalmist of Psalm 69 exudes resilience. Despite its seemingly ‘upbeat’ Hebrew title – sēfer tĕhillîm, the ‘book of praises’ – the Psalter does not represent a static, one-dimensional spirituality or a picture of the life of faith through rose-coloured glasses.4 Rather, the book of Psalms refuses to allow readers an easy dismissal of the adversity inherent to human existence. To live is to experience sickness, depression, confusion and doubt, betrayal, anger, myriad physical challenges, fear, and death; to live is to experience the sting of harm others inflict upon you and the ache of your own failures. In other words, to live is to face situations in which resilience – the ability to survive and sustain well-being in the face of adversity (Peres et al. 2007, 345–46; Panter-Brick and Leckman 2013, 333; Cook and White 2018) – is required. The Psalter’s poetry not only reflects this reality of life (as Psalm 69 demonstrates) but also provides resources vital to the development of resilience. With scholars from a range of disciplines increasingly focused on the need for and nature of resilience, whole volumes could be devoted to how the book of Psalms relates to various aspects of resilience and its cultivation.5 I will focus my attention on how the building of relationships and the presence of stories in the Psalter contribute to the development of resilience in the faith communities that have read – and continue to read – the psalms as scripture. In order to provide specific, concrete examples alongside

Singing stories together 33 general observations, I use Psalm 69 as a sample text for exploring the capacity these ancient worship songs have for fostering resilience in those who engage with them.

Reading resilience in and with Psalm 69 Psalm 69 is a psalm of individual lament: a prayer voiced by a single person experiencing the difficulties of life. In broad strokes, this prayer moves from a poignant description of the psalmist’s crisis (vv. 1–12) to her request for divine intervention (vv. 13–29) to praise in anticipation of the expected deliverance (vv. 30–36). The brief reference to God’s rebuilding of Judah’s cities (v. 35) suggests at least an exilic date for the psalm’s final form (Clifford 2002, 320), but the psalmist’s language – while vivid – leaves the specific nature of her situation, the problems she is lamenting, and her response(s) to the problems somewhat ambiguous.6 Generality as a path to relationship The generality and ambiguity that presents challenges for isolating the particular contexts of the psalms is in fact foundational for how the Psalter can provide resources for resilience: its broad language allows readers (and hearers) to appropriate the psalmists’ voices as their own and so forge a sense of connectedness with others. My experience of having the swine flu in 2009 might not equate exactly with an eighth-century Israelite’s experience of disease, but we could both pray with the psalmist of Psalm 6: ‘heal me, for my bones are shaking!’ (v. 2); I have never been the armed defender of a city or – to my knowledge – the object of a murder plot, but I have felt vulnerable to the machinations of others such that I could lament with the psalmist of Ps. 31: ‘I hear everyone talking about me! They’re plotting to take me down!’ (v. 13). In joining with the psalmists in saying these words, I become connected – not only with the psalmists, but with the untold others through the millennia who have likewise appropriated the psalmists language as their own. Psychologists recognise that ‘[t]he solidarity of a group provides the strongest protection against terror and despair’ (Herman 2015, 214). Just as Judith Herman’s stages of trauma recovery therefore involve the eventual need to reconnect with others (Herman 2015, 205–7), James and Evelyn Whitehead begin their discussion of factors producing resilience by arguing that ‘without the capacity to forge vital and enduring bonds with others’, resilience is ‘unlikely to develop’ (Whitehead and Whitehead 2016, 3). Feeling as if the psalmist’s vivid-but-general voice is articulating something you yourself have experienced or are experiencing can begin to undercut the sense of isolation that stands as a significant barrier to resilience. This assurance of connectedness is a critical first step in developing resilience, and as William H. Bellinger Jr. observes, the ‘openness or adaptability of

34  Rebecca W. Poe Hays psalm language is one of the reasons the psalms have continued to influence persons of faith’ (Bellinger 2012, 64). Relationships and resilience in Psalm 69 Scholars agree that the existence of healthy, supportive relationships is one of the most significant factors in the development of resilience (Resnick, Harris, and Blum 1993; Pargament and Cummings 2010, 200; Zoellner, Feeny, and Rytwinski 2014, 292; Whitehead and Whitehead 2016, 7). In addition to the ways the indeterminate language of the Psalter invites a general sense of connectedness in readers, Psalm 69 in particular reflects the psalmist’s awareness of the power relationships have – for better and for worse – and facilitates the strengthening of constructive relationships. Though the specifics of the psalmist’s crisis situation may be ambiguous, the breakdown of her community appears to be a central part of the problem. Stevan Hobfoll and Mary Ann Parris Stephens define social support – in contrast to mere socialisation – as ‘relationships that provide actual assistance or a feeling of attachment to a person or group that is perceived as caring or loving’ (Hobfoll and Stephens 1990, 455). The psalmist of Psalm 69 is surrounded by people with whom she is connected, but this connection is negative rather than positive: ‘Those who hate me for no reason are more numerous than the hairs on my head!’ (v. 4), she cries out, and she likens this situation to drowning in mud and deep waters (vv. 2, 14). Even worse, these enemies who misunderstand her at best and actively seek to harm her at worst include her own family: ‘I’ve been made a stranger to my siblings, a foreigner to my mother’s children!’ (v. 8). Using food and drink to symbolise fellowship, she describes how those with whom she should have rich community cut her off: ‘they put poison in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst’ (v. 21) (Clifford 2002, 323). The psalmist’s situation is a textbook example of negative social support, which ‘makes us feel unloved and isolated’ (Zoellner, Feeny, and Rytwinski 2014, 293). To combat this emotionally devastating breakdown of positive relationships, the psalmist turns both ‘upward’ (to God) and ‘outward’ (to her faith community).7 Remembering that the Psalms are prayers, not just poems, is important in terms of exploring their psychological impact. As this edited volume demonstrates, scholars are increasingly cognisant of the contribution spirituality makes in matters of general well-being, trauma recovery, and resilience (Peres et al. 2007; Cook and White 2018). While ‘spirituality’ encompasses much more than relationships alone, relationships are a foundational dimension of spirituality and include both relationship with the human community with whom one shares values, symbols, and faith (Westgate 1996, 31–32; Pargament and Cummings 2010, 200–2) and relationship with God or other higher powers (Westgate 1996, 30–31; Pargament and Cummings 2010, 201–3; Raftopoulos and Bates 2011, 157; Cook and White 2018). The psalmist of Psalm 69 accesses both of these relational

Singing stories together 35 resources in response to her adversity, thus leading those reading the psalm – and adopting her voice as their own – to do likewise. Building relationship with God The psalmist’s prayer in Psalm 69 assumes and strengthens her relationship with Yahweh. Resiliency is often associated with the reliable presence of a caring figure who can offer support and guidance, and studies indicate that faith in God can fulfill this role (Raftopoulos and Bates 2011, 161). The presupposition underlying all petitionary prayers is that the deity upon whom one calls – whether that deity be Ba’al (e.g., 1 Kgs. 18:25–28 and CAT 1.119) or Yahweh (e.g., Pss. 22 and 130) – has enough of a relationship with the petitioner to warrant making such requests and render receiving answers plausible. In discussing the laments in the book of Psalms, Bellinger highlights the relationship that already exists between God and the petitioner(s) and to the persistent dialogue between the two (Bellinger 2012, 75). These dynamics are evident in Psalm 69. The psalmist’s words to God reflect an existing relationship – she knows God’s character (vv. 13, 16, 33, 35), and she believes that God knows her as well (v. 5, 19).8 Her repeated mention of her dire circumstances suggests that God seems absent to her at this moment (vv. 3, 17); nevertheless, she continues to engage this God in conversation through the psalm because of the relationship they share and that the psalm itself re-establishes (Nasuti 2011; Strawn 2014, 412–14). The diverse genres of the Psalter give examples of communication within this relationship of faith in a wide swath of life circumstances: times of peace and war, sickness and health, weddings and coronations, births and deaths, doubt and confidence, anger and fear, old age and adolescence, love and hate, and the list goes on. Some psalms include indications of direct divine engagement with the psalmist (e.g., thanksgiving psalms that narrate deliverance from a crisis) or even ‘direct discourse’ from the mouth of Yahweh (e.g., Pss. 46 and 81). Even the darkest laments, however, stand testimony to the ongoing conversation between God and God’s people (e.g., Ps. 88, which does not include a turn to praise at its conclusion but does include repeated vocatives to Yahweh). The persistent dialogue with God in the Psalter represents a persistent maintenance of the divine-human relationship – an effort to make this relationship one that is, as Whitehead and Whitehead argued resilience-building relationships must be, ‘vital and enduring’ (Whitehead and Whitehead 2016, 3).9 Building relationship with the community In addition to the divine-human relationship building that occurs in Psalm 69, the psalmist’s voice accesses human relationships both directly and indirectly in ways that build social support and resilience. While the one to whom she talks throughout the bulk of the psalm is Yahweh, the

36  Rebecca W. Poe Hays psalmist turns her speech outward to address directly those who can provide her with social support: ‘You who seek God – let your hearts revive!’ (v. 32). The shift here from third- to second-person address is rhetorically striking.10 Suddenly, readers (or hearers) of the psalm are now part of the conversation and, by extension, part of the relationship of faith.11 The psalmist’s decision to include the off-stage ‘seekers’ in the conversation reflects some sense of connectedness to this community – despite the acute sense of ostracization giving rise to the lament itself. Additionally, that the cries of Psalm 69 emerge from a larger literary context – namely, in the context of a collection of psalms that had (and has) some usage in worship – provides a more indirect access to human relationships. These psalms were voiced in community and preserved in that community’s liturgy, and ‘such contexts may be seen as a primary means by which individuals are socialised into enduring systems of belief and practice’ (Nasuti 2011, 45). The details of their usage in ancient Israel, of course, a matter of debate, but that psalms were used has rarely been questioned (Dobbs-Allsopp 2015, 202–10). As mentioned previously, when worshippers take up the words of Psalm 69 as their own, it connects them with their faith community in the present as well as with faith communities of the past and future who likewise assumed – or will assume – this voice and the experience it narrates. Kristin Swenson observes, ‘Reading [the Psalms] . . . is to discover that what may seem to be unbearably unprecedented suffering actually has company and sympathy in a shared human condition. Listening to these ancient poems may round off the cruel edge of loneliness that pain can bring’ (Swenson 2005, 6). You are not the only one who has gone (or will go) through this – whether ‘this’ is unprecedented suffering or inexpressible joy. You are not alone. Storytelling and resilience in Psalm 69 In Psalm 69, the psalmist mourns the loss of relationships but then reaches out with her words – directly and indirectly, to her human community and to her God – in order to re/establish the social support that promotes resilience in the face of adversity. With these words, she re/claims agency by telling her own story rather than allowing her enemies’ narrative to define her. The capacity to interpret experiences of adversity through storytelling is another significant factor for developing resilience in the face of life’s challenges (Peres et al. 2007, 346; Sedmak 2017, 56–58). The psalmist’s lament indicates that a key part of her crisis is the way her enemies are constructing false narratives about her. They are destroying her with lies (v. 4), and they are making her the subject of derisive gossip, songs, and stories (vv. 12, 26b).12 The psalmist’s enemies are ‘taking control of the narrative’ about her (and about others who faithfully serve Yahweh) to such a degree that the psalmist says she has become a ‘byword’ or a ‘parable’ (māšāl) to them (v. 11).13 The idea is that ‘those who reproach’ Yahweh

Singing stories together 37 and Yahweh’s servants have witnessed the psalmist’s difficulties and have crafted their own sequence of events to explain the cause(s) of these difficulties; the story they tell has become solidified in popular conceptions so that the psalmist now represents a particular view of the world and the way it works. She has become a living parable for her enemies.14 With her words in Psalm 69, the psalmist reclaims control of the narrative by telling her own story and locating it within the larger story of Yahweh and Yahweh’s worshippers. Resilience does not involve ignoring or avoiding negative experiences but rather responding to these experiences in integrative ways (Zoellner and Feeny 2014, 7; Sedmak 2017, 37), which the work of crafting a narrative accomplishes.15 Storytelling allows for this ‘reframing of history’ that trauma recovery and resilience require (Whitehead and Whitehead 2016, 3) because to tell a story requires the articulation of a plot: an acknowledgement that something happened, which caused something else to happen, which led to a changed circumstance or character (Prince 1973, 31). In Psalm 69, the psalmist refuses to allow the lies and mockery of her enemies or their characterisation of her and the God she serves to define her by deploying narrative in three interrelated ways. She poetically reframes her experiences in light of her own self-knowledge and in light of her knowledge of the larger story of Yahweh; furthermore, she tells God the story of what she would like to see happen to her enemies. Telling your own story The psalmist tells the story of the situation that warrants the very voicing of the psalm. This kind of narration of a crisis is a definitive feature of the lament psalm genre; indeed, the sharing of experiences – or ‘stories’ – as the basis for praise, lament, advice, and warning is central to the shape of many if not most psalm types.16 The psalmist of Psalm 69 begins her storytelling act by painting a word-portrait of how she feels (like drowning in mud, vv. 1–2) and what she is experiencing (verbal attacks, v. 4) before backing up and explaining what led to this crisis moment. Her story begins with her zeal for serving Yahweh (vv. 9–10), not with whatever lies her enemies are crafting about her; it was faithfulness to Yahweh that incited her enemies to violence (physical and/or verbal), not anything wrong that she did.17 The psalmist’s cry ‘God, you know my folly; my guilty deeds are not hidden from you!’ (v. 5) is not a confession of sin but a protestation of innocence ­(Clifford 2002, 322).18 One can almost sense the psalmist working through her emotional turmoil as she opens her prayer with visceral outcry and slowly begins to fit the pieces of her experience into a coherent story.19 Telling your story as part of a larger one In addition to telling her own story, the psalmist connects her narrative of her own experience (including her hoped-for deliverance) to the larger story

38  Rebecca W. Poe Hays of who Yahweh has proven to be. As the psalmist turns from her lament towards more positive statements of trust and vows to give thanks (vv. 30–36), she grounds this confidence in a description of Yahweh’s character as ‘the one who hears the needy and does not disregard his own who are imprisoned’ (v. 33). Though this characterisation does not itself comprise a full story, it reflects the psalmist’s memories of stories about God’s past works of deliverance (e.g., captivity in Egypt, subjugation to Canaanites, exile in Babylon). The God to whom the psalmist now prays is the God who is known – according to her narrative – for listening to and acting on behalf of God’s faithful, and she has already established that she is one of these faithful (vv. 5, 9–11). Because the psalmist connects herself and her experience to the paradigmatic experiences of other ‘servants’ (v. 17) of Yahweh who have been in need and have received help, she is able to proclaim boldly at the end of the psalm: ‘Yahweh hears . . . God will save’ (vv. 33a, 35a). In reversal of her current crisis of broken relationships, the psalmist anticipates God’s future establishment of God’s servants in community together in likeminded harmony (vv. 35–36). The psalmist writes the end of her story in a way that reaffirms her innocence, connects her to a community that can understand her, and gives her hope in a difficult situation. Imprecations as honest storytelling from the context of relationship The psalmist’s imprecations against her enemies function as the conclusion to the enemies’ part of the narrative she is crafting. Whereas she envisions a happy ending for herself as one of the properly zealous servants of Yahweh, she calls for God to ensure her tormenters meet the opposite end: let their peace be disrupted, let them be blind and terrified, let them suffer the wrath of God (vv. 22–28). While the Psalter’s imprecations (e.g., Pss. 5:10; 109:6– 15; 137:8–9) are undoubtedly theologically troubling, acknowledgement of emotions of all kinds – including those the psalmist articulates in Psalm 69 – is critical for a healthy existence (Pennebaker 1997; Strawn 2016, 145–49). Furthermore, honest disclosure of negative emotions in a context such as the Psalms marks an important stage of healing after trauma and loss: [T]he survivor must come to terms with the impossibility of getting even. As she vents her rage in safety, her helpless fury gradually changes into a more powerful and satisfying form of anger: righteous indignation. This transformation allows the survivor to free herself from the prison of the revenge fantasy, in which she is alone with the perpetrator. It offers her a way to regain a sense of power without becoming a criminal herself (Herman 2015, 189, emphasis mine). In Psalm 69, the psalmist ‘vents her rage in safety’ as she speaks to God, and as she pieces together her narrative of what has happened to her and

Singing stories together 39 why, she moves to a place of ‘righteous indignation’ (e.g., v. 5). Rather than facing her perpetrators alone, she is able to ‘call on God to mete out punishment’ in her stead in a way that both recovers her agency (she is cursing them and their injustice) and preserves her innocence before God.20 In the context of her story and in the context of her relationship with Yahweh, therefore, she narrates tragic ends to the story of her enemies. Making meaning through story for all generations As the psalmist constructs her narrative, she is engaging in a process of meaning-making and identity formation, which are key factors promoting resilience (Peres et al. 2007, 346–48; Pargament and Cummings 2010, 197– 99; Sedmak 2017, 53–58). To tell one’s story – to articulate a coherent chain of events – requires the storyteller to sort through significant questions: Did this happen to me because of this other event? Or was it mere coincidence? Did we have agency in what happened or were we pawns of fate? Does my experience have a purpose? With the story she tells in Psalm 69 about who she is, how she has been treated, the feelings her mistreatment provoke in her, and the confidence she has that Yahweh will rebuild her relationships (because of how Yahweh has done this in the past and because of her relationship with Yahweh), the psalmist reflects the ways she has settled these questions in her mind and is moving forward with her life. As with the matter of relationship building, remembering that we have access to the prayers collected in the book of Psalms because they were in fact collected, preserved, and continually appropriated by successive worshipping bodies is critical for understanding how the Psalter acts as a resource for resilience. This repeated usage matters because while the capacity to tell one’s story produces resilience, repetition of that storytelling strengthens resilience even further (Zoellner et al. 2014, 151–52). The faith communities who held to the Psalter as scripture read and prayed these psalms over and over, adopting their language for a host of situations and integrating these situations into the larger narrative framework(s) the Psalter establishes (Klein 2014).21 The words of the psalmist in Psalm 69, therefore, become the words of successive generations; her story becomes their story through the centuries.

Conclusion Rather than offering an exhaustive treatment of Psalm 69 or of the resources the Psalter offers for resilience, I have highlighted in this chapter how the language of the psalms works to build the relationships and frameworks for storytelling that are such critical factors in the fostering of resilience. As numerous studies have shown, resilience depends – at least in part – upon both creating a sense of connectedness with others and building the capacity to tell one’s story. These two factors, one seemingly more internally oriented

40  Rebecca W. Poe Hays (storytelling) and one more externally oriented (relationships), are, in fact, quite intertwined. Implicit in the work of crafting a story is the idea that you will go on to tell the story to someone; likewise, being in meaningful relationship with other people necessarily involves sharing your stories with one another. Though an ancient text, therefore, the book of Psalms is incredibly relevant for modern conversations about resilience and the factors contributing to its development because of the ways the poetic text prompts and guides those who engage with it in the telling of stories and the building of relationships.

Notes 1 Many thanks to Bevin Gracy for her expert help in understanding trauma and resilience, for helping me understand the most important stories of life and faith, and for her friendship – all of this has certainly contributed to the development of my own resilience in the face of life’s vicissitudes. 2 Note that I will use English versification throughout. 3 Historically speaking, of course, the author of this psalm was most likely male. Because this chapter is concerned with how the text engages and shapes readers not just in reconstructions of ancient history but also in current contexts, however, and because I am reading the text as a woman, I will use female pronouns to refer to the psalmist’s voice. 4 Scholars have cited the very range of human spiritual and emotional experience contained within the Psalter as one reason for its enduring influence (Weiser 1962, 20; Bellinger 2012, 4; Brueggemann 1984, 19–23). 5 One volume worth noting is Kristin Swenson’s book Living Through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness (2005). While not specifically about resilience, her attention to ways the Psalter might help those dealing with chronic pain ‘reintegrate the self into a whole person, fully alive at any given moment’ (4–5) certainly intersects with conversations about resilience. 6 The myriad images and perspectives present in Psalm 69 (including the description of the crisis or crises) prompt many scholars to posit a multi-stage development of the text. For extended discussions of the composition history of Psalm 69, see Hossfeld and Zenger 2005, 174–76; Groenewald 2003, 176–290. 7 She will also turn ‘inward’ to her own sense of identity, a move which is bound up with a second major factor in the development of resilience: the capacity to tell one’s story (discussed further). 8 The psalms that recite God’s great acts in history (e.g., Pss. 78; 105; 106; 136) are particularly powerful in terms of strengthening the relationship between God and the worshipping community because they communicate – and thus reinforce – longstanding patterns of divine behaviour with regard to a particular community. 9 In his discussion of the Psalms in light of relational psychoanalysis and attachment theory, Brent Strawn notes that, ‘If prayer is primary speech, then the God-human relationship in the Psalms is the most primal, most foundational relationship’ (Strawn 2014, 412; e.g., Pss 22:9–10; 27:9–10). He goes on to say, ‘It comes as no surprise, then, that the dominant metaphors for God in the Psalms reflect security and trust – God as rock, for example, or God as refuge. . . . So, while the psalmists frequently lament divine abandonment (e.g., 10:1; 13:2[1]; 22:2[1]; 27:9; 42:10[9]; 44:25[24]; 74:19; 77:10[9]), the articulation of pain and frustration (including frustration with God) in these psalms . . . maintains attachment with God’ (413).

Singing stories together 41 10 Literally, the Hebrew of the entire verse reads ‘The afflicted ones see, they will rejoice; the ones seeking God, let your heart live!’ The second masculine plural suffix with which the verse ends prompts readers to understand the third-person jussive form of ‫חיה‬, ‘to live’, as having a vocative force. 11 Harry Nasuti has explored how shifting pronouns in the psalms encourages readers to take on the identities of various groups in ways that support the pedagogical ends of the psalmist. For example, God speaks to the congregation using second-person address in Psalm 81 so that the congregation feels closer to the ancestral generation. Psalms 113 and 135 feature direct address to historical characters so that worshippers take on the roles of witnesses to God’s previous works in the world. Psalm 137 uses first-person speech from the perspective of the exile; its continued use by the faith community, however, means that successive generations have adopted the identity of this exilic voice (Nasuti 2001). 12 Following the LXX and Peshitta, Erich Zenger suggests emending the MT’s ‫יספרו‬ (Piel from ‫ אל‬+ ‫ספר‬, ‘to recount, to tell about’) to read ‫( יספו‬Hiphil from ‫יסף‬, ‘to add to, increase’) (cf. NRSV). Zenger comments, ‘On the one hand, the MT could certainly be retained, but on the other hand the conjecture “and they add to the pain” . . . is not implausible’ (Hossfeld and Zenger 2005, 172). In light of Psalm 69’s previous allusions to the speeches and storytelling of the enemies (vv. 4, 9, 11–12), I prefer to read with the MT (so also Groenewald 2003, 31). Given the propensity of Hebrew poetry to engage in polysemy, however, some kind of word play between these two options (the MT and the conjecture based on the LXX) would make a great deal of sense in the context of the psalm. 13 At several points in the Hebrew Bible, the term ‫ משל‬is paired with – or used in the context of – words of mockery or taunting by enemies, similar to its usage here in Psalm 69 (Deut. 28:37; 1 Kings. 9:7; Ps. 44:14; Jer. 24:9; Joel 2:17). 14 A similar kind of byword/parable device (which encapsulates an entire story in a word or two) is a common dimension of communication patterns today. For example, dismissing someone as a ‘Pollyanna’ or accusing them of being a ‘Casanova’ triggers in our minds entire narrative worlds of characters, situations, and particular responses to those situations; similar dynamics are at work when we call someone a ‘Nancy Drew’, describe a situation as a ‘Pandora’s Box’, or give someone or something the label ‘Switzerland’. In the context of the ancient Near East, one can imagine a teenaged Assyrian or Babylonian bullying someone by calling them ‘Israel’ – a byword/parable that implies, perhaps, a whole story of blatant disobedience that leads to brutal punishment by the patron deity (so Deut. 28:37), or perhaps a story about how that patron deity was once strong and compassionate enough to offer protection but is no longer (so Ps. 44:14). 15 Indeed, ‘when dealing with a traumatic event, forgetting probably is not possible. Instead it is more realistic to work toward better controlling what is remembered and when it is remembered’ (Zoellner et al. 2014, 149). 16 Praise of Yahweh has its foundations in how the psalmist has seen God work in the world (creation, provision, protection, etc.), for example, and the songs of thanksgiving include by very genre definition a narrative of how the psalmist experienced crisis, turned to God, and received help. Note that I use ‘story’ at this point fairly loosely. As discussed, actual stories require plots that narrate a sequence of related events (often described as a beginning, middle, and end). ‘Story’ in this technical sense is not always present in individual psalms, though I will show how the presence of technical stories contributes to a psalm’s meaning and rhetorical power. 17 As noted, the psalmist’s language remains somewhat ambiguous, which makes it difficult to determine exactly what her ‘zeal for [Yahweh’s] house’ entailed. Clifford points to conceptual links between the psalmist’s words in Psalm 69 and

42  Rebecca W. Poe Hays the prophetic tradition of condemning God’s people who practice temple rituals without extending righteousness/justice beyond the temple walls (Clifford 2002, 323). Zenger discusses several other options related to significant politicaltheological debates in the post-exilic period (Hossfeld and Zenger 2005, 178–80). 18 Other scholars have understood v. 5 differently. Brueggemann and Bellinger, for example, do understand the statement as a confession (Brueggemann and ­Bellinger 2014, 301). Whether the statement is a true confession or a protestation of innocence, Brueggemann and Bellinger are right to identify its function as a motivation for God to act on behalf of the psalmist – either as an act of forgiveness or of vindication. 19 The inability to recognize or create logical connections between events can be a sign of trauma. Psychologists have observed, for example, that trauma victims often cannot tell the story of what happened to them. Their traumatic memories are ‘wordless and static’ and do not ‘develop or progress in time’ nor ‘reveal the storyteller’s feelings or interpretation of events’; they are ‘a series of still snapshots’, and recovery cannot occur until these disconnected images are arranged onto a storyboard that clarifies their connectedness (Herman 2015, 175; Janzen 2012, 44). 20 Nancy deClaissé-Walford comments, ‘The imprecatory words of the Psalter . . . are not cries from communities and individuals for permission to carry out their own retributive acts for the wrongs done to them’ (deClaissé-Walford 2011, 86). 21 The diverse stories of the lament psalms, for example, create a framework for a general understanding of the world in which pain is part of life and enemies are always present, in which the psalmist’s difficulties are sometimes but not always the result of the psalmist’s own choices, and in which God is righteous, sovereign, active, and often frustratingly inscrutable. On a macro-level, some scholars have argued that the entire Psalter exhibits patterns of story-like movement that are significant both pastorally and in terms of identity formation. For example, Brown explores how metaphors in the Psalms create an impressionistic story of a faith journey from pathway to refuge (Brown 2002, 15–54, 215). Wilson and deClaissé-Walford have tracked in the Psalter’s arrangement of genres and superscriptions a story of the rise and fall of the Davidic kingship that ends with Yahweh as the true, eternal king on whom the faithful can rely (Wilson 1985; deClaissé-Walford 1997). DeClaissé-Walford in particular has tied the existence and repeated recitation of this psalmic narrative to the perseverance of Jewish identity through a tumultuous history (deClaissé-Walford 1997, 105–22). These broad-strokes narratives suggest patterns for the life of faith and the act of worship into which readers of the Psalms can fit their own experiences. Notably for discussions about resilience, scholars have observed that while the Psalter moves generally from lament to praise, enemies and laments are still present at the end of the book of Psalms. Furthermore, even in the glorious doxological conclusion to the Psalter (Pss. 146–50), the existence of impact of the wicked are still felt – if only in Yahweh’s frustration of their efforts (e.g., Ps. 146:9; 147:6; 149:7–8).

Bibliography Bellinger, W.H., Jr. 2012. Psalms: A Guide to Studying the Psalter. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Brown, William P. 2002. Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor. Louisville: Westminster John Knox. Brueggemann, Walter. 1984. The Message of the Psalms: A Theological Commentary. Augsburg Old Testament Studies. Minneapolis: Augsburg.

Singing stories together 43 Brueggemann, Walter, and W.H. Bellinger Jr. 2014. Psalms. New Cambridge Bible Commentary. New York: Cambridge University Press. Clifford, Richard J. 2002. Psalms 1–72. AOTC. Nashville: Abingdon. Cook, Christopher C.H., and Nathan H. White. 2018. ‘Resilience and the Role of Spirituality’. In The Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health, edited by Dinesh Bhugra, Kamaldeep Bhui, Samuel Yeung Shan Wong, and Stephen E. Gilman, 513–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DeClaissé-Walford, Nancy L. 1997. Reading from the Beginning: The Shaping of the Hebrew Psalter. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press. ———. 2011. ‘The Theology of the Imprecatory Psalms’. In Soundings in the Theology of Psalms: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship, edited by Rolf A. Jacobson, 77–92. Minneapolis: Fortress. Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W. 2015. On Biblical Poetry. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Groenewald, Alphonso. 2003. Psalm 69: Its Structure, Redaction and Composition. Altes Testament und Moderne 18. Münster: LIT Verlag. Herman, Judith. 2015. Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence – from Domestic Abuse to Political Terror. New York: Basic Books. Hobfoll, Stevan E., and Mary Ann Parris Stephens. 1990. ‘Social Support During Extreme Stress: Consequences and Intervention’. In Social Support: An Interactional View, edited by Barbara R. Sarason, Irwin G. Sarason, and Gregory R. Pierce, 454–81. New York: Wiley. Hossfeld, Frank-Lothar, and Erich Zenger. 2005. Psalms 2. Translated by Linda M. Maloney. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress. Janzen, David. 2012. The Violent Gift: Trauma’s Subversion of the Deuteronomic History’s Narrative. LHBOTS 561. New York: T&T Clark. Klein, Anja. 2014. Geschichte und Gebet: Die Rezeption der biblischen Geschichte in den Psalmen des Alten Testaments. FAT 94. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Nasuti, Harry P. 2001. ‘Historical Narrative and Identity in the Psalms’. Horizons in Biblical Theology 23 (2): 132–53. ———. 2011. ‘God at Work in the World: A Theology of Divine-Human Encounter in the Psalms’. In Soundings in the Theology of Psalms: Perspectives and Methods in Contemporary Scholarship, edited by Rolf A. Jacobson, 27–48. Minneapolis: Fortress. Panter-Brick, Catherine, and James F. Leckman. 2013. ‘Editorial Commentary: Resilience in Child Development – Interconnected Pathways to Wellbeing’. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry 54 (4): 333–36. Pargament, Kenneth I., and Jeremy Cummings. 2010. ‘Anchored by Faith: Religion as a Resilience Factor’. In Handbook of Adult Resilience, edited by John W. Reich, Alex J. Zautra, and John Stuart Hall, 193–210. New York: Guilford Press. Pennebaker, James W. 1997. Opening Up: The Healing Power of Expressing Emotions. Rev. ed. New York: Guilford Press. Peres, Julio F.P., Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Antonia Gladys Nasello, and Harold G. Koenig. 2007. ‘Spirituality and Resilience in Trauma Victims’. Journal of Religion and Health 46 (3): 343–50. Prince, Gerald. 1973. A Grammar of Stories: An Introduction. The Hague: Mouton. Raftopoulos, Mary, and Glen Bates. 2011. ‘ “It’s That Knowing That You Are Not Alone”: The Role of Spirituality in Adolescent Resilience’. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality 16 (2): 151–67.

44  Rebecca W. Poe Hays Resnick, M.D., L.J. Harris, and R.W. Blum. 1993. ‘The Impact of Caring and Connectedness on Adolescent Health and Well-Being’. Journal of Paediatrics and Child Health 29 (1): S3–S9. Schuster, M.A., B.D. Stein, L. Jaycox, R.L. Collins, G.N. Marshall, M.N. Elliott, A.J. Zhou, D.E. Kanouse, J.L. Morrison, and S.H. Berry. 2001. ‘A National Survey of Stress Reactions After the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks’. The New ­England Journal of Medicine 345 (20): 1507–12. Sedmak, Clemens. 2017. The Capacity to Be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength. Theology and Mission in World Christianity 5. Leiden: Brill. Strawn, Brent A. 2014. ‘Poetic Attachment: Psychology, Psycholinguistics, and the Psalms’. In Oxford Handbook of the Psalms, edited by William P. Brown, 404– 23. New York: Oxford University Press. ———. 2016. ‘Trauma, Psalmic Disclosure, and Authentic Happiness’. In Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, edited by Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. ­Frechette, 143–60. SemeiaSt 86. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature. Swenson, Kristin M. 2005. Living Through Pain: Psalms and the Search for Wholeness. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Weiser, Artur. 1962. The Psalms: A Commentary. OTL. Philadelphia: Westminster. Westgate, Charlene E. 1996. ‘Spiritual Wellness and Depression’. Journal of Counseling and Development 75 (1): 26–35. Whitehead, James D., and Evelyn Eaton Whitehead. 2016. The Virtue of Resilience. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis. Wilson, Gerald Henry. 1985. The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter. SBLDS 76. Chico, CA: Scholars Press. Zoellner, Lori A., and Norah C. Feeny. 2014. ‘Conceptualizing Risk and Resilience Following Trauma Exposure’. In Facilitating Resilience and Recovery Following Trauma, edited by Lori A. Zoellner and Norah C. Feeny, 3–14. New York: Guilford Press. Zoellner, Lori A., Norah C. Feeny, Frank J. Farach, and Larry D. Pruitt. 2014. ‘The Nature of Traumatic Memory and Trauma Recovery’. In Facilitating Resilience and Recovery Following Trauma, edited by Lori A. Zoellner and Norah C. Feeny, 137–66. New York: Guilford Press. Zoellner, Lori A., Norah C. Feeny, and Nina K. Rytwinski. 2014. ‘The Crucial Role of Social Support’. In Facilitating Resilience and Recovery Following Trauma, edited by Lori A. Zoellner and Norah C. Feeny, 291–321. New York: Guilford Press.

4 Struck down but not destroyed Images of resilience from the book of Jeremiah Jonathan D. Bentall Introduction The book of Jeremiah, like many of its prophetic counterparts within the Hebrew Bible, is littered with language and images of violence, from graphic portrayals of the concrete realities of siege and forced deportation, to images of divine judgment that are frequently cast in disturbing language of brutality and vengeance. Even when the reader’s attention is focused more directly upon the figure of Jeremiah, the book includes numerous examples of both violent threats and actions against the prophet himself, inviting attention to the dynamics of violence and its effects at a more individual, or interpersonal, level.1 Given these characteristics, it is not surprising that the book of Jeremiah has often featured within hermeneutical explorations of trauma and disaster studies as a lens through which to interpret biblical literature. Although the text invites a sustained focus upon the impact of violence and trauma upon individuals and communities, interpreters have suggested that the theology of the book of Jeremiah may nevertheless be understood as ‘profoundly life-affirming’, with Kathleen O’Connor arguing, ‘The book is a work of resilience, a moral act for the rebuilding of the community from the ashes of catastrophe. It is a kind of survival manual for victims of disaster and their offspring’ (O’Connor 2012, 17). In this essay I explore several images of trauma and resilience in the book of Jeremiah in an effort to illuminate further the extent to which trauma and resilience might be useful categories for understanding its subject matter and central claims. I will suggest that while there are dynamics within the book that reflect the significance and the possibility of human adaptation to experiences of trauma, adversity, and suffering, the theological claim of ­Jeremiah is that a capacity for genuine resilience and restoration of wellbeing must ultimately be grounded in a relationship of trust and dependence upon YHWH, both in the case of the prophet himself and the covenantal community that he represents. Violence, trauma, and resilience in the book of Jeremiah The relationship between violence, trauma, and resilience is well-established. As is noted frequently in the relevant literature, the contemporary English

46  Jonathan D. Bentall term trauma is a transliteration of the Greek word for a wound or injury (Caruth 1996, 3). Drawing upon the work of Kai Erikson, O’Connor observes, ‘In classical medical language, trauma refers to the violence that inflicts injury, not to the injury itself’ (O’Connor 2012, 2).2 Christopher Frechette comments, ‘In social science literature, trauma is understood not simply as a synonym for suffering, but as an overwhelming threat that can leave long-lasting injurious, psychological effects or destroy social bonds and group identity’ (Frechette 2015, 22). Such insights into the phenomenon of trauma have shaped the ways in which biblical scholars associate the concept not simply with the experience of suffering or crisis itself, but with the capacity of such experiences to overwhelm an individual or community and to persist in its effects beyond the initial experience of violence or catastrophe. The subject of resilience is often explicitly joined with, or else implied by, a focus upon the nature and effects of trauma. Resilience may be defined as ‘the capacity to live under and respond to oppressive or violent situations over longer periods of time’ (Schreiter 2016, 193), or as an ability to endure or survive sustained experiences of trauma or adversity, with a particular focus upon the mechanisms or strategies for adaptation, recovery, or renewed flourishing in response to such experiences and their ongoing effects. In other words, the capacity for and the possibility of resilient adaptation, response, and recovery is frequently understood as an essential part of the study of trauma and its effects (Frechette 2015, 22–25; Boase and Frechette 2016b, 2). Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of studies demonstrating the promise of using trauma studies as a hermeneutical lens through which to interpret and understand biblical texts (e.g., Becker, Dochhorn, and Holt 2014; Boase and Frechette 2016a). Interpreters have focused upon the way in which the origins and transmission of the ancient texts that now comprise the Hebrew Bible may be understood to be largely the result of catalytic, traumatic events within the collective experience of the Israelite people group (Carr 2014; Sonnet 2016). Some have focused on particular biblical books and genres, highlighting, for example, the perspective of survivors on the ‘losing side’ of international politics in the ancient world (Stulman and Kim 2010), or the way in which fragmented memories contribute to a subversive counter-narrative within the Deuteronomistic history (Janzen 2012). In her illuminating study entitled Jeremiah: Pain and Promise, Kathleen O’Connor employs trauma and disaster studies as a ‘heuristic device’ for the interpretation of the book of Jeremiah, in an effort to ‘reclaim Jeremiah’s violence’ (O’Connor 2012). Among the key insights from this field of research that inform her interpretation, the capacity of traumatic experience to overwhelm the subject and to have a disordering effect on one’s sense of self and world are at the forefront (cf. Carvalho 2017, 14; Boase and Frechette 2016b, 3). O’Connor describes the effects of trauma and disaster as that which overwhelms and overpowers human beings, physically and psychologically, and

Struck down but not destroyed 47 in so doing disrupts the systems and narratives that order the experience of reality for both individuals and communities (O’Connor 2012, 20–27).3 As she explains, ‘trauma and disaster destroy or at least undermine trust in God, other people, and the world’ (O’Connor 2012, 4). Yet, O’Connor’s emphasis is by no means limited to the ways in which the destructive and overwhelming power of trauma can provide insight into the book of Jeremiah; she is also committed to understanding this text as ‘a work of resilience, a book of massive theological imagination, and a kind of survival manual for a destroyed society’ (O’Connor 2012, x). She comments: The whole book is a work of resilience, acknowledging reality and mustering the will to live through it and live beyond it. . . . Even as it is literature dense with uncertainty and conflict, it leads the people of Judah, as if with a scarlet thread, through the tangled mire of their suffering toward the horizon of new life. (O’Connor 2012, 135) For O’Connor, then, the value of trauma studies as a lens through which to interpret the book of Jeremiah is not exhausted by the way in which contemporary clinical and psychological findings seem to mirror and render explicable deeply painful and disturbing portrayals found in the biblical text; the text itself may also be understood as a witness to the human capacity for resilience and recovery, and thus as a resource for meaningful responses to suffering while still taking seriously the continuing impact of the wounding. It is unsurprising that the book of Jeremiah has frequently been a text of choice for interpreters seeking to explore the promise of trauma studies as well as the concept of resilience as a lens for biblical interpretation (e.g., Stulman 1998; Frechette 2015). This prophetic text features ample, pervasive motifs that lend themselves to this sort of approach, from the wound of the people that is treated carelessly and thus refuses to be healed (see Jer. 6:14; 8:11; 10:19; 14:17–22; 30:12–13; cf. 15:18) to the plots, threats, and physical violence carried out against the prophet himself (e.g., Jer. 11:19; 18:20, 22; 26:1–24; 38:6ff.; 48:43–44). In an effort to discern more fully how the book of Jeremiah might be illuminated by the concept of resilience, and in turn might serve as a theological and practical resource for addressing the subjects of traumatic violence and resilient adaptation in a contemporary context, I now turn to examine more closely a particular set of texts within the book.

Images of trauma and resilience in Jeremiah 18–20 Jeremiah 18–20 presents the reader with a conflation of episodes that might serve as a useful case study in this regard, as these chapters illuminate at least

48  Jonathan D. Bentall three distinct dynamics of trauma and resilience in relation to the portrayal of the prophet. In this section of the book, we find (1) the nation of Judah portrayed as suffering – at least potentially – violence in the form of judgment at the hand of YHWH, powerfully communicated through the image of a spoiled pottery vessel;4 (2) the prophet Jeremiah as a representative for the people, protesting against what he claims to have experienced as a kind of unwelcome, violent imposition upon him by the deity, a kind of forced prophetic vocation that he regards as having involved some form of divine deception as well as coercion;5 and (3) the prophet Jeremiah as a representative of YHWH (however apparently unwilling), suffering physical violence at the hands of his own people, perhaps both symbolised and literally represented by the priest Pashhur.6 The potter and the vessel: images of divine judgment In both chapters 18 and 19, the image of pottery is employed in order to communicate a message concerning impending divine judgment. In both cases, the image may be read as symbolic of potential violent action on the part of YHWH, with human agents as the intended recipients, and ­Jeremiah’s role as representative and intercessor places him right in the middle of the action. The account of Jeremiah’s visit to bêt hayyōtṣēr (‘the house of the potter’) involves both a general application of the symbolism to any and all nations that may fall under YHWH’s sovereign control and a more specific threat directed towards the house of Israel/people of Judah. The initial rhetorical question of v. 6 (‘Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, as this potter?’) and the direct threat of judgment and call to repentance in v. 11 (‘Now therefore . . . I am a potter shaping evil. . . . Turn now’) may be understood as an inclusio, within which the more general account of YHWH’s sovereign power over any ‘nation or . . . kingdom’ is located. This general account makes a theological claim, on the basis of the imagery of clay in the hands of the potter, concerning both YHWH’s prerogative to bring disaster or to do good and the contingency of this divine action in relation to the conduct of the human agents in view.7 The symbolism associated with the potter’s action is joined here with agricultural and architectural images from the prophet’s call narrative, describing nations or kingdoms that YHWH might intend either to build and to plant, or to pluck up, tear down, and destroy (cf. Jer. 1:10). Together, these images may be understood to portray a form of violence and therefore are suggestive of trauma associated with the divine judgment that is envisaged. The metaphors themselves, involving the destruction and reworking of clay, the demolishing of a structure, and the plucking up of a plant, are suggestive of physical force being used to destroy an entity. More significantly, the intended symbolism of all three images comes to expression in the threat of YHWH’s bringing disaster/evil (rā‘āh) upon his people (vv. 8, 11).

Struck down but not destroyed 49 The transition from the potter as an image for YHWH to the symbolic prophetic act involving the ‘clay jug’ in chapter 19 is highly suggestive when read through the lens of trauma and resilience. Whereas the imagery in the previous chapter involves the relatively delicate, artistic action of shaping a spoiled lump of clay into a more suitable vessel, the symbolism of chapter 19 involves the shattering of a dried and finished piece of pottery, as a dramatic image intended to drive home the prophetic message detailed in vv. 1–9. The earlier symbols of reworking a clay vessel, and even of plucking up and tearing down a nation or a kingdom, pale in comparison with the overwhelming violence and horror involved in the portrayal of Judahites falling by the sword, corpses being eaten by creatures, and even cannibalism among family units (vv. 7–9). Whereas in chapter 18 the symbolism of pottery precedes the application of the symbol to the covenantal relationship between God and his people, here, the symbolic act functions as an exclamation point following the apparently literal description of what divine judgment will entail.8 For many interpreters (e.g., Unterman 1987) this shift is suggestive of a movement within either the ministry of the prophet or the compositional history of the book, from a stage at which repentance and aversion of disaster was still possible (18:5–11) to the point at which disaster has become unavoidable (19:10–15). However, what is most intriguing for the purpose of this essay is the way in which the image of malleable clay is juxtaposed with one of a shattered pot that incapable of being mended, or perhaps healed. Unlike the hope implied by the previous image of a resilient clay form, capable of being refashioned, the image in chapter 19 is of a shattered vessel that ‘can never be mended’ (v. 11). The use of the root rp’ (‫‘ ;רפא‬to heal, repair’) to describe the jug, the people, and the city as being beyond repair recalls the ways in which the image of wounds and the prospect of healing are applied to the people as a whole, and to the prophet Jeremiah, elsewhere in the book.9 At the very least, this combination of images is suggestive for the application of a trauma hermeneutic to the text: the divine judgment that is threatened here will involve a shattering of the people and their city in such a way that healing and restoration will not be possible. Moreover, this continues a prominent theme through the book of Jeremiah that links the fate of the people – and sometimes also the situation of the prophet – with the symbol of a wound that either refuses to be healed, or else is not taken seriously enough so as to allow the proper course of healing to take place. The prophet suffers at the hands of the people: Jeremiah, Pashhur, plotting, and the pit A second aspect of these chapters that may be illuminated by the insights of trauma and resilience studies is the interaction between Jeremiah and his fellow Judahites. As has often been noted by interpreters, Jeremiah’s role as a

50  Jonathan D. Bentall prophet makes him not only a representative of the people, whose suffering he bears, but also a target of the people and the national leadership, given that the central thrust of his prophetic message contradicts the deceptive message of peace and the political impulse towards resistance to Babylon that seems to be advocated by many of the prophetic voices and leaders of the Judahite community. Both chapters 18 and 20 offer portrayals of Jeremiah’s suffering at the hands of the people.10 First, in chapter 18, following the visit to the potter’s house, a two-part lament is punctuated by prosaic statements placed in the mouths of an ambiguous ‘they’. Initially, in v. 12, the speakers are presumably to be understood as the nation as a whole, given that the text simply indicates their refusal to respond to the prophetic word: But they say, ‘It is no use! We will follow our own plans (maḥăšābôt), and each of us will act according to the stubbornness of our evil will’. (v. 12)11 By v. 18, however, it appears as though there may be a more specific group that comes into view, those who will be referred to as Jeremiah’s ‘adversaries’ in v. 19 and have featured in previous laments as well: Then they said, ‘Come, let us make plots (maḥăšābôt) against ­Jeremiah – for instruction shall not perish from the priest, nor counsel from the wise, nor the word from the prophet. Come, let us bring charges against him, and let us not heed any of his words’. (v. 18) The first part of this latter phrase could be translated quite literally as ‘Come, let us smite/strike (nkh; ‫ )נכה‬him with the tongue’, a turn of phrase that perhaps anticipates with a metaphorical image the more overtly violent action that will be carried out against Jeremiah when Pashhur physically strikes (nkh; ‫ )נכה‬the prophet (Jer. 20:2). In Jer. 18:18–23, the focus turns to the people of Judah and their antagonism towards the prophet, including their intention to bring formal charges against him and to refuse to listen to his words (v. 18). In Jeremiah’s ensuing lament, he blends descriptions of his adversaries’ sinister plans against him with his own pleas that YHWH would bring violent judgment upon them in recompense for these actions (vv. 19–23). Twice the people are described as having dug a pit with the intention of killing the prophet, and Jeremiah seems to express both incredulity and indignation at the fact that they would repay the altruism (ṭôbāh) of his prophetic activities on their behalf (cf. Jer. 26:3; 36:3) with such evil (rā‘āh).12 He entreats YHWH that those who have laid snares for his feet would instead by ‘tripped up’ by the God of Israel, and that he would deal with them ‘while angry’, a sharp contrast from the

Struck down but not destroyed 51 way he has described his prophetic vocation as designed to ‘turn away your wrath from them’ (v. 20).13 In chapter 20, the depiction of Jeremiah’s suffering at the hands of his own people moves from the collective opposition to his prophetic vocation and the threat of harm to a narrative account of his violent assault and confinement at the hands of Pashhur, the priest and overseer of the temple. As O’Connor notes, this account is the first of a series of captivity stories throughout the remainder of the book, which follow a common pattern of capture, physical attack, threats, and narrow escape (O’Connor 2012, 73–74).14 Not unlike the situation reflected in chapter 26, Jeremiah is portrayed as suffering violence and rejection within the very setting (the temple) and at the hands of the very people (temple officials) who ought to be most receptive to his prophetic message. Yet, according to O’Connor, in these and other captivity accounts Jeremiah displays ‘calm endurance’ and is ultimately portrayed as the ‘ideal survivor’, in a way that deepens the book’s portrait of the prophet as a representative of his people (O’Connor 2012, 75). The prophet suffers at the hands of God: Jeremiah’s experience of divine coercion A final image of trauma and resilience within these chapters centres on the prophet’s experience of suffering at the hand of YHWH. Within the final lament in chapter 20, many of the anguished complaints and images of distress that characterise this collection seem to come to a head in Jeremiah’s invective against both his opponents and his God. The prophet describes being deceived, seduced, and coerced by YHWH, and returns to an image found elsewhere in the book, in which the prophetic word is compared positively to a fire (cf. Jer. 5:14); here, the more negative image expresses the unwanted and burdensome task that he has tried to resist but cannot. Much interpretive attention has been focused on how to translate the combination of terms with which Jeremiah laments having been enticed/ persuaded (pth; ‫ )פתה‬and overpowered (ḥzq; ‫ )חזק‬by YHWH in Jer. 20:7. While several interpreters have gone so far as to propose that the image is one that calls to mind graphic images of seduction and rape, others maintain that deception and domination are more accurate depictions of the prophet’s complaint.15 Yet, no matter what decision one makes with regard to translation or to the interpretation of the portrayal, the image of YHWH overpowering and conquering the prophet creates a sense of the prophet’s helplessness and suffering, which is then complemented by the image of the fiery word being trapped inside the prophet, and of his unsuccessful attempts to keep from letting it out (20:9). Whether or not what is intended by the combination of images is the idea of deception, seduction, or even rape, what is undeniable is that Jeremiah’s prophetic vocation is here portrayed as

52  Jonathan D. Bentall an unwanted situation that has been forced upon him through either deceptive means, superior strength, or perhaps both. This striking depiction of being overwhelmed by YHWH is followed by yet another instance of the prophet’s enemies plotting against him (cf. 18:12–23), here expressed using the same terminology as in v. 7’s description of YHWH as deceiving (pth; ‫ )פתה‬and prevailing over (ykl; ‫ )יכל‬Jeremiah (v. 10b). The tone of the lament then shifts abruptly to an expression of confidence in YHWH’s protection and praise for deliverance (vv. 11–13), only to slide back into despondent lamentation in the final section of the chapter (vv. 14–18). In this context, perhaps the categories of trauma and resilience are especially useful for encouraging the interpreter to take seriously the stubborn juxtaposition of despairing lament and confident praise. As numerous trauma and disaster studies theorists have observed, the relationship between trauma and resilience has more in common with a disordered juxtaposition than with a linear narrative of tidy resolution. While one may be inclined to seek a somewhat neater progression in the text, perhaps constructing a movement from lament to confidence and praise, the form of the text resists such an interpretation, instead constraining the expressions of confidence (vv. 11–12) and the outburst of praise (v. 13) within an inclusio that insists on voicing the prophet’s pain, complaint, and despair.

Applications How might these images contribute to the sense that the book of Jeremiah provides ‘a witness to the human capacity for resilience and recovery’, or functions as ‘a resource for meaningful responses to suffering’, as O’Connor suggests? While the image of the spoiled vessel being remoulded may be initially suggestive of the notion of positive adaptation (Jer. 18:1–11), the analogy whereby YHWH is envisaged as the sovereign potter, reshaping the vessel at will, highlights the vulnerability and lack of agency of the clay itself (i.e., the house of Israel). Moreover, the image of the shattered pot in the subsequent chapter seems to provide few resources, prima facie, for any notion of healing, restoration or hope; if anything, it joins an even more striking image of vulnerability and fragility with a decisive and explicit denial that healing or restoration will be possible (Jer. 19:1–15). Yet, crucial in this regard is an element of the broader context of the book of Jeremiah that I have already touched on, namely the consistent theme involving Jeremiah’s conflict with deceitful prophets who speak of the certainty of šālôm (‘peace’ or ‘well-being’) in the midst of a situation that promises trauma and suffering (see Jer. 6:13–15; 8:10b–12). According to the logic of the book of Jeremiah, these prophets are ‘careless’ in their approach to the ‘wound’ of YHWH’s people, effectively inhibiting its ability to be healed by denying its severity through empty promises of wellbeing. By contrast, Jeremiah’s message throughout the book is consistently

Struck down but not destroyed 53 characterised by both a resolute honesty regarding the impending judgment and disaster, as well as a stubborn proclamation of meaningful hope for restoration in the ‘afterlife of trauma’.16 Within theological discourse that is meaningfully informed by trauma theory, it is not uncommon to find an insistence upon the juxtaposition of apparently contrasting phenomena, within what may be referred to as a non-competitive account of divine and human agency. In Trauma and Grace Serene Jones speaks of an ability to trust in a sovereign God not as a denial of agency but as a stabilising response to trauma and helplessness, allowing sufferers to ‘once again imagine themselves as agents whose actions in the world matter’ (Jones 2009, 53). In Vulnerability and Glory, Kristine A. Culp offers a compelling account of the positive capacity of vulnerability as basic to human existence in the presence of God, capable both of tragic devastation and of bearing the glory of God through transformation (Culp 2010).17 In both Spirit and Trauma (Rambo 2010) and Resurrecting Wounds (Rambo 2017), Shelly Rambo argues that the account of resurrection that is central to Christian theology cannot simply bypass or move on from the trauma of crucifixion but must attend to the ways in which wounds remain and resurface even in contexts of healing and restoration. Against such a backdrop, the message of Jeremiah suggests that a meaningful process of resilient adaptation for the people of Judah will be possible only through acknowledgement of the severity of the wound and the nation’s complicity in it, accompanied by genuine repentance in which the people turn away from idolatry and injustice, and turn back towards covenant faithfulness to YHWH. Yet resilience is not envisaged as an outcome that can be accomplished through human agency alone; indeed, such a strategy runs the risk of promoting a self-deceptive complacency and thereby inhibiting the potential for genuine healing, recovery and restoration. The figure of Jeremiah embodies a response to his own traumatic experience and that of his people that is dependent not merely on human agency but is also engaged in genuine trust and dependency on YHWH’s divine agency. As a result, this text has the potential to frame discourse related to trauma and its aftermath in a way that emphasises vulnerability and dependence upon God as a positive component contributing to the potential for resilience, restoration, and wholeness.

Conclusion The book of Jeremiah gives voice to trauma and suffering, yet it also bears witness to the reality of God’s presence and faithfulness as well as the possibility of resilient adaptation through repentance and trust in YHWH. Perhaps counterintuitively, the images of both Jeremiah 18 and 19 ground the potential resilience of the people of Judah not in their own capacity for positive adaptation but rather in their posture towards and reliance upon YHWH. The shattered pot and the malleable clay are, in a sense, contrasting

54  Jonathan D. Bentall images; yet together they contribute to an overarching message that a denial of Judah’s wound and a refusal to address its root cause via genuine repentance offer woefully insufficient strategies for responding to the disorder and fragmentation that will no doubt accompany the trauma of judgment and exile. Moreover, the portrayal of Jeremiah’s relationship to his own people, and in particular the literary form of Jeremiah’s final lament, reflect a response to suffering and traumatic experience that demonstrates clear indications of recovery and endurance that persist side by side with the undeniable continued effects of the trauma. The prophet’s resilience in his vocation and trust in YHWH does not resolve or replace his experience of suffering, but rather he continues to bear the marks of the wounds even in his resilient adaptation and persistence.

Notes 1 See, for example, the motif of threats against the prophet’s life in the laments/ confessions (e.g., Jer. 11:18–19; 18:19–23), as well as violent threats and actions against him in the narratives of Jeremiah 20:1–6, 26:1–24, and 38:1–13. 2 After citing Erickson (in Caruth 1995), O’Connor goes on to note the interplay between individual and collective dimensions, explaining, ‘Trauma refers to the impact of violence upon individuals. But when traumatic violence reigns down upon a whole society, trauma becomes a public disaster’ (O’Connor 2012, 3; cf. idem 2010, 39). 3 O’Connor highlights four particular effects of disaster: (1) fragmented memory, (2) breakdown of language, (3) numbness, and (4) loss of faith. Yet it is noteworthy that she also makes the claim (p. 21) that there is no meaningful distinction between disaster and effects. 4 See the discussion of Jeremiah as ‘paradigmatic sufferer’ in Carvalho 2017, 9–10; cf. O’Connor 2012, 69–91. Not only alongside his people but also in a deeper, representative way, the prophet is portrayed as suffering the physical trauma of conquest and exile and perhaps also the psychological effects of the deep epistemological and existential crisis for which the exilic experience was a catalyst. For example, Carvalho notes that Jeremiah gives voice to the weeping city in 4:19–22 and 8:18–20. 5 On the theme of God as an ‘oppressive presence’ in Jeremiah, see Crenshaw 1984, 31–56. This feature of the prophet’s vocation is perhaps especially prominent in the laments, where he uses striking imagery to describe his experience of the prophetic word as a ‘fire shut up within my bones’ that he is unable to hold in, and his experience of YHWH as an oppressive presence, forcing him to fulfill a prophetic call that he would prefer to resist or abandon. 6 In various places Jeremiah is physically struck, thrown into a pit, almost killed by an angry mob, arrested, and confined, etc. ‘The book depicts Jeremiah as the lone voice speaking God’s truth to a community that is not only deaf to his message but also openly hostile’ (Carvalho 2017, 10). 7 For a defense of this interpretation, see Moberly 2013, 116–27; idem 2006, 48–55. 8 The connection between the symbolic act and the preceding prophetic word is suggested by the command of v. 10, that Jeremiah is to smash the jug ‘in the sight of’ (‫ )לעיני‬those that have gone with him (cf. 19:1 – the elders of the people and the elders of the priests), and then it is made explicit through the corresponding

Struck down but not destroyed 55 imagery of YHWH’s threat to break (‫ )ׁשבר‬the people and the city, just as the jug has been broken beyond repair (‫)לא־יוכל להרפה‬. 9 Note that the connection between healing/mending (‫ )רפא‬and brokenness (‫ )ׁשבר‬is also featured in Jeremiah 8:11. It is interesting that the image of healing would be applied to the idea of brokenness, especially in the context of chapter 19. This terminology also appears in Jeremiah 3:22; 6:14; 8:11, 22; 15:18; 17:14; 30:17; 33:6; and 51:8–9, texts that speak variously of YHWH healing the peoples’ backsliding, the healing of the peoples’ wounds, Jeremiah’s wound refusing to be healed, the healing of Babylon, etc. 10 The text does not make clear who the subjects of the third-person plural verbs are in vv. 12 and 18. Presumably, because the prophetic word of judgment given in vv. 1–11 is directed at the house of Israel (‫ )בית יׂשראל‬as a whole (v. 5), also referred to collectively as the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem (v. 11), we should understand the words of response to come from the nation as a whole (as opposed to some segment of leadership in particular, or specific figures with specific roles). 11 There is an ironic parallelism between YHWH’s warning that he will fashion evil/disaster (‫רעה‬ . . . ‫ )יוצר‬against his people and devise a plan (‫מחׁשבה‬ . . . ‫)וחׁשב‬ against them (v. 11), and the peoples’ self-descriptive response ‘We will follow/ go after our own plans (‫ )מחׁשבות‬and act according to the stubbornness of each one’s evil heart (‫( ’)ׁשררות לבו־הרע‬v. 12). 12 Note that v. 20 suggests that they have dug a pit ‘for my life’, suggesting not merely capture but also destruction, and then the description of the pit as designed for capture in v. 22 is embellished by the claim of v. 23 that in all of this they have been ‘plotting to kill’ the prophet. 13 Compare the similar dynamic operative in Psalm 35, especially vv. 7–8: ‘For without cause they hid their net for me; without cause they dug a pit for my life. Let ruin come on them unawares. And let the net that they hid ensnare them; let them fall in it – to their ruin’. 14 O’Connor cites Jeremiah 20:1–6; 26:1–24; 32:1–25; 37:11–21; and 38:1–6, observing that these captivity and opposition themes surface within the laments as well (cf. 11:18–23). She explains, ‘The many captivity stories about [Jeremiah] show him to be a complex literary presence who again represents his people and stands against them’ (O’Connor 2012, 34). 15 For examples of interpretations that stress sexually violent overtones here, see (Heschel 1969, 113–14; Crenshaw 1984, 38–39; Macwilliam 2015). Arguments for translations involving less violent sexual overtones, such as ‘enticed’ or ‘seduced’, may be found in (O’Connor 1988, 70–71; Smith 1990, 23–26). 16 A similar dynamic is reflected in Shelly Rambo’s powerful discussion of the wound of racism in the light of both trauma theory and Christian theology (Rambo 2017, 71–107). Drawing upon the work of Wendell Berry and Willie James Jennings (among others), Rambo develops the image of a soothing bandage as an attempt to ‘cover up’ the insidious wound of racism in a way that fails (or refuses) to name and face its ongoing effects. 17 Central to Culp’s argument is the idea that vulnerability is an ‘enduring feature of creaturely existence’ as opposed to a ‘temporary condition that can or ought to be overcome’ (Culp 2010, 3; see also pp. 94, 103).

Bibliography Becker, Eve-Marie, Jan Dochhorn, and Else K. Holt, eds. 2014. Trauma and Traumatization in Individual and Collective Dimensions: Insights from Biblical Studies

56  Jonathan D. Bentall and Beyond. Studia Aarhusiana Neotestamentica 2. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Boase, Elizabeth, and Christopher G. Frechette, eds. 2016a. Bible Through the Lens of Trauma. Atlanta: SBL Press. ———. 2016b. ‘Defining “Trauma” as a Useful Lens for Biblical Interpretation’. In Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, edited by Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, 1–23. Atlanta: SBL Press. Carr, David M. 2014. Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins. New Haven; London: Yale University Press. Caruth, Cathy, ed. 1995. Trauma: Explorations in Memory. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. ———. 1996. Unclaimed Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Carvalho, Corrine L. 2017. Reading Jeremiah: A Literary and Theological Commentary. Macon, GA: Smyth & Helwys. Crenshaw, James L. 1984. A Whirlpool of Torment: Israelite Traditions of God as an Oppressive Presence. Overtures to Biblical Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Culp, Kristine A. 2010. Vulnerability and Glory: A Theological Account. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Frechette, Christopher G. 2015. ‘The Old Testament as Controlled Substance: How Insights from Trauma Studies Reveal Healing Capacities in Potentially Harmful Texts’. Interpretation 69 (1): 20–34. Heschel, Abraham Joshua. 1969. The Prophets: Volume 1. New York: Harper Torchbooks. Janzen, David. 2012. The Violent Gift: Trauma’s Subversion of the Deuteronomistic History’s Narrative. LHBOTS. London: T & T Clark. Jones, Serene. 2009. Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Macwilliam, Stuart. 2015. ‘The Prophet and His Patsy: Gender Performativity in Jeremiah’. In Prophecy and Power: Jeremiah in Feminist and Postcolonial Perspective, edited by Christl M. Maier and Carolyn J. Sharp, 173–88. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. Moberly, R.W.L. 2006. Prophecy and Discernment. CSCD. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013. Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. O’Connor, Kathleen M. 1988. The Confessions of Jeremiah: Their Interpretation and Role in Chapters 1–25. Atlanta: Scholars Press. ———. 2010. ‘Reclaiming Jeremiah’s Violence’. In Aesthetics of Violence in the Prophets, edited by Chris Franke and Julia M. O’Brien, 37–49. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark. ———. 2012. Jeremiah: Pain and Promise. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Rambo, Shelly. 2010. Spirit and Trauma: A Theology of Remaining. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. ———. 2017. Resurrecting Wounds: Living in the Afterlife of Trauma. Waco, TX: Baylor University Press. Schreiter, Robert J. 2016. ‘Reading Biblical Texts Through the Lens of Resilience’. In Bible Through the Lens of Trauma, edited by Elizabeth Boase and Christopher G. Frechette, 193–207. Atlanta: SBL Press.

Struck down but not destroyed 57 Smith, Mark S. 1990. The Laments of Jeremiah and Their Contexts: Preliminary Observations About Their Literary Interplay in Jeremiah 11–20. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Sonnet, Jean-Pierre. 2016. ‘Writing the Disaster: Trauma, Resilience and Fortschreibung’. In The Fall of Jerusalem and the Rise of the Torah, edited by Dubovský Peter, Jean-Pierre Sonnet, and Dominik Markl, 349–56. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Stulman, Louis. 1998. Order Amid Chaos: Jeremiah as Symbolic Tapestry. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press. Stulman, Louis, and Hyun Chul Paul Kim. 2010. You Are My People: An Introduction to Prophetic Literature. Nashville: Abingdon Press. Unterman, Jeremiah. 1987. From Repentance to Redemption: Jeremiah’s Thought in Transition. Sheffield: JSOT Press.

5 Traumatic speech and the rejection of narrative in Lamentations David Janzen

Introduction: collective and psychological trauma When traumatic events shake a community to its core – events such as the genocide of the Holocaust, or, to take an example from the biblical world, the Babylonian destruction of Judah in the sixth century BCE, following an 18-month siege of Jerusalem that ended in starvation and the city’s destruction – the social group will find a need to explain the events. One could see, to take the biblical example, how Judeans who managed to survive siege, starvation, destruction, mass slaughter, and rape might begin to doubt basic aspects of their social worldview, such as their God’s control of historical events and the status of the elite groups who made such claims about the divine and whose authority was rooted in it. If a society in this situation is unable to find any way to explain what has happened then, some of its members could conclude, its basic understanding of the world must be wrong, and they would begin to abandon it and their allegiance to its elite groups, forming splinter groups or joining other communities. In this sort of context we can see why it would be important for communities to create narratives that explain the events by appealing to aspects of a shared worldview, or perhaps by altering aspects of the social worldview in order to provide what community members would understand as an adequate explanation. Such explanations need to assign blame for the traumatic events, and so will identify perpetrators as well as victims, and if they are widely accepted then they will maintain or re-create social solidarity and keep the group from falling apart. This focus on the explanatory strategy taken by groups to grapple with traumatic events is representative of the approach sociologists often use when studying such situations (e.g., Neal 1998; ­Eyerman 2001; ­Alexander 2012; and the essays in Eyerman, Alexander, and Breese 2011); what we could call social or collective trauma is the creation of a ‘master narrative’ meant to maintain or alter social identity in the wake of traumatic events, something that can have the result of maintaining or recreating social solidarity (Alexander 2012, 16–17). This is very different, however, than the kind of interest that literary criticism, history, and other academic fields have in regard to trauma,

Traumatic speech in Lamentations 59 for their focus lies in the non-experience of some of the victims of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), who were overwhelmed by traumatic events – things such as exposure to warfare, rape, mass killings, and torture – that they have not truly experienced or known. In neurobiological terms, the dorsal vagal complex, part of the parasympathetic nervous system, is activated as a response to traumatic events, and in practical terms this means victims can neither fight nor flee, and that their awareness of the event is shut down, closing off experience of it (van der Kolk 2014, 54–55, 60–62, 80–84). Nor do all victims of psychological trauma truly remember the event, since traumatic ‘memories’ can be encoded as dissociated fragments, sensations, images, and sounds associated with it, which is not the way the body normally processes sensory information (van der Kolk 2014, 175–76). Normal memories change over time because with new experiences one’s sense of self changes, and that means older memories have to change to accommodate this evolving understanding of who one is, but, for some, traumatic memories have not been stored as normal ones have and do not change, and the original lack of experience of the event means that there cannot be a clear awareness of the trauma for the victim, and the ‘memories’ cannot form part of their autobiographical sense of self. In some cases, then, this dissociation is the key feature of psychological trauma: victims do not remember the trauma, but relive it in fugue states or other kinds of flashbacks as the brain secretes chemicals in response to a danger that is no longer present, and at such a point there is no distinction between past and present for the victims (van der Kolk 2014, 66–69). After the First World War, Freud noticed something like in this in soldiers who experienced combat, for he observed that their dreams were governed by literal repetitions of traumatic events rather than the pleasure principle (1956–1974a, 12–14). In fact, in 1919, at the same time that he and other analysts were writing about what they called the ‘war neuroses’, he also composed a short piece on the uncanny, something that repeats involuntarily, seems inescapable, and that makes one feel as if the self is haunted (1956–1974b). This dissociation is not present in all cases of PTSD (American Psychiatric Association 2013, 275), but insofar as a failure of experience and memory can be a defining aspect of massive psychological trauma, it is this uncanny, dissociative nature of psychological trauma that makes it the antithesis of collective trauma, which is a narrative explanation by and for the social group. Because psychological trauma was not experienced by victims in such cases and does not form part of their memories, it is not something they can situate as part of their autobiographical narratives of who they are and what they have undergone. The psychologist Henry Greenspan refers to conversations with a Holocaust survivor who told him that his story about the Holocaust ‘is not a story. It has to be made a story. In order to convey it. And with all the frustration that implies’ (2010, 3 [emphasis in the original]). Collective and psychological trauma are not two species of the same

60  David Janzen genus, they are two entirely different things, for the first depends on narrative and the second is what Greenspan calls a ‘not-story’ (4). This distinction proves helpful as readers try to make sense of what they find in the book of Lamentations. Here they encounter multiple voices, some attempting to advance narratives that explain the horrific suffering of the survivors of the Babylonian siege and destruction of Jerusalem,1 others giving voice to their pain. As readers make their way through Lamentations, the overall impression is not one of a coherent explanation for suffering, but of explanations that appear fragmented and contradictory and that drown in the sea of suffering that repeats over and over from voice to voice. Readers of Lamentations encounter these explanations as trauma victims might, as things that do not provide them with enlightenment and that cannot silence and close off their pain, which recurs again and again as the uncanny return of trauma. Some scholars advance what Miriam Bier calls ‘theodic’ readings of Lamentations, which is to say interpretations that portray the book as a whole as a theodicy that makes narrative sense of the survivors’ suffering (see Bier 2015, 12–19), while others argue for what Bier calls ‘anti-theodic’ interpretations, and see Lamentations as a condemnation of the divine (2015, 19–24). Yet Lamentations is neither one nor the other, not fully; it provides readers with some voices trying to advance narrative explanation, and even shows trauma sufferers trying to accept them, only for these narratives to fall away or contradict themselves, replaced by the suffering that readers encounter again and again, rather as victims relive the uncanny return of trauma.

Trauma’s rejection of narrative in Lamentations Lamentations 1–2 The five poems of Lamentations are clearly marked off from one another through the use of alphabetic acrostics that structure the first four of them; if we were to take the first letter of the first word from each of the verses in Lamentations 1–2 and 4, we would have the Hebrew alphabet presented in order, from ’ālep to tāw. Lamentations 3 presents a slight variation in this regard, for 3:1, 2, and 3 each begin with ’ālep, 3:4, 5, and 6 with bêt, and so on, until 3:64, 65, and 66 each begin with tāw. And while this clear demarcation of the poems by means of the acrostic might suggest that we should examine them individually, it makes sense to read Lamentations 1–2 as a unit since we find the same two speakers in both, whereas the speakers change in succeeding chapters. One of the two voices in Lamentations 1–2 is normally referred to as the narrator, and his speech alternates with that of Zion, a personification of Jerusalem and its surviving inhabitants. Almost all of the speech in 1:1–11 comes from the narrator, who provides an explanation for Zion’s suffering: ‘Yhwh made her suffer for the greatness of her iniquities’ (1:5), he says; ‘Jerusalem sinned greatly, therefore she has

Traumatic speech in Lamentations 61 become a lament’ (1:8). Zion is the perpetrator of the traumatic events that have occurred, although not the only one, since the narrator also condemns her enemies, who have acted treacherously (1:2), laughed at Zion’s suffering (1:7), and entered the sanctuary contrary to divine command (1:10). Yet Zion is victim as well as perpetrator of the collective trauma the narrator creates, and he in fact has much more to say about her suffering than her guilt. Judeans have become forced labour in exile (1:3, 5), and Zion is now like a widow (1:1) who weeps bitterly (1:2), for her leaders have fled (1:6), enemies have raped her (1:8, 10)2 and entered the divine sanctuary (1:10), while the people starve (1:11). As Zion begins to speak at the end of 1:11, she has much to say about her suffering, and sometimes repeats ideas the narrator has already raised. Like him, she says in 1:12 that God has made her suffer (cf. 1:5), in 1:13 that she is ‘desolate’ (cf. 1:4), in 1:14 that she is in the enemy’s hands (cf. 1:10), in 1:19 that her people are starving and in search of food to restore their lives (cf. 1:11), and in 1:16 she says she weeps (cf. 1:2), agreeing in 1:16 and 1:21 that she has no one to comfort her (cf. 1:2, 9). And as she repeats and accepts the narrator’s description of her suffering, she accepts as well his explanation that it results from divine punishment for her sin, and Zion says even more about this than the narrator does. Like him, she refers to her ‘iniquity’ and agrees that God punished her because of it (cf. 1:5 and 22). She says that she has rebelled against God’s command, and claims that God is ‘righteous’ (1:18),3 and in each verse from 1:12 through 1:15 refers to different ways that divine punishment was enacted upon her. And beyond her acceptance of the explanation that her past sin caused her current suffering, in the final three verses of the first poem she looks to the future, urging God to punish her enemies, since they too have done evil (1:22). ‘Let them be like I am’, she asks, and may this be done ‘on the day you have announced’ (1:21), her plea reflecting the Day of Yhwh language found in biblical references to divine warfare (see Dobbs-Allsopp 2004, 35–39). Lamentations 1 by itself forms a nice example of the collective trauma discussed in the introduction, where a narrative of explanation is created, identifying victims and perpetrators of the traumatic events, and Zion’s acceptance of it suggests to readers it actually can result in social solidarity; the voice of Zion refers to a future when the community of her survivors still exists, if only so they can witness the torture of their persecutors. This collective trauma, however, does not survive the speech of the two voices in the next poem. The narrator opens Lamentations 2 with a reference to God’s ‘day’, yet here it is not the day of the punishment of Zion’s enemies that the city so ardently desired at the end of Lamentations 1, but ‘the day of his anger’ in which God punished Jerusalem (2:1). The narrator’s speech dominates Lamentations 2, and it is notable not only for his continued focus on Zion’s suffering caused by the day of divine anger – ‘the day’ Zion’s enemies longed for (2:16), the narrator says – but also for his complete abandonment of his earlier explanation for it. In Lamentations 2, the narrator

62  David Janzen and Zion can speak only of her suffering, and so their agreement as to the explanation for it has failed to stop trauma from repeating, and there is no sense here that there is any future without it. The narrator’s speech, in fact, repeats aspects of Zion’s suffering readers have already encountered in the previous poem: he says in 2:3–4 that Yhwh has burned in Zion like a fire, repeating Zion’s claim from 1:13; says in 2:6 that the festivals are no longer celebrated in Jerusalem, something he had referred to in 1:4; repeats in 2:9 his earlier claim in 1:6 that Zion’s princes have gone into exile; laments the rejoicing of the enemy in 2:15–17 as Zion had in 1:21; and his references to famine in 2:11–12 and 19 are even more graphic than in 1:11, for now he discusses children starving to death in the streets. The collective trauma of Lamentations 1 has been abandoned in Lamentations 2 as psychological trauma uncannily repeats and displaces it entirely. The narrator does refer to Zion’s ‘iniquity’ in 2:14, but only in the context of describing the ‘false and deceptive visions’ the divine world sent to the prophets to prevent them from confronting Jerusalem’s inhabitants so they might change their ways and avert the calamity. Zion speaks only in the final verses of the poem, and only to repeat aspects of the suffering – ­starvation and slaughter ‘on the day your anger’ (1:20–22) – that readers have already encountered at numerous points, as psychological trauma intrudes into the victims’ lives yet again. Zion accepted the narrator’s explanation in ­Lamentations 1, but no part of it recurs in this poem as both voices ignore it entirely; the future ‘day’ Zion desired in 1:21 has become ‘the day’ of her trauma that repeats imagery of past suffering as it recurs in the present. As much as Zion wishes to accept it, explanation has failed to provide her with a future that she can truly believe will be any different than the traumatic past she continues to relive. Lamentations 3 There is no scholarly agreement as to how many voices are speaking in Lamentations 3, in part because the poem offers fairly different perspectives on Jerusalem’s suffering, and in part because it uses both a first-person singular a first-person plural narratorial voices, but the chapter reads perfectly well if we see a single speaker, the one who identifies himself in 3:1 as ‘the man’, someone who dialogues with himself about Jerusalem’s suffering and can even use the first-person plural at points to speak for the community who suffers with him (Bier 2015, 150–54). This poem is central for the ‘theodic’ readers of Lamentations who understand the book as an explanation of the theodicy behind the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem (see Linafelt 2000, 2–13), and while we see the man trying to embrace collective trauma, narrative explanation in the chapter is portrayed as something incoherent and unable to displace the suffering that repeats again in his speech. In fact, 3:1–20, the opening of the poem, is dominated by the man’s description of his suffering, and some of this articulation of pain repeats

Traumatic speech in Lamentations 63 aspects of Zion’s that readers have already encountered. God has ‘bent his arrow’ against him (3:12), he says, using the same words the narrator does to describe Jerusalem’s suffering in 2:4 in the context of describing divine enmity against the city. He has been made ‘desolate’ (3:11) and is haunted by his ‘affliction’ (3:1, 19), repeating Zion’s and the narrator’s descriptions of the city and its suffering (1:3, 4, 13, 16), and all of this is the result of divine ‘fury’ (3:1 and 2:2). Yet the chapter can hardly be seen only as another example of trauma’s uncanny return in the book, for the man’s perspective seems to undergo a radical shift in 3:21–41, where he provides an explanation for this suffering, one reminiscent of wisdom literature (e.g., Boase 2008, 463–64). The community has been responsible for evil, the man says in 3:34–36, crushing prisoners and perverting justice; God does not willingly inflict the suffering the man has described (3:33), but apparently had no choice under these circumstances. Nonetheless, he says, he has hope (3:21, 24, 29), because the community can depend on God’s steadfast love and mercy (3:22, 31–32), and he urges his fellows to ‘search out and examine our ways and repent to Yhwh’ (3:40). One can indeed see why theodic readings of Lamentations would identify this section of the chapter as key to their overall interpretations of the book, but the man immediately complicates his wisdom-influenced speech by going on to say in 3:42–51, the third section of the poem, that ‘we have transgressed and rebelled, but you have not forgiven’ (3:42). He has just implied that an end to suffering depends on repentance and an appeal to the divine (3:40–41), but now says that this is not possible because ‘you wrapped yourself in a cloud so no prayer can pass through’ (3:44). As soon as he has finished articulating the basis of his hope for an end to suffering, the man goes on to contradict it, repeating a point he had made in 3:1–20, the hope-less first part of his speech – ‘I call and cry out; he shuts out my prayer’ (3:8) – and in 3:42–51 he returns to imagery of suffering and grief, although now extending it to encompass that felt by all of Jerusalem’s inhabitants. And again, readers have seen some aspects of this description in Lamentations 1–2, for the man says that God has ‘killed’ (cf. 3:43 and 2:21) and not spared (3:43 and 2:2, 17, 21), while his eyes pour out water, just like the narrator’s and Zion’s (3:48 and 1:16; 2:11), because of ‘the destruction of the daughter of my people’ (3:48 and 2:11). The man does not deny his people’s sin in 3:42–51, but he does contradict the earlier basis of hope in the midst of suffering, and readers see a repetition of descriptions of pain that they have already encountered. The man’s outlook on his plight changes yet again in the final section of the poem, 3:52–66. Here he begins with a reference to some event from his past when his enemies hunted him ‘for no reason’ (3:52) and he found himself near death (3:53–54), but God responded to his plea for help and saved him (3:55–58). In the poem’s concluding verses, he asks that God observe his current plight and destroy his enemies, who are still rising against him (3:59–66). He has clearly returned to the more hopeful mood of 3:21–41, but in 3:52–66

64  David Janzen he does not simply repeat the basic ideas of that earlier section of his speech, for in the past event to which he refers, his enemies acted against him ‘for no reason’. In 3:21–41, however, he had said he and his community were guilty of the same perversion of justice to which his enemies are currently subjecting him, for 3:35–36 and 3:58–60 refer to a lack of justice (Hebrew mišpāṭ), use the Hebrew root ‘āwat in the sense of perversion of justice, and say there has been a failure to adequately adjudicate the rîb ‘lawsuit’. In 3:35–36 the man says that he and his community were responsible for these failings and are suffering the punishment for them, whereas in 3:58–60 the man says he is the innocent victim of this perversion of justice and is calling upon God with confidence to set things right and punish the wrongdoers. So the case is not that Lamentations 3 has nothing to say about theodicy, but that it has nothing consistent and coherent to say about it. In 3:21–41, the man advances a standard ancient Israelite/Judean explanation for suffering as the result of punishment for sin, saying that God does not willingly act to induce suffering, and so locates hope in repentance and divine mercy (although he immediately moves to undercut this hope in 3:42–51). In 3:52–66, the man says he suffers ‘for no reason’, and locates hope in divine justice. If he truly believes that the community is guilty, as he claims in 3:21–41, then his speech of 3:52–66 cannot be a basis of their hope. We see him struggle with different ways of making sense of Jerusalem’s great suffering, but he is unable to reconcile these competing and incompatible explanations of collective trauma, and there is no narrative or divine voice to pass a judgment one way or the other. Perhaps Jerusalem is guilty and God will respond to repentance, or perhaps God is impossible to reach and the suffering will go on forever. Perhaps the people are innocent, as the man says he was in 3:52–66, and God will save them as God saved the man in the past. But if the people suffer ‘for no reason’, and if God makes them suffer, then God is like the enemy the man describes in 3:52–66, hardly an impossible conclusion since in 3:12 the man has already repeated language used by the narrator in 2:4 when the narrator referred to God as acting like an enemy. Narrative explanation in Lamentations 3 collapses not because there is no explanation but because there are incompatible ones between which the man makes no effort to distinguish. The consistency readers do see is the repetition of suffering encountered already in Lamentations 1–2; attempts to explain it, however, seem like a problem that has no resolution. The man seems as attached to his contradictory explanations as Zion did to the one offered to her in Lamentations 1, but because they are contradictory what readers see is something like the experience of trauma victims who find no explanation or closure for the trauma that uncannily repeats in their lives. Lamentations 4–5 The two poems of Lamentations 4–5, like Lamentations 1–2, also present readers with two speaking voices, in this case a narrator and a communal

Traumatic speech in Lamentations 65 voice of survivors of Jerusalem’s trauma, and here too we find the uncanny return of trauma and victims struggling to accept contradictory explanations of their suffering, only to see these narratives fail to provide closure and so disappear beneath the weight of expressions of pain that we have encountered elsewhere. The narrator dominates the speech of Lamentations 4, interrupted only briefly by the communal voice in 4:17–20, but it is the community who speaks alone in Lamentations 5. Like the narrator of Lamentations 1–2, the narrator of Lamentations 4 spends much more time describing Jerusalem’s suffering than providing explanations for it, and some aspects of the description repeat ones readers have already come across, most horrifically the starvation of the children in the streets (4:1–4; cf. 2:11–12, 19) and women so hungry they eat their own offspring (4:10; cf. 2:20). But the narrator uses the Hebrew words ḥaṭṭa’t and ‘ăwōn three and four times, respectively (4:6, 13, 22), and both of them can refer to sin and to its punishment, suggesting the narrator has some interest in linking these ideas to the suffering he describes. However, what explanation he does provide reminds us of the situation in this regard in Lamentations 3, for he says both that the sin of Jerusalem’s priests and prophets explains what happened (4:13–15) and that the failure of the people to honour the priests was responsible (4:16). Yet if the priests did what was evil, why would it be a sin to refuse to honour them? It is not impossible that these two ideas could be reconciled, but the narrator makes no attempt to do so, and so, as in Lamentations 3, what readers encounter are attempts to solve the problem of Jerusalem’s suffering that fail in contradiction. That these two contradictory explanations fail to explain and provide closure becomes evident when the communal voice speaks in 4:17–20 and talks only of its suffering. If one desired outcome of the explanation that collective trauma creates is social cohesion, it has failed as far as the survivors are concerned, for they can foresee no future for their community here: ‘our end drew near, our days were fulfilled, for our end had come’ (4:18). The narrator ignores this testimony to psychological trauma, however, and his voice returns in the final verses of Lamentations 4, announcing that Jerusalem’s punishment has come to an end, and that their enemies will suffer instead (4:21–22). Yet the communal voice picks up again in Lamentations 5, and as the survivors alone speak in this final poem they do not mimic the narrator’s confidence in an imminent end to their pain. They offer some brief explanations for their suffering in 5:7 and 16, although like the two the narrator presented in Lamentations 4 they are contradictory, for in 5:7 they blame their ancestors’ sin and in 5:16 they refer to their own, and they make no attempt to relate or resolve these two ideas. Their focus is instead on aspects of their suffering that readers have encountered over and over: they are starving and do not have enough food (cf. 5:4, 6, 9, 10; and 1:11, 19; 2:11–12; 4:3–4, 10); women in Jerusalem and Judah are raped (cf. 5:11 and 1:8, 10); they have become forced labour (cf. 5:5, 13 and 1:1); foreigners have taken their possessions (cf. 5:2 and 1:10); and the list goes on.

66  David Janzen There has been no change in Zion’s condition from Lamentations 1 through Lamentations 5, merely a continual repetition of the same suffering that no explanation has managed to foreclose. Even though in 5:21, the book’s penultimate verse, the community asks God to ‘restore us’ and ‘renew our days’, 5:22 demonstrates that they do not feel that this is likely to happen.4 Ignoring the explanations the narrator tried to offer in Lamentations 4, they focus on suffering, and so readers see instead trauma’s uncanny return, something collective trauma has failed to displace.

Conclusion: the failure of narrative in Lamentations Trauma victims in Lamentations do seem to want to accept narrative explanations for their suffering: Zion quickly adopts the one the narrator offers in Lamentations 1; the man of Lamentations 3 embraces a number of narratives that could make sense of the suffering he and his community have undergone and provide them with hope; and even the communal voice in Lamentations 5 attempts to provide some very brief explanations, yet like those of Lamentations 3 and 4 they are contradictory. Yet at no point can we say that the narrative of collective trauma provides closure for psychological trauma or prevents it from recurring in victims’ lives; in the case of Lamentations 1–2, explanatory narrative simply disappears behind the repetition of psychological trauma, while in Lamentations 4 the survivors ignore the narrator’s attempt to provide them with explanation, an explanation that is in fact an unresolved contradiction, which is what we see in Lamentations 3 and 5. Of those who speak of their own suffering, only the man of Lamentations 3 ends his speech on a positive note, but he has not resolved the problem of the pain that is so prominent in his poem. Lamentations, then, does not present the survivors with a theodicy, or at least not a single, coherent one. The book is not entirely anti-theodic, either, although the text offers no single solution that any of the survivors ultimately accepts. So while some scholars argue that the acrostic structuring of the verses from ’ālep to tāw in the poems of Lamentations 1–4 points to a completeness of explanation, in which everything is explained from A to Z, so to speak (e.g., Johnson 1985, 60–61), the fact is that the speakers of Lamentations 2 simply ignore the explanation with which they had agreed in Lamentations 1 as it is overwhelmed by suffering, and the explanations offered by the speakers in Lamentations 3 and Lamentations 4 are contradictory. In none of the poems does the movement from ’ālep to tāw take readers on a journey from a beginning to an end, from ignorance to knowledge; as the same acrostic sequence repeats, it points to the suffering that repeats over and over from speaker to speaker and poem to poem. Readers get a small sense of what trauma victims often experience: explanation is simply unable to provide closure, for it cannot prevent trauma’s uncanny return. Because in many cases victims do not fully experience or know the events that traumatised them, it is genuinely difficult for trauma survivors to believe what they endured; this is what dissociation entails. So, for example, as an

Traumatic speech in Lamentations 67 epigraph for None of Us Will Return, the first volume of her Holocaust trilogy, survivor Charlotte Delbo writes, ‘Today I am not sure that what I wrote is true. I am certain it is truthful’ (1995, 1). But, therapeutically speaking, it is important that victims use their voices to speak the not-stories of the trauma they cannot truly believe to empathetic listeners who are willing to accept them, even if this is not easy for victims to do. Listeners can find the stories so difficult to hear that they can act to impede the testimony or blame the victims (Laub 1992, 72–73; Herman 1992, 7–8), and we certainly see speakers in Lamentations doing the latter. Social groups striving to create solidarity in the wake of traumatic events may well find it easier and more convenient to impose their narratives on the group and silence the voices of the traumatised, since the explanation of collective trauma will only create communal unity if it is widely believed; it would obviously be important for social solidarity to bring closure to trauma and insist victims will soon have no reason to voice their traumatic suffering, since trauma stands in the way of belief. And for the traumatised it is often easier to cling to narratives they cannot truly believe than speak their not-stories of horrifying events in an act of telling that can lead to re-traumatisation (Laub 1992, 67–68). Even some therapists working with US veterans of the Vietnam War were guilty of imposing narratives over and silencing their patients’ testimonies to trauma, replacing them with stories more amenable to the US narrative of the victorious warrior, and so impeding the therapy (Tal 1996, 147–53). Lamentations does not reflect a process of therapy but it does provide readers with a picture of survivors giving voice to their trauma and rejecting any coherent explanation for it, not because they do not want to accept such a thing but because they cannot.

Notes 1 It is scholarly consensus that Lamentations was composed in the wake of Jerusalem’s destruction; for evidence that points to this dating, see Parry (2011, 66–78). 2 The reference in 1:8 to the enemy seeing Zion’s nakedness is widely understood to refer to the rape of the populace; for the vocabulary of 1:10 as also indicating rape, see Dobbs-Allsopp and Linafelt 2001. 3 And depending upon the original text one reconstructs in 1:20, we could see another instance there of Zion admitting to rebellion against Yhwh, since that is the reading of the Masoretic text. See Parry 2010, 63–64. 4 5:22 opens with the Hebrew phrase kî ’im, and it can be understood a number of ways. We could translate it with the sense of ‘although’, and in that case the survivors are asking God to restore them, ‘although you have utterly rejected us, are extremely angry with us . . .’ (Gordis 1974). We could translate it as ‘if’, and in this case the plea for restoration trails away in unresolved ellipsis: ‘if you have utterly rejected us, are extremely angry with us’ (Linafelt 2001). We could translate it as ‘instead’, and so read it as introducing a statement that juxtaposes reality with the plea for change in 5:21: ‘instead [of restoring us, as we have just asked,] you have utterly rejected us, are extremely angry with us’ (Williamson 2008, 73–74). In even the most hopeful interpretation of 5:22, the survivors feel it is unlikely God will act; in the most pessimistic reading they assume God’s anger precludes divine action on their behalf.

68  David Janzen

Bibliography Alexander, Jeffrey C. 2012. Trauma: A Social Theory. Cambridge: Polity Press. American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association Publishing. Bier, Miriam J. 2015. “Perhaps There Is Hope”: Reading Lamentations as a Polyphony of Pain, Penitence, and Protest. Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies 603. London: Bloomsbury. Boase, Elizabeth. 2008. ‘Constructing Meaning in the Face of Suffering: Theodicy in Lamentations’. Vetus Testamentum 58: 449–68. Delbo, Charlotte. 1995. Auschwitz and After. Translated by Rosette C. Lamont. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W. 2004. ‘R(az/ais)ing Zion in Lamentations 2’. In David and Zion: Biblical Studies in Honor of J. J. M. Roberts, edited by Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts, 21–68. Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns. Dobbs-Allsopp, F.W., and Tod Linafelt. 2001. ‘The Rape of Zion in Thr 1,10’. Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 113: 77–81. Eyerman, Ron. 2001. Cultural Trauma: Slavery and the Formation of African American Identity. Cambridge Cultural Social Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eyerman, Ron, Jeffrey C. Alexander, and Elizabeth Butler Breese, eds. 2011. Narrating Trauma: On the Impact of Collective Suffering. Yale Cultural Sociology Series. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. Freud, Sigmund. 1956–1974a. Beyond the Pleasure Principle. In Vol. 18 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey. 24 Vols, 7–64. London: The Hogarth Press. ———. 1956–1974b. ‘The Uncanny’. In Vol. 17 of The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, edited by James Strachey. 24 Vols, 219–52. London: The Hogarth Press. Gordis, Robert. 1974. ‘The Conclusion of the Book of Lamentations (5:22)’. Journal of Biblical Literature 93: 289–93. Greenspan, Henry. 2010. On Listening to Holocaust Survivors: Beyond Testimony. 2nd ed. St. Paul, MN: Paragon House. Herman, Judith Lewis. 1992. Trauma and Recovery. New York: Basic Books. Johnson, Bo. 1985. ‘Form and Message in Lamentations’. Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 97: 58–73. ­ estimony: Laub, Dori. 1992. ‘Bearing Witness, or the Vicissitudes of Listening’. In T Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History, edited by ­Shoshana Felman and Dori Laub, 57–74. New York: Routledge. Linafelt, Tod. 2000. Surviving Lamentations: Catastrophe, Lament, and Protest in the Afterlife of a Biblical Book. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ———. 2001. ‘The Refusal of a Conclusion in the Book of Lamentations’. Journal of Biblical Literature 120: 340–43. Neal, Arthur G. 1998. National Trauma and Collective Memory: Major Events in the American Century. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Parry, Robin A. 2010. Lamentations. THOTC. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. ———. 2011. ‘Lamentations and the Poetic Politics of Prayer’. Tyndale Bulletin 62: 65–88.

Traumatic speech in Lamentations 69 Tal, Kalí. 1996. Worlds of Hurt: Reading the Literatures of Trauma. Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. van der Kolk, Bessel A. 2014. The Body Keeps Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Viking. Williamson, Robert, Jr. 2008. ‘Lament and the Arts of Resistance: Public and Hidden Transcripts in Lamentations 5’. In Lamentations in Ancient and Contemporary Cultural Contexts, edited by Nancy C. Lee and Carleen Mandolfo, 67–80. Society of Biblical Literature Symposium Series 43. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

6 Abide in me A Johannine theology of resilience Andrew J. Byers

My charge in this chapter is to discern and articulate a theology of resilience1 from the writings of one of Christianity’s most celebrated and influential theologians, the ‘John’ behind the Gospel and Epistles bearing his name in the New Testament.2 The approach is straightforward and consists of two major sections, one on adversity in Johannine thought and one on the resilience such adversity requires. In the first section, an overview of the hostility endured by Jesus and envisioned for his followers in the fourth Gospel will be followed by reflections on the adversity faced by the addressees of 1–2–3 John. Having identified and examined the reality and nature of hardship and distress within these writings, the next major section of the chapter will consider Johannine resources and practices for enduring antagonism, suffering, and trial.

Evil and ‘the world’: adversity in the Johannine literature Resilience is only definable if there is also adversity – without danger or threat, there is no need for an adaptive and enduring response. In Johannine perspective, ‘the world’ is often portrayed as a hostile domain infiltrated by the powers of cosmic evil that believers must inhabit while becoming ‘one’ with the Word, Jesus, who receives the full brunt of that realm’s hostility. There is no Johannine coddling of the reader. Though the fourth evangelist penned grand assurances in lofty language, he did not do so without a sobering honesty about the inevitability of suffering, social exclusion, and even death Christians may experience at the hands of malevolent forces personified in ‘the devil’ or ‘the evil one’ and with whom human beings often collude (intentionally or unintentionally).3 Beginning ‘in the beginning’ with the Prologue, we will first examine the narrative development of adversity as a major Johannine motif, move on to consider adversity in the Farewell Discourse, then turn to the contexts that gave rise to the Johannine Epistles. Adversity in the Prologue Though the narrative’s denouement is left undisclosed with no direct mention of the cross and empty tomb, biblical scholars are largely agreed that

Abide in me 71 John’s Prologue offers a succinct and poetic compression of the Gospel’s narrative ark and thematic content (e.g., Carter 1990; Hooker 2005). Readers are instantly confronted with a divine figure, the Word who is coordinated with the identity of Israel’s God in an unmistakable literary parallel with Genesis 1. Just as the opening of Genesis is eventually darkened in chapter 3 by opposition to the divine order, so also the Prologue of John acknowledges adversity as early as verse 5: ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it’.4 Dualism is a noted feature of John’s Gospel, and its first appearance is the thematic literary footing on which the principal theme of adversity is built. ‘Dear reader’, John would point out, ‘let there be no mistake – there is darkness’. He would continue with ‘however’ – and this is crucial – ‘it does not overcome the One who is the Logos, the Life, the Light’. Adversity lies at the heart of the first instance of Johannine dualism, and is also depicted in the first use of Johannine irony, another common literary feature, which is epitomised in verses 10–11: ‘He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own place, and his own people did not accept him’. As co-Creator, the Logos (Word) should find the cosmos (world) a natural and receptive habitat. Yet the created realm fails to recognise this divine agent of creation. Johannine adversity has been named in cosmic language, first ‘darkness’, then ‘world’ (κόσμος). But in verse 11, the opposition becomes more personal: ‘he came to his own place, and his own people did not accept him’. There are two uses here of ‘his own’. The first is τὰ ἴδια in the Greek, a plural neuter form that can mean ‘his own things’ or ‘his own place/homeland’. The next use of ‘his own’, οἱ ἴδιοι, is the masculine plural form of the same word meaning ‘his own people’ or even ‘his own family’. Adversity, therefore, has sharpened in focus throughout the first 11 verses of the Prologue, sequentially disambiguating from the abstract entity of ‘darkness’ to the generic realm of the ‘world’ to the less generalised geographical domain of ‘his own’ (plural neuter), and finally into ‘his own’ (masculine plural), a collective unit of humanity indicating an ethnic or kinship group (Byers 2017, 49–59). Darkness, the primeval principal of opposition, can be spatialised in both cosmic and physical spheres, and also embodied in human groups. Johannine adversity is an ironic reality that is both cosmological and concrete. Continuing on into the Prologue, we learn that Light and Life can also be embodied in a human group. An alternative social unit is brought into being through the positive reception of the Word in the world: But to as many who received him – to those who believed in his name – he gave them authority to become children of God, those who were born, not out of blood or out of the will of the flesh or out of the will of a husband, but out of God. (John 1:12–13)

72  Andrew J. Byers This new social unit is explicitly described as ontologically divine and alien to the adversarial realm of ‘the world’. They are born not by natural means but ἐκ θεοῦ, ‘out of God’. Implied here, and more directly articulated later in the narrative proper, is that the hostile realm of the world is inhabited by members of a new family born out of God through Jesus, a divine figure against whom darkness is ever poised. Adversity is inevitable because mortal humans who believe in Jesus are thereby born out of God and into the world that rejects his divine Son. After the Prologue, adversity is evident in the antagonistic questions posed to John the Baptist. In the call narrative that immediately follows, Jesus forms a community around him as disciples, named and unnamed, are resocialised into a new group. In the following episodes, the Prologue’s motif of adversity is emplotted along a series of sharp confrontations between Jesus and ‘the Jews’, the epithet given to the collective group of his fiercest opponents and normally to be identified with the Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem and its immediate environs.5 How Jesus himself endured threats, risks, and dangers that ultimately led to his crucifixion will be addressed briefly near the end of the chapter. For now, we turn to the ‘Farewell Discourse’ in John 14–17 to learn how this adversity from the Jews and from the related and wider sphere of the world will affect Jesus’ followers, the members of this new divine family. Adversity in the Farewell Discourse In John 13, the reader is not only jolted by the sudden deceleration of narrative pace but also by the sudden change in physical location. From Jerusalem’s noisy public streets, John quickly ushers his audience into a more intimate scene in which the final words of Jesus to his disciples are shared over a meal. Yet before any speech or action occurs, the collusion between human characters and supernatural evil becomes more personal, and thus more painful, with the evangelist opening the entire scene on this discordant note: ‘the devil had already put it into the heart of Judas son of Simon Iscariot to betray him’ (13:2). After the foot washing and during the supper, we read that ‘Satan went into him’ (13:27). Judas’ fateful exit is marked by the terse, foreboding line, ἦν δὲ νύξ (‘and it was night’ – 13:30), recalling the idea of from the Prologue’s cosmic language of adversity-as-darkness. The ‘ruler of the world is coming’, Jesus will later explain with stark sobriety in 14:30. Much of the material in this Farewell Discourse constitutes Jesus’ ‘testament’, his final words as a dying man, which he issues to his compatriots at the very point in the narrative when the hostile powers of evil are intensifying their aggression. In fact, it is when his lengthy address to the disciples ends that he must succumb to the adverse powers arrayed against him: ‘Jesus said these things, and lifting his eyes to heaven he said, Father, the hour has come’ (John 17:1).

Abide in me 73 As darkness casts a shadow over his own immediate fate, Jesus is not equivocal about the inevitability of adversity and the corollary need for resilience among his followers: If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before you. If you were out of the world, the world would love you as its own. But because you are not out of the world – because I have chosen you out of the world – for this reason the world hates you. Remember the word that I spoke to you, “A servant is not greater than his master.” If they persecuted me, they will persecute you. (John 15:18–20b) He continues in chapter 16: They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God. And they will do this because they have not known the Father or me. (John 16:2–3 NRSV) Hatred, persecution, social expulsion, execution – such is the adversity awaiting the disciples. A tumultuous crisis is at hand. Jesus knows that within hours he will be taken away from his friends through violent force. He knows that in this particular act of adversity, his disciples will demonstrate no resilience: ‘the hour is coming and has now come, when you will be scattered, each to his home, and you will leave me alone’ (16:32). Yet beyond this imminent danger he envisions for his friends a shared life of corporate resilience as a divinely generated community. Though they will fall away in that evening, these disciples are called to bear fruit, resilient fruit – that is, ‘fruit that will last’ (15:16). And in the face of these hardships, Jesus explains that his disciples ‘are to bear witness’ (15:27). They are to remain faithful to their vocation of witness-bearing to Jesus in spite of the inevitable adversity of hatred, persecution, social exclusion, and death. As will become clear, such faithfulness will be resourced in their new identity as God’s children, re-originated from the heavenly realm, assisted by the Holy Spirit, and supported by a kinship with one another that runs deeper than blood (1:12–13). Adversity in 1, 2, and 3 John That the resilience envisioned for his disciples did actually become a reality beyond Jesus’ death and resurrection is evidenced in the Johannine letters, which attest to a network of communities nurtured in a stream of theological convictions common with the Gospel.6 The cosmic sources of adversity

74  Andrew J. Byers are the same: the world (‘do not be amazed . . . if the world hates you’ [1 John 3:13]) and the devil (‘the entire world participates in the evil one’ [1 John 5:19]); but the actual conflicts experienced by the Johannine ­Christians are posed by different characters and groups than in the Gospel, some from within and some from without. The antichrist and antichrists, presented in both individual and collective terms, threaten the theological and therefore also the social integrity of the network. It becomes clear in 1 John 2:19 that the antichrists have been an internal threat, and the resilience of community life has been undermined because their partisan ideas have effected a relational split.7 In 3 John, we discover a specific individual who poses another internal threat. Diotrephes, who ‘loves to be first’ (v. 9), has instigated adversity within the leadership structure of the Johannine churches and has directly challenged the authority of the author. On the other hand, outside dangers are posed by parties of traveling ‘deceivers’, perhaps related to the antichrists, whom the Elder warns against hosting lest their false teaching adulterate Johannine theology (2 John 7). Adversity, therefore, leads to three potential negative outcomes that ‘the Elder’ of these Epistles seeks to avoid by urging adaptive faithfulness under pressure (that is, resilience): moral failure, social schism, and distorted Christology. Repeatedly, and in circular patterns, he warns against sin.8 For the brand of early Christianity expressed in 1 John, sin is equated with more than unbelief, as emphasised in the Gospel (8:21–24; 15:22; 16:8–11), and seems chiefly embodied in ethical terms as ignoring, neglecting, hating, and generally failing to love struggling brothers and sisters (1 John 2:9; 3:10–17; 4:20–21). Closely related to moral failure is the cohesion of the community. Throughout each Epistle scholars have detected a palpable anxiety over the prospect of social disintegration. Leadership disputes (as in the case of Diotrephes) cannot remain unchecked, and warnings must be issued to ward off those who would split the network apart from within or without. Finally, it is the anticipation of a distorted Christology that most energetically inspires the calls for faithfulness and endurance. If the twisted teachings of errant leaders or misleading spirits are entertained, the entire project of Johannine Christianity might be lost.

A Johannine theology of resilience Having surveyed the theme of adversity throughout the Gospel and letters of John, focus now turns in this second major section of the chapter to articulating a concise survey of a Johannine theology of resilience. Three subsections follow devoted to this end. In the first, I identify four modes of resilience that are of chief importance for this early Christian literature: moral, relational, missional, and theological. These modes are not heuristically abstract classifications that help limn and define resilience theologically; for the Gospel and Epistles of John resilience is eminently practical. The second section will therefore consider Johannine strategies and resources

Abide in me 75 for building and sustaining resilience when Christian individuals and communities find themselves under duress. Finally, in the third section i discuss how these insights find coherence in the Johannine concept of abiding. Modes of resilience in John and the Epistles Resilience is a theme that can be categorised in the Johannine literature through the four previously mentioned modes, all related and ultimately inseparable. Moral resilience is demanded since habitual sin and unethical actions or inactions lead to social fracture and personal collusion with darkness, hence the repeated calls to both believe and to love one another. This moral resilience is made possible only because of divine activity manifested in two respects: (1) Jesus – the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29) – is both the propitiation for sin (1 John 2:2; 4:10) and an advocate for sinners (1 John 2:1); and (2) in some way believers are made divine beings in whom ‘God’s seed’ dwells, supernaturally empowering a life without sin (1 John 3:9). Since the community John envisions is a divine family born of God, sin invalidates the foundational reality of its identity. Hence the need for moral resilience. Along similar lines is the mode of relational resilience. The Gospel’s theme of oneness implies more than merely a charitable unity in which church people generally ‘get along’. Oneness, rather, is a theological reality grounded in the Shema’s claim that ‘God is one’ (Deut. 6:4) and linked to the corporate humanity of the ‘one flock’ (10:16) that dwells within the interrelation of the ‘one Father’ (8:41) and the ‘one Shepherd’ (10:16), both of whom are simultaneously ‘one’ with each other (10:30) (Byers 2017, 150–52, 199). Relational resilience is fundamental for Johannine theology since the children of God are an earthly expression of divine relationality. Jesus’ prayer ‘that they may be one’ (17:11, 21–23), the commandment to love (John 15:12; 1 John 3:23; 4:2; 2 John 5), and the recurring motif of social cohesion in the Epistles collectively testify to the significance of this mode of resilience. Missional resilience is a third mode. It was earlier mentioned that the fruit produced by the disciples in their vocational service should be fruit that endures (John 15:16). John is clearly writing towards a legacy: just as Jesus’ disciples entered into the enduring labours of others (John 4:38), their participation in those labours should be resilient enough that future followers may take up the same ongoing mission beyond their lifetimes. In spite of the departure Jesus predicts will follow his last meal with his friends, there is the expectation that they will reassemble and take up the work of the Father that began in Jesus and that they are commissioned to continue. The Father sent Jesus, and Jesus in turn sends his disciples into the adverse realm of the world (John 17:18; 20:21), the domain of evil powers (John 12:31; 16:11; 1 John 5:19) and the source of constant distraction (1 John 2:15–17). In the face of such adversity they are called to missional resilience, bearing durable

76  Andrew J. Byers fruit and faithful witness in spite of ostracism, synagogue expulsion, harassment, and even death.9 Theological resilience is a fourth mode, the one in which all the others inhere since Johannine ethics, relationality, and mission are all ultimately sourced in God and revealed in Christ before becoming actionable in the life of a community. John cannot envisage a faithful expression of ecclesial life – in all its moral, relational, and missional dynamics – apart from a faithful theological vision. As noted earlier, irony is at home with this literary corpus, so it is perhaps unsurprising that sound theology secures resilience and yet it is John’s theology that incites the adversity necessitating resilience. Returning to the Prologue, the evangelist seeks to modify a dominant idea of God by complicating Jewish commitments to monotheistic worship, including the Logos within and alongside the Creator of scriptural tradition. It is this sort of Christology that both provokes the onslaught of cosmic darkness yet also sustains believers who enter the light that darkness cannot comprehend or overcome. It is the relationship the believers enjoy with the Father and the Son that enables this resilience (the relational mode), yet that relationship hinges on the confession of Johannine orthodoxy (the theological mode) that Jesus is from the Father (1 John 2:20–27; 4:15; 5:5; 2 John 9). As mentioned, moral resilience is firstly theological since it is the divine power of God that generates believers into new creations who are thereby able to live out the ethical vision of Johannine Christianity. The missional mode is also grounded in theological resilience since God and Jesus alone are the agents of sending. The work to which believers are called is ultimately divine work, ‘the works of God’ (John 6:28–29; 9:3). Given the heated nature of the theological debates with ‘the Jews’ in the Gospel and the frequent charges to maintain a proper Christology in the Epistles, theological resilience is both the primary objective and the means of achieving it in Johannine theology. How might contemporary readers operate within these modes? Theological resources for developing Johannine resilience Though more could surely be identified, I consider in this section six theological resources for developing and sustaining resilience found in the Johannine literature. Why ‘theological’ resources? As noted, the Epistles emphatically assert that Johannine orthodoxy, particularly in the area of Christology, is critical for the survival of Johannine communities. Resilience is an emphatically theological idea resourced out of John’s complex theological riches. To begin, the first theological resource within these texts for promoting resilience is a sober honesty that adversity is both real and inevitable. Along with every other New Testament writer, John makes no attempt to gloss over, ignore, or whitewash the hazardous nature of Christian devotion and discipleship. Inescapable risk attends belief in Jesus. Christians shaped by a serious reading of the New Testament will be conditioned for a life of

Abide in me 77 danger and adversity and at least conceptually trained to understand that human flourishing is not secured through risk avoidance but, at least at times, through risk acceptance. Honesty about suffering is thus a key Johannine strategy and resource for resilient communities and individuals. There is no ‘helicopter discipling’ taking place around Jesus’ table. Though the Good Shepherd guards and guides, he does not overprotect or overindulge. In the Farewell Discourse, Jesus – the Good Shepherd who is about to lay down his life – assures his followers that his own blood will not be enough to sate the wolves. Those wolves will want more blood, the blood of those who have taken the flesh and blood of true food and true drink. Hatred, persecution, social expulsion, execution – these await, yet your fruit should last (John 15:16). And ‘you . . . are to bear witness’ nonetheless (15:27). So, very simply, Jesus promotes resilience in his community by tempering expectations and worldview, warning that adversity is unavoidable. As we hear from Jesus in John 16, ‘in the world you will have tribulation’ (v. 33; see also 16:1, 4). A second resource for resilience in John’s Gospel and Epistles is a hardwon theological conviction of an already-but-not-yet eschatology. Before the Gospels were penned, and in the face of ostensibly insurmountable power wielded by an ostensibly undefeatable regime, faithful Hebrews and early Jews lashed themselves to the wild and unseen hope that their God is indeed so good, just, merciful, and strong that surely his decisive action in bringing justice and deliverance is merely delayed. Early Christians adapted these Jewish eschatological schemes and reworked them Christologically. John and Paul are perhaps the most forthright theologians of what biblical scholars refer to as a ‘partially realized eschatology’ (see the discussion in Koester 2008, 175–86). For John, the phrase ‘the hour is coming, and is now here’ encapsulates the already-but-not-yet tension of eschatological hope: The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in Spirit and truth. (John 4:23) The hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. (John 5:25) The resurrection of Lazarus foreshadows Jesus’ own resurrection, both of which serve as signs that the new age of new creation and comprehensive redemption has leapt backward from the future and into the present sphere. New creation is also underway in 20:22, when the resurrected Christ breathes into his disciples just as God breathed into the clay that became Adam in Genesis 2:7. Though at times John has been accused of promoting an over-realised eschatology, the already-but-not-yet is held in firm tension

78  Andrew J. Byers in both the Gospel and in 1 John.10 The believers’ resilience hinges on the ability to hold on to future eschatological hope amidst present eschatological reality. Jesus assures them that ‘in my Father’s house there are many dwelling places . . . and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also’ (14:2–3). But in the meantime, there is some supernatural, otherworldly reality of divine goodness and strength that they experience, access, and know in the present: ‘the darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining’ (1 John 2:8). In Johannine idiom, the two primary expressions of this present eschatological reality are ‘eternal life’ and ‘peace’. This eternity-life, the life of the age to come, is granted to the believer within the sphere of this world, a mystery articulated by Jesus in this way to Martha: ‘Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die’ (11:25b – 26). This life flourishes within the sphere of death (this present age) and sustains beyond death. Related to this eternitylife is the alien peace of Christ: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid’ (14:27; cf. 16:33). Christians can endure the onslaught of adversity in this world because they abide in an alien peace and live in the eternal, supernatural life of the age to come. This partially realised eschatology accounts for a hopeful realism, a paradigm of understanding and experiencing reality that develops and sustains resilience. A third theological resource for the fostering of resilience is the communal support of a divine kinship group. Though belief in Jesus generates a destabilising realignment of social ties, it ultimately leads to membership within a new family. As we have seen, believers are children of God who enjoy kinship with the Father and the one and only Son, Jesus. John does not promote an individualist self-reliance, a personal trait often valorised in Western culture.11 With Johannine ecclesial language so emphatically grounded in corporate and social metaphors, there is no expectation that Christians can be resilient on their own. ‘I will not leave you orphaned’, Jesus tells them (14:18), and each believer is known ‘by name’ (10:3) as members of a wider communal unity, whether construed as the Good Shepherd’s flock or as an interconnected vine in which faithful branches abide. The familial language is arguably the most consistent and dominant ecclesial rhetoric found across the Gospel and the Epistles, and inclusion within this supportive filial network ensures resilience in the face of social ostracism. A fourth means of securing and nurturing resilience is the presence of the Holy Spirit. This ‘Advocate’ (παράκλητος) is sent to those enduring adversity in following the post-Resurrection Christ. Essential to maintaining resilience in Johannine perspective is faithful remembrance of and abiding in the teachings of Jesus. The disciples are informed in the Farewell Discourse that the Paraclete will ‘teach you everything and remind you of all that I have

Abide in me 79 said to you’ (14:26) and ‘guide you into all the truth’ (16:12). The Spirit does not whisk believers away from hostility or vaporise their assailants. His role is not to eliminate adversity. This ‘Spirit of truth’ convicts the world of sin and testifies on behalf of Jesus – he is a figure who operates amidst conflict. Fulfilling such purposes through the disciples requires him to enable their continuous witness-bearing to the truth that so endangers them. Resilience, therefore, derives from the presence of Jesus in the Paraclete. Johannine Christians are also resourced for resilience by the fourth Gospel’s example of Jesus’ own resilience in the face of pain and grim adversity. Two exemplary scenes deserve particular attention. The first is found in John 11, where Jesus is standing outside the tomb of his dead friend, Lazarus. ‘Jesus wept’, we read. He does not cry gentle tears. This is not merely tender compassion. The Greek words here indicate a violent, guttural pain that may well be tinged with anger as well as grief, anger at the power of death and over the mortal sense of loss. This uncomfortable scene illustrates the nature of Christlike resilience in the face of grief and pain. It is not stoic. There is no installation of a potentially unhealthy coping mechanism like the hardening of one’s heart. The resilience of Jesus is one that fully absorbs the collision with pain. There is an honest appropriation of the emotions of adversity. Jesus weeps. . . but he also endures. A second scene that illustrates Christ-like resilience is found in John 12 when, in spite of intense apprehension, he embraces his fate with resolve and also with sober cognition of what awaits: Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say – “Father, save me from this hour?” No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name. (John 12:27–28a) There is no Gethsemane scene in John as in the synoptic gospels. It is here in John 12 that we find Jesus wrestling with his fate. His soul is troubled, yet he will not opt out. He will not hold back, turn back, or walk away. He prays, not for overprotection or overindulgence, but for the glorification of the Father’s name through his resilience, through his faithful endurance of the ‘hour’ that has now come. Indeed, it would seem that the motivation to glorify the Father is the primary source of Jesus’ resilience. The Johannine significance of maintaining resilience through a devotion to the Father’s glory is affirmed later in chapter 12 when we learn that those who were not resilient, who held back and did not follow through in their belief in Jesus, did so because ‘they loved human glory more than the glory that comes from God’ (12:43). Following on the heels of this discussion, a sixth Johannine resource for encouraging resilience is the transfiguration of suffering into glory.12 In John, Jesus is a creative theological interpreter of his impending trials

80  Andrew J. Byers and appalling end. His suffering is infused with such powerful meaning, with such meaningful power, that the hammer blows of adversity cannot be understood as just another Roman victory over yet another seditious criminal, his flame dismissively extinguished by the unassailable strength of imperial authority. As the narrative grinds with locomotive certainty towards ‘the hour’ from which he prays no prayer of deliverance, the victorious events of the resurrection and ascension are of a piece with the torture and abject humiliation of his death. As Richard Bauckham points out, John does not follow the standard Christological progression found elsewhere in the New Testament in which humiliation precedes exaltation (Bauckham 2015, 43–62). The punishing degradation of the cross is itself fused into the idea of glorification (see John 12:32–33). This transfiguration of suffering into glory is surely exemplary for all followers of the brutalised-yet-glorified Christ who are called to resilient service. John offers comfort in the midst of hardship and hostility. It is not the sort of empty consolation that is often offered in the public grief of secular society, and it is certainly not the false solace often extended by well-meaning yet ultimately malpracticing church leaders who have nothing to say in the face of death and disaster but rosy platitudes. What John offers is a lifegiving well of thick, theological resources. Abiding as the practice of Johannine resilience Such theological resources give rise to a number of practices that can be adopted into the life of a Christian community nurtured by this ancient body of literature. Sound theology requires the practice of active thinking and disciplined obeying; the faith that overcomes the world requires active believing; the communal life that sustains its individual members requires loving; and the relationship with the Paraclete requires interactive praying. Each of these practices come to mind as natural outworkings of a Johannine theology of resilience. They can all be compressed into one practice, however – that of abiding. John’s use of the verb μένω (menō) is multi-layered, the metaphorical implications spanning the activity of inhabiting or dwelling within the divine presence to remaining permanently affixed to a growing vine. This abiding language indicates that resilience is not self-generated. There is no expectation placed on the readers to dig down deep within their own mortal reserves of inner strength to overcome the adversity that assails them. Resilience is ultimately a divine gift. This reality necessitates the continual practice of dwelling within the Father and Son who in turn abide within the believer, a mutual co-abiding that comprises a continual orientation towards the guidance of the Paraclete and a constant participation within the wider community framework of the vine, a vine that is lovingly cultivated by the Father as a gardener delighting in the health of what he himself has planted.

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Conclusion: Johannine resilience and pastoral ministry today Theology is at times charged with being ‘esoteric’ and ‘abstract’, its findings more suitable for lofty discourses conducted within ivory towers. So does the foregoing study on Johannine resilience have any application for contemporary and earthy contexts? Confident that a text arguing that ‘the Word became flesh’ (John 1:14) holds promise for embodied and practiced theology, I close on an anecdotal note in response to my self-imposed question. While undertaking doctoral research, I served as the chaplain to St Mary’s College at Durham University. I entered this role with seven years’ experience of university student ministry, but found myself increasingly alarmed at the lack of resilience among the emerging adults under my pastoral care. I fielded a number of serious pastoral concerns during my two-and-a-half years as chaplain, but I found that many students were having a hard time simply facing up to what I would deem easily surmountable challenges of the normal daily grind. Admittedly, older generations are often guilty of viewing more youthful demographics with an anxious fascination that is as fearful as it is judgmental (and emerging adulthood, even if fairly new as a sociological category, has surely always posed its challenges). Even so, these observations as a former chaplain and minister to emerging adults have resonance with an increasing number of studies claiming that a healthy transition into adulthood requires the development of resilience that, for many young people, often seems insufficient (Masten, Obradović, and Burt 2006; O’Connor et al. 2016). In fact, some claim that an alleged absence of the personal and group resource of resilience among Western millennials is significantly burdening colleges and universities that face the potential of damaging lawsuits from parents and students should courts deem them guilty of insufficient handholding or deficient in offering institutional frameworks for effective coping mechanisms (Gray 2015). Why this supposed lack of resilience? Contrary to the wisdom of the Johannine literature, one reason may be the denial or at least the avoidance of adversity, reflected in parenting techniques and styles that so overprotect children that they never mature through encountering serious challenges (in such cases, one could say that the protective factors for coping with difficulty are at times too protective) (Furedi 2017). Whether millennials are more resilient than condescending baby boomers and Gen-Xers have claimed is a live and ongoing question. Though degrees of resilience may be mapped along generational lines, analytically or anecdotally, resilience itself is a universally significant trait for human flourishing and well-being regardless of age and demographic location (which includes, of course, the often neglected social group of millennials who are not university students). Into these ongoing and complex concerns, I propose that, if resilience is constructive adaptability and positive endurance

82  Andrew J. Byers in the face of adversity, John’s Gospel and Epistles are a meaningful ancient source for our contemporary age. The Gospel portrays a Logos who enters a hostile cosmic realm and generates a new family that is no longer of that world but must endure life – and enjoy it ‘abundantly’ (John 10:10) – in that world, a world under the sway of dark forces. As society becomes increasingly secularised, we tend to become less honest about the reality and nature of evil, which most certainly seemed be the case for students under my pastoral care. Though ancient texts are often viewed by Western elites as arising from less sophisticated cultures than our own, John’s unapologetic recognition that there is darkness may be salutary for modern societies that are tempted to deny the prospect of cosmic realities and thus offer thin resources for understanding evil, enduring it, and being redeemed from it. Read with a theologically robust hermeneutic that is sensitive to the demands and challenges of contemporary as well as ancient culture, the Johannine literature equips us for adverse challenges with its raw honesty and extends to us the offer of eternal life as we turn to the one who loves, yet conquers, a darkened world.

Notes 1 I am working with the definitions and clarifications of the term ‘resilience’ found in Cook and White 2018. 2 The Gospel is written anonymously, and the John of the Epistles may not be the same as the Gospel writer. Even so, I will use the name ‘John’ to refer to the author of the Johannine literature. 3 At times, especially in 1 John, the Greek adjective for evil (πονηρός) is turned into a substantive (ὁ πονηρός), leading many interpreters to the translation of ‘the evil one’ (see John 17:15; 1 John 2:13, 14; 3:12; 5:18, 19). 4 All translations from the Johannine literature are my own, unless otherwise stated. 5 For a helpful discussion on the recent debate over the identity of ‘the Jews’, see Thatcher 2017. 6 Though the debate is ultimately irresolvable, most scholars assume that these epistles were written after the Gospel (see Parsenios 2014, 11–13). 7 This schism, mentioned in 1 John 2:19, has opened a tiny seam in history, affording a glimpse into the circumstances and thus providing scholars with some raw data for crafting varying hypotheses of the background occasioning both the Gospel and the Epistles. 8 The author, somewhat confusingly, writes that believers do not sin (1 John 3:9– 10), and yet points to Jesus as an advocate for those who do (2:1) and as the propitiation that effects forgiveness (2:2; 4:10). Many scholars, therefore, take ‘sin’ within 1 John to refer to a persistent, ongoing, and habitual act. 9 For John as a missional text, see Gorman (2018). 10 For eschatological convictions in 1 John, see 2:8, 18–19, 28; 3:2–3; 4:17–18. 11 There has been a trend in New Testament scholarship of viewing John individualistic in ecclesial and soteriological outlook. For a more nuanced view, see Bauckham 2015, 1–19 and the section in Byers 2017, 5–7, 179. 12 For Jesus’ suffering as his glorification, see John 12:16, 23, 28; 13:31; 17:1.

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Bibliography Bauckham, Richard. 2015. Gospel of Glory: Major Themes in Johannine Theology. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Brower Latz, Andrew. 2010. ‘A Short Note Toward a Theology of Abiding in John’s Gospel’. Journal of Theological Interpretation 4 (2): 161–68. Byers, Andrew J. 2017. Ecclesiology and Theosis in John’s Gospel. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series, 166. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Carter, Warren. 1990. ‘The Prologue and John’s Gospel: Function, Symbol and the Definitive Word’. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 39: 35–58. Cook, Christopher C.H., and White, Nathan H. 2018. ‘Resilience and the Role of Spirituality’. In The Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health, edited by Dinesh Bhugra et al., 513–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Furedi, Frank. 2016. What’s Happened to the University? A Sociological Exploration of Its Infantilisation. London: Routledge. ———. 2017. ‘Why Millennials Are So Fragile?’ In ‘Minding the University’. January 2. Accessed March 19, 2018. www.mindingthecampus.org/2017/01/ why-millennials-are-so-fragile/. Gorman, Michael J. 2018. Abide and Go: Missional Theosis in the Gospel of John. Eugene, OR: Cascade. Gray, Peter. 2015. ‘Declining Student Resilience: A Serious Problem for Colleges’. Psychology Today, September 22. www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ freedom-learn/201509/declining-student-resilience-serious-problem-colleges. Hooker, Morna D. 2005. ‘Beginnings and Endings’. In The Written Gospel (FS, Graham Stanton), edited by Markus Bockmuehl and D.A. Hagner, 184–202. ­Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Koester, Craig R. 2008. The Word of Life: A Theology of John’s Gospel. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans. Masten, A.S., J. Obradović, and K.B. Burt. 2006. ‘Resilience in Emerging Adulthood: Developmental Perspectives on Continuity and Transformation’. In Emerging Adults in America: Coming of Age in the 21st Century, edited by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett and Jennifer Lynn Tanner, 173–90. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. O’Connor, Meredith et al. 2016. ‘Positive Development and Resilience in Emerging Adulthood’. In The Oxford Handbook of Emerging Adulthood, edited by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, 601–14. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Parsenios, George L. 2014. First, Second, and Third John. Paideia Commentaries on the New Testament. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. Thatcher, Tom. 2017. ‘John and the Jews: Recent Research and Future Questions’. In John and Judaism: A Contested Relationship in Context, edited by R. Alan Culpepper and Paul N. Anderson, 3–38. Resources for Biblical Study 87. Atlanta: SBL Press.

7 Complements to the notion of human resilience Paul’s first letter to the Thessalonians as a test case1 Steven J. Kraftchick Introduction The question, ‘How can the writings of St Paul help contemporary counsellors and ordinary people gain and enhance their capacities for resilience?’ would seem simple enough. To answer it one would simply search Paul’s letters for terms about resilience, create an orderly set of sentences, integrate the sentences and present this pattern as ‘Paul’s Formulae for Resilience’. However, after several such attempts it becomes evident that this ‘simple’ question and the strategy for answering it is not simple at all. If there is an answer to this question, it requires a more complex formulation and an indirect approach.

Challenges to the objective A number of factors render the initial strategy ineffective, some pertaining to New Testament materials in general, some particular to Paul, and some to the topic of resilience itself. The volume editors note that ‘a growing “obsession” with resilience in Western society is indicative of exactly the inverse – a burgeoning lack of well-being experienced amidst perceived difficulty by those in Western culture at large’ (Chapter 1, this volume, p. 1). To counter this, they suggest that resources from the Judeo-Christian tradition ‘found in canonical texts and the work of theologians through the centuries – can helpfully inform modern discussions of resilience’ (Chapter 1, this volume, p. 2). Agreeing that their contention is feasible, this essay is an initial foray into the canonical Pauline traditions.2 I also realise that setting ancient religious materials next to modern conceptions of resilience faces considerable challenges, two in particular. No technical language in the New Testament First, no technical terms for resilience are found in the New Testament. A concordance search for the term nets no specific references, though terms about persistence, endurance, and proper responses to suffering

Complements to human resilience 85 abound. Typically, one thinks of resilience as immediate reaction to acute stress rather than elongated patterns, but New Testament encouragements towards endurance, persistence, and faithfulness most often refer to longterm existential stances that go well beyond activities usually conceived of as resilience. While these might sometimes be needed for resilience, they are not necessary constituents of it. Further, the Latin root term for the English word ‘resilience’ (resilire) does not appear in the standard Latin translation of the New Testament. Greek terms from the semantic fields associated with resilience occur infrequently. Neither the word ‘ductile’ (elatkos) nor its verbal form (elaunō) occur in the New Testament, and the ancillary word ‘fortitude’ only occurs in Hebrews 11:27, ‘By faith he [Moses] left Egypt, unafraid of the king’s anger; for he persevered (kartereō) as though he saw him who is invisible’. Finally, neither the New Testament nor Paul offer one defining statement about resilience, but rather suggest multiple perspectives that encourage resilient (faithful?) behaviour. No one New Testament document or author exhausts how a community could or should think of that behaviour. In other words, if we seek some definitive answer to our question, we will not find any one particular example of resilience that predicates the others, but multiple constructs that perhaps can be used to create strategies of resilience. This is not to say that the biblical materials cannot be a valuable source for reflecting on the nature of resilience; I believe they can be, but only indirectly. Given the lack of specific terms and the multiple perspectives taken, one must ask about ‘ancillary semantic neighbours’ to resilience to see how the New Testament might be a resource. To find these ‘neighbours’ and interpret them requires consideration of their foundational and specific contexts (often quite different than contemporary contexts), which connect the notions of resilience or fortitude to the matters of Christian faith and hope as particular communal actions.3 Competing notions of ‘resilience’ A second challenge to answering the question arises in the literature of resilience studies, which shows the difficulty in determining the meaning and content of the word ‘resilience’ itself. The term is decidedly amorphous, as are its proffered uses and expected outcomes.4 Deciding which definition should be employed, when, and how, is fraught with complications, whether one is speaking of material objects, ecosystems, or especially when considering human behaviours. While human resilience can be similar to that of ecosystems (as, for instance, when one’s physical body needs to respond to an injurious malady) or manufactured goods, usually it requires more than mere persistence or the capacity to rebound, but includes a coherent and meaningful understanding of existence itself and a matter of volition rather than tropism.5

86  Steven J. Kraftchick

Two approaches to the Pauline materials Mindful of these challenges, we might approach the Pauline materials in two ways: by considering Paul as a prime example of a resilience or, recognising the unique position Paul held as apostle, turning to his instructions to congregations as they faced internal and external adversities. There are good reasons for following the first direction, but the second more likely provides helpful corollaries to resilience. Paul as example Sometimes Paul does advise his churches to imitate him, although not often (1 Cor. 4:16; 11:1; Gal. 4:12; Phil. 3:17; and 1 Thess. 1:6, 2:14). However, when he does, he points away from his own abilities, directing congregants to rely on the power of God, so that ‘imitate me’ is better understood as ‘follow my manner of trusting in God’s Christ, in particular in the Crucified as the source of power and strength’. Nowhere is this clearer than in the letter to the Philippians, when Paul exhorts the community, likely distressed by his imprisonment and pending death, to ‘obey him’ not just when he is present, but even more in his absence, and so to ‘work out your [pl.] salvation’. However, this ‘working out’ is predicated upon the paradigm of individual and communal existence established by God through Christ (1:6), for ‘God is at work in you [pl.], enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure’ (2:12–13). There is almost no time period in which Paul did not experience extreme resistance to his work, and he does not shy away from repeatedly pointing to these adversities, whether from human opponents including other missionaries, (2 Cor. 11:5–15; Gal. 2:4–10; 6:11–16; Phil. 3:2–16; 2 Cor. 1:8–10; Phil. 1: 1–11), spiritual forces (1 Cor. 2:6–8; 2 Cor. 2:11; 4:1–6; 11:14; 12:7; 1 Thess. 2:18), or the physical restraints of travel, weather, and his health (Phil. 4:10–19). (Cf. the hardship catalogues in 1 Cor. 4:8–13; 2 Cor. 4:7–12; 6:4–10). However, the presentation of these challenges is not to show his own resources but to remind his readers of their shared understanding that the world is about to undergo radical transformation, and that the suffering he and others experienced is a function of this upheaval, created by God’s victory over death (2 Cor. 4:16–18).6 Many Pauline texts reflect this, but Romans 5:1–11 aptly summarises many of Paul’s deepest convictions, especially those he wishes to have imitated: Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint

Complements to human resilience 87 us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. (Rom. 5:1–5) Four aspects of this passage apply to our topic. First, right relational status before God already exists: ‘having been made righteous with God’ ‘we have [present tense] peace’. Second, the ‘rightwised’ relationship is not predicated on human behaviour, but on the ‘faithfulness of Christ’, explicitly stated in verse 6, ‘For while we were still weak, at that time, Christ died on behalf of the ungodly’ (cf. also 5:8–10). Despite having neither the capacity nor the right of status with God, it has been granted to humans through Christ’s death. Third, Paul includes ‘even more’ clauses (vv. 10–11): ‘having been reconciled by his death we will be saved by his life’ and ‘We boast even in our afflictions (θλίψεσιν)’.7 For Paul human existence is not placid, but a continuum of flux and friction. Rather than ignore or succumb to afflictions, Paul locates them in God’s ultimate redemption of the cosmos. Based on God’s steadfastness and the assured hope of future redemption (Rom. 8:18–30), the temporary suffering of the present human condition is made purposeful. Paul demonstrates this through the spiral chaining of suffering to endurance, to character, and to hope, which, returns one to hope’s basis, God’s love, ‘that has been poured out (perfect tense) into our hearts through the Holy Spirit’. Finally, Paul refers to ‘boasting’ twice in this passage. The term is important for Paul, occurring 34 times in his letters, almost always to create a contrast between boasting in human achievement or capacity and boasting in the unmerited mercy and care of God. Paul is clear, the first type of boasting demonstrates a misunderstanding of the fragility of human existence and our radical dependence on God and others for our very survival. The second form reflects appreciation for all God has and will provide for sustaining life and an understanding that we are not independent selves, so the idea of ‘self-reliance’ is misguided both in understanding God and ourselves (1 Cor. 1:26–31; 2 Cor. 10:17; 11:30; and Gal. 6:14). For Paul, the human is not resilient because of some inner will, some innate strength, or moral competency. Resilience in the face of suffering, set back, and trauma is therefore a function of trust in the God who redeems the ungodly – that is, in unmerited acceptance by God. It is a cultivated habit of faith, not a capacity to be called upon by force of will. In sum, Philippians 2 and Romans 5 (along with Phil. 2:5–11; 3:4–11; 2 Cor. 1:1–14; 4:16–5:11) provide insights into Paul’s personal example of resilient endurance in the face of adversity and failure, which can provide a framework for conceiving individual resilience within a Christian belief stance. They are listed here: 1 Fundamentally, Paul’s resilience is a lived expression of his belief/ trust that God has acted deliberately and definitively in sanctioning Jesus by raising him from the dead. This overturns all other human

88  Steven J. Kraftchick interpretations of Jesus and establishes the pattern of Christ’s humility before God on behalf of others as the source of real power for human life. The release from securing oneself is simultaneously a release from procuring power or protecting oneself from others who have it. This frees one from bondage to ‘success’ on the world’s stage. 2 This is tied to hope, both in the present and for the future, in the God who has and will act to procure the future. This establishes meaning for present circumstances, which in turn makes responding to them meaningful. One is not trapped by nor doomed to one’s prior actions or present circumstances but comprehends them as temporary moments on the way to something more. 3 Paul’s resilience is not a function of self-reliance, but reliance on the power of God and subsequently the experience of this power (often referred to as the Spirit) with others in community. Paul speaks most often of selves as part of communities. The self is neither responsible only to itself nor defined only by itself, but always in relationship, first to God and then to other members of the community. There is more to our existence than we can see, and resilience requires locating oneself as part of an entity rather than as an isolated individual being. 4 Finally, resilience is not a capacity summoned to face a crisis, it is a habit developed through the recognition that afflictions are not the exception, but the norm. Trust in the gospel story inevitably leads to friction with the surrounding society, but through communal care and compassion as exemplified in the Christic narrative, a community can flourish. Paul locates himself and his afflictions within this narrative, as he does his congregations. They and he are acting as entities that embody the story they tell. Resilience is, therefore, an expression of their individual and corporate belief that the story is true, as it is undergirded by the Creating and sustaining God.8 While this approach helps one understand Paul’s remarks, the ‘Paul as exemplar’ perspective is limited because of Paul’s unique calling. He was the Jewish apostle to the Gentiles, with a specific and unique status, one not shared by his congregants or anyone else (cf. 2 Cor. 4: 7–15).9 Thus, his particular actions and stances are different from ordinary lives, including our own. We may derive some overall convictions from them, but not the specific responses to the stresses of his apostolic call. Thus, we should look at these components through a different lens to make them particularly pertinent for our exploration, namely as the theological framework for interpreting Paul’s specific instructions to a given community. In this case, the church in Thessalonica.

Why First Thessalonians? First Thessalonians lends itself as a test case for conceiving ‘Christian’ resilience for a number of reasons: (1) it is a discrete, relatively short letter,

Complements to human resilience 89 enabling us to explore Paul’s remarks in light of the entire document; (2) it was written relatively soon after Paul’s departure from Thessalonica and based on Timothy’s report about their spiritual well-being (3:1–10), reflecting basic questions about everyday existence; and (3) the letter is ‘emotionally warm’ and ‘theologically cool’.10 As a nascent and small community, the Thessalonian assemblies were fragile and uncertain what courses to follow as they faced the challenges and struggles prompted by their new beliefs. To be a Christ community likely meant social ostracisation for abandoning the civil practices of worshipping Roman gods, which could be considered treasonous (2:14–16), causing serious consternation and doubt about the facticity of their religious claims (2:17–3:5). Thus, the question of remaining part of the community was ever present. Further, allegiance to ‘one and only one God’ would mean new considerations of worship and ethics, and the specifics of both were not known. Finally, the death of their own community members, despite their belief that Christ had conquered death, challenged the core of Paul’s preaching itself (4:13–18). All of these threaten the continued existence of the new community, and Paul needed to respond to them. Paul did not speak directly to ‘being resilient’, but the general instructions in the letter may provide components that enable resilience to occur – in particular, his exhortations to holiness or spiritual existence. Interestingly he evokes ‘holiness’ indirectly by (1) recalling and reciting their new identity as ‘beloved by God, chosen by God’ (1:4–5) who had turned from idols to serve a ‘living and true God’ (1:9–10); (2) reminding them that their eschatological hope was a confirmed reality (4:13; 5:8); (3) connecting this hope to full relationship with God, Christ, and their fellow believers (4:13–18); and (4) and commending communal practices that reinforced the other three: rejoicing, praying, and giving thanks (5:16). Overall, he hoped to demonstrate that persistent and effectual faith was best expressed and understood as a life that ‘pleases God’ or, better, one that practices the virtue of holiness. This concern for sanctity is confirmed by the fact that the letter opens and closes with statements about holiness, first with respect to what creates it and then with respect to its future forms (1:6; 5:23). Thus, the letter’s narrative moves from the memory of God’s past actions to a hope based on God’s future actions, suggesting that Paul’s strategy for establishing the community’s resilience requires identifying its past and present in light of its future. Hagiasmos (sanctity, holiness) and its cognates run through the letter, linking its introductory thanksgiving to the apologetic materials in Chapter 2, the moral instructions in Chapter 3, and the eschatological awareness in Chapters 4 and 5. Sanctity (hagiasmos) as virtue Raymond Collins observes that the term hagiasmos ‘is a nomen actionis, it designates the process of sanctification rather than the result of the

90  Steven J. Kraftchick process, for which the New Testament authors reserve the noun hagiosunē’ ­(Collins 1984, 309). Both terms occur in 1 Thessalonians (hagiosunē, 3:13; ­hagiasmos, 4:3, 4, 7), and both are relatively rare in the New Testament (three and seven times respectively). The appearance of both terms is significant for determining Paul’s concerns and goals for the letter, which is clear from the pervasive use of ‘holiness’ language throughout. In addition to these terms Paul also employs ἅγιος, 1:5, 6; 3:13; 4:8; 5:26, 27; ἁγιάζω, 5:23; and ἁγιασμός, 4:3, 4, 7, and, if one allows the semantic expansion of the term to include language that implies ‘sanctification’, all sections of the letter are concerned with this matter. Even in Chapter 2, semantic elements of this domain are present when Paul recalls his speech that sought to please God (2:4), his pure, upright, and blameless conduct as he urged the Thessalonians to ‘lead a life worthy of God’, as well as when he depicted those who opposed his preaching, as ‘they who oppose God’ (2:15). Clearly, the matter of proper relationship and conduct before God is a pressing concern in the letter. Collins goes on to note that ‘ “holiness” was attributed primarily to God, for whom holiness was a qualifying and supreme quality’ (Collins 1984, 309). Paul, as a confirmed Jew, would have maintained this truth and perspective. Thus, as Collins further notes, since holiness is consistently used with respect to God and that which belongs to him, it is difficult to take “your sanctification” [4:3] simply as the object of Paul’s moral demand, as if it were a term belonging to the ethical rather than the religious register. Rather, we should consider that “holiness” retains the basic connotation of divine action – in this case that of a divine activity which is manifest in concrete activity on the part of the faithful. (Collins 1984, 309) As mentioned previously, Paul’s letter opens and ends with statements about the Thessalonians ‘sanctity’ both in the present and in the future, but this is not the only way in which conduct before God is mentioned. Paul also speaks of this as ‘walking’ with (2:12; 4:1, 12), expectantly waiting for (1:10; 5:6, 10), being called (1:4; 2:12; 4:7; 5:24), and loved by God (1:3, 4; 2:8; 3:6, 12; 4:9; 5:8, 13). ‘Sanctity’ is thus a constellation of habit rather than a performance of individual behaviours. That is, ‘holiness’ is not defined by subject, but by approach, the performance and attitude towards all things as from and for God.11 The resilient life is thus a product of a sanctified perspective. Paul is primarily interested in establishing and promoting proper, faithful behaviour, so he repeatedly refers to prior moral teaching and to his desire that they continue in this teaching and cause it to increase. When he offers new instruction in Chapters 4 and 5, this is not simply to inform the Thessalonians about times, dates, or some nicety about the final appearance of

Complements to human resilience 91 the Lord Christ to the earth, but to insist that their current behaviour is an outcome of continued hope in God (1:3; 2:19; 4:13; 5:8) and a recognition that it is part of a cosmic battle which requires ‘military’ vigilance (5:8). This means that faced with adversity, they are not to grieve or despair over the appearances that God’s cosmic enemy is winning this battle (4:13), but to remain faithful to the promise of God that they will be delivered from the wrath that will accompany God’s ultimate victory (1:10; 5:9). Thus, although questions of proper communal behaviour have often focused on chapters 4:1–8 and 5:1–11, we should not neglect the fact that Paul grounds these on a communal perspective that encourages, respects, and seeks to do good for one another. Often these are particular instances of showing love, a term appearing frequently in the letter, but they are also matters of ‘faith’ (1:3, 7; 2:10, 13; 3:2, 5, 6, 10, 14; 5:8). Thus, responses to the challenges of faithful existence, posed both from internal relationships and external criticisms, are always reflections of the larger narrative of God’s character and actions. In other words, Paul’s exhortations to sanctity are instructions for holiness as a habit and lifestyle, not simply particular actions restricted to religious matters – in other words, as virtues, or ‘a good state of affairs’ – and this is the substructure for efficacious responses to the challenges of a faith-based life. Others as paradigms Paul does not only exhort the Thessalonians to this faithful behaviour, he shows it to them by providing exemplars of holiness. That is rather than attempting to define holiness, Paul points at it.12 Numerous examples of holiness are presented including (1) Paul (1:6; 2:1–12, 17; 4:1), (2) the Lord Christ (1:6; 2:15; 4:14; 5:10),13 (3) the Thessalonian community (1:7; 4:9), (4) Timothy (3:1), (5) the churches in Judea who suffer at the hands of their kin (2:14), (6) individual members of the Thessalonian community who lead and care with love for the rest of the community (5:12–13), and finally, (7) God’s-self (see, for example, 4:3–6).14 Interestingly and unlike most of Paul’s letters, Christology remains in the background in this letter, making the divine exemplar definitive. The template for behaviour is presented here as theologically formed rather than Christologically so. This may be only a matter of distinction, but it is important to see how much theo-logical language is used in 1 Thessalonians. Sanctity is tied to the desire, will, action, and motivation of God, and this remains constant throughout the letter.15 In that regard, resiliency becomes a feature of God’s own steadfast responses to humans; that is, God’s own righteousness. The opening statements concerning the Thessalonians (1:9–10) reflect this. They are known as those who ‘turned to the God from idols to serve the living and true God’ (ἐπεστρέψατε πρὸς τὸν θεὸν ἀπὸ τῶν εἰδώλων δουλεύειν θεῷ ζῶντι καὶ ἀληθινῷκαὶ ἀναμένειν τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἐκ τῶν οὐρανῶν). This

92  Steven J. Kraftchick turning distinguishes the believing community from its surrounding social network. Moreover, it is a turning to one, single, true (in the sense of faithful or righteous) God, which is a sharp departure from religions that admit of multiple deities with varying degrees of loyalty. The turning is made sharper because Paul does not say ‘to God from other gods’ but ‘to God from idols’ identifying these ‘deities’ as false realities and non-gods. Adoption of a god was not a strange phenomenon in antiquity, but conversion to a single and sovereign deity was a significant departure from the norm. Thus, the implications of this new relationship to a singular God remained fresh even though Paul had surely taught about them. The radical shift is displayed in ways specific to ownership by the one true God as the statements of servitude to and delivery by God suggest. This is why Paul used traditional Hellenistic Jewish language (‘to turn’ [epistrephō] and the infinitives ‘to serve’ [douleuein] and ‘to wait’ [anamenein], vv.9–10) to define their current faithful existence as service to God to describe their acceptance of the gospel.16 As Boring has noted, ‘The basis of ethics is not an abstract ideal of “the good”, or that which is reasonable, or that which corresponds to the harmony of the universe, or some principle such as the greatest good for the greatest number; instead, it is the personal will of the one God who is the Creator and Ruler of the universe’ (Boring 2015, 141). The dichotomy employed in 1:9–10 recurs at 4:3–8 (one sentence in Greek) through the presented opposition between those who live by ‘holiness and honour’ and ‘the ethnē who do not know God’. Sanctity as the will of God is further explicated by the infinitives used in 4:3–8: ‘to keep’ (apechesthai), ‘to know’ (eidenai), ‘not to wrong or exploit’ (hyperbainein kai pleonektein). This is distinct boundary language, but it is employed for relational rather than juridical purposes, suggesting that ‘holiness’ is a matter of relationship to persons and behaviours, rather than obedience to regulations in and of themselves.17 Throughout the letter Paul points to exemplars of those personal relationships: to those who control the self, who treat fellow community members justly, who accept God’s authority, and who act in holiness and honour. These human believers reflect a correct attitude and response to God and God’s will (v. 3), who will avenge opposition to that will (v. 6),18 and who has given his Holy Spirit to the community of belief. It is evident from this that Paul’s response to the threats on the community is focused on establishing a habitus of ‘holiness’ which is understood as a life of faith, rather than a set of individuated behaviours. Paul has approached this as the ‘life before the true God’ and done so through an indirect ‘pointing’ strategy. Throughout the letter he uses positive, and occasionally negative, exemplars to show (rather than explain) what this life is and to locate the Thessalonians temporally, spatially, and existentially.19 They exist in the end time, during tribulations that will precede the ‘day of the Lord’. They are a called people, but as such, they are ‘aliens’ in what was once their home. Nevertheless, the life to which they are called is one of peaceful coexistence with their neighbours (4:10–12), which displays love

Complements to human resilience 93 and respect for other members of the religious community (4:11–12). This, God has taught them (4:9), indeed Paul refers to it as ‘the will of God’ (4:3), which is also a life of gratitude (5:18). In sum, this is what Paul means when he exhorts the Thessalonians ‘to please God’ (4:1). This becomes the substance of their resilient existence: an understanding of their identity that helps them understand the conflicts it may entail. This is a key element of his exhortation; Paul does not simply recommend behaviours but presents their theological underpinnings. One could suggest that this is the most effective way for exhortations to resilience to proceed as well.

Conclusions I have attempted to read Paul’s letter and its ethical/moral language in light of a form of virtue ethics in order to show how resilience is better understood as a manner of life than as a singular capacity to be summoned when life presents challenges. I suggest that this conception of Paul’s ethical discourses has merit not only for considering 1 Thessalonians but also for understanding other New Testament materials as resources for understanding or enacting resilience. If I am correct, this provides four significant results that help us understand the relationship between Paul’s theological language, his ethical instructions, and resilience as a way of conducting one’s faith life. First, it provides a means by which to understand Paul’s use of exemplars and the value in using them to identify character traits, including those of resilience. They need not all cohere to a specific form of faith or holiness, but simply function to create a matrix to make those terms functionally comprehensible. We are released from conceiving Paul’s examples as set pieces or forcing them into a particular form either for ethics or resilience. We are also able to grant that Paul uses exemplars from the culture without arguing that there must be some form of genetic relationship with other ethical philosophies or systems. In other words, Paul’s exemplars can bear resemblance to Stoics or other ancient religious groups without having to adhere to their specific philosophic convictions. Similarly, conceiving of resilience does not mean that one look only to Christian communities for its examples, nor by extension, only to human examples, but point at any instance of resilience that makes it more understandable and, more importantly, actionable. Second, Paul locates the exemplars and the Thessalonians within an overarching narrative, one which relates past, to present, and both to the future. The narrative however is not about the Thessalonians, but who the Thessalonians are before God. So too in the matter of resilience, a narrative that moves from the present to a hope for the future is critical. Moreover, decentering the individual and locating him or her in a mutual set of relationships, is a reminder that no self is isolated but is always part of a larger entity. In the case of Christian belief, this begins and ends with the humility and gratefulness due to the Creator who sustains. Thus, rather than look

94  Steven J. Kraftchick for a systemic coherence that could be applied universally to any case, Paul has tailored his remarks to the specific needs of his community. He does not try to persuade with a logic that assimilates all viewpoints, but rather provides through his narrative and paradigmatic exemplars a functional working definition of holiness, one that can be used even while awaiting further precision of definition. It appears that a similar strategy could be employed when exploring strategies of resilience. This points to the third merit of the suggestion: it allows for coherence to exist without logical completion. That is, there is room for a mode of behaviour to be initiated without demanding that all of the pieces fit neatly into one definition. This applies to Paul’s ethical language and to his theology, but it could easily apply to the problem of defining resilience. Instead of searching for an underlying “root metaphor” to unlock Paul’s thinking about ethics or resilience, we are provided a way to accept the knitted, but not too tightly knitted, relationships of his theological and ethical writing as they pertain to actual behaviour. Finally, the theory helps us understand how Paul instructed his congregation. Learning takes place through imitation, and Paul has used this in a maximal way in this epistle. Allowing for this means that Paul can be understood as providing a way to deliberate about ethics and theology for the inevitable moment when he will no longer be present to guide his congregation. A similar goal would seem to be primary with respect to resilience. Once seen, practiced, and reflected upon, an individual or community matures making it even more resilient and less reliant on external guides. This, it would seem, is the goal of all counselling, especially that which wishes to provide capacities for individuals and communities to flourish.

Notes 1 I choose this letter since it is likely Paul’s earliest extant letter and was written to a nascent community, which, while not experiencing extreme attacks, had experienced the distress of social opprobrium. It also had experienced consternation over the death of some of its constituents, causing worry about the truth of Paul’s preaching and the fear of isolation from God. As such the community was remarkably fragile and required exhortation to steadfastness. It thus can serve as a test case for whether Paul’s exhortations can be employed for counselling communities (and perhaps individuals) to face the frictions of everyday existence positively. 2 Although this essay deals with Pauline letters, the remarks apply to the New Testament in general. Some texts may lend themselves more directly to application, but even then the contextual nature of the materials present significant interpretive challenges. Not surprisingly, more has been written about ‘resilience’ with respect to the Hebrew Bible (OT), for it offers more stories of individual success and failure; it is a chronicle of the history of a people facing continued resistance, providing strategies for corporate and individual survival. The literature usually arises from the relatively new area of trauma studies. See, for instance, Carr (2014) and Becker, Dochhorn, and Holt (2014).

Complements to human resilience 95 3 With the exception of Philemon, none of the New Testament materials are written to individuals. Even when individuals are addressed, this is in the context of their participation in a community. Thus, as the New Testament materials were written to address threats to a community’s existence, their strategies often do not apply on an individual scale except by extrapolation. For instance, one might explore stories of individuals or communities that have overcome adversity (e.g., Abraham, Joseph, Moses in the Exodus narratives, David, Israel, or the prophet Elijah). In the New Testament one might consider the book of Acts, which shows the early mission’s continual responses to attempts to block the proclamation of the Christian message, or 1 Peter, which speaks directly of proper responses to chronic societal ostracism. One might also examine the Gospel of Mark and its reflections on failure, Matthew’s consideration of intramural rivalries, and the Johannine literature, which was written in response to severe schisms within the wider communities of Judaism. Then, one might distill the factors leading to the persistence of the believing communities as a foundation for suggesting strategies of resilience for today. 4 See on this Akhtar (2013); Alexander (2013); Boland, Davoudi, and Lawrence (2018); Grove (2018); Tobin (1999); Windle (2011). 5 We should note two other things about the biblical witnesses before trying to adduce their help. First, they were constructed with specific peoples in mind who differ significantly from 21st century Westerners so that any references to the notions of ‘resilience’ are tied to fundamental faith claims about the constancy of God with respect to the restoration of creation. In other words, the biblical remarks are less psycho-social claims than they are theologically shaped understandings of existence before God. Second, the encouraged behaviours refer more to corporate, communal existence than to individual persons. Even when exhortations are specific, they refer to the overall health and behaviour of a community more often than to individuals. This pertains to Paul’s own narratives, his stories about an individual’s faith, or depictions of spiritual/physical adversities. 6 This passage also reflects two elements essential to Paul’s exhortations to steadfast faith: his belief that the resurrection of Jesus is a sign of imminent cosmic redemption (his eschatological trust) and that the death of Jesus is proof that God purposes full restoration of human–divine and human–human relationships. Both are fundamental to Christian belief and are applicable to contemporary reflections on resilience, but even then, these are not calls to resilience by humans but to reliance on the capacity of God’s gracious resilience towards humans (cf. 2 Cor. 1:3–7; 8–11; 12:7–10 and Rom. 8:18–25, 31–39). 7 The term thlipsis refers to ‘pressures’ and has the metaphorical sense of oppression, affliction, and tribulation, including interior distress. This suggests that ‘suffering’ is too limited as a translation since it usually connotates some extreme circumstance. Thlipsis can have this meaning but it just as often refers to the stresses of everyday existence. In this sense, it is particularly appropriate to the idea of ‘resilience’ (s.v. ‘thlipsis’ Bauer et al. 2000, 457). 8 It is important to note that these traits can function as contemporary norms only to the extent that they are understood within eschatological belief. Applying ‘Christian principles’ without this belief is not helpful, since they require this world view, which is directed away from the self and towards God’s actions. In the end, one does not ask, ‘What can I do?’, but ‘What does a life before God entail?’ 9 Exploring resilience by considering Paul’s personal example is complicated since Paul is in a category of one. Paul understood himself to have a divinely sanctioned calling, which transcended all other human interests (Gal. 1:1, 15) and he

96  Steven J. Kraftchick did not presume his converts would or should experience his forms of suffering to fulfill their respective callings. 10 First Thessalonians was prompted by Paul’s concern for the congregation not because of some extrinsic threat. Unlike Galatians, First or Second Corinthians, or even Philippians, neither Paul nor the community is under attack. There is also no indication that there are deep theological fissures in the congregation like those found at Galatia, Corinth, or Rome, but only the challenges of everyday existence. The theological reflections are therefore not shaped by outside forces but simply by the distresses of everyday existence. 11 I should note that nowhere in the letter does Paul define ‘sanctity’ or ‘sanctification’. I think that this is significant, as the discussion here will make clear. Paul is less interested in defining the term than in pointing to where sanctity is evident. This is one reason I believe that he is following a pattern similar to the theory Zagzebski suggests in her conceptions of virtue ethics as exemplarist argumentation; see her Exemplarist Moral Theory (2017). Rather than define ‘sanctity’ Paul is pointing to exemplars of it. 12 The strategy that Paul adopts, pointing rather than defining, could be helpful in determining how to speak of resilience with someone. Rather than mapping a definition onto the question, the choice would be to point out people who are resilient (including the inquirer) and ask what traits are present. If one chooses enough pertinent examples, a firm definition is not needed. The sum of the examples creates its own ‘Aha’ moment, and one sees what to do. This releases us from the tyranny of defining and moves us to actual practices, which, in the end, is the goal we seek in asking about resilience. 13 Interestingly, the imitation of the Christic complex of death and resurrection, typical in other letters, plays a minor role in this narrative, at least in comparison to Romans, the Corinthian correspondence, Galatians, or Philippians, appearing only twice (4:14; 5:10). 14 To this one might add the negative exemplars of Satan (2:18), the ‘Jews’ (2:14), and those on the outside of the community who do not know God and are children of the dark (4:4, 13; 5:3–11). 15 The character of God is described by phrases such as, ‘a God of peace who is faithful (1 Thess. 5:23–24), as the One who is loving (1Thess. 1:4), who is the Father (1 Thess. 1:4), and who lets believers share in God’s glory (1 Thess. 2:12). . . . By outlining the character of God in this way, Paul was motivating his readers to continue in their rejection of their idols and inspiring them to live a life of holiness and love’ (de Villiers 2006, 340). 16 Cf. Boring (2015, 68–69), who points to the use of epistrephō that is never used elsewhere by Paul to refer to conversion (but see Acts 9:35; 14:15), anamenein where Paul usually employs apekdechomai. 17 Determining how to translate τὸ ἑαυτοῦ σκεῦος κτᾶσθαι (4:4) has eluded interpreters. Choosing between ‘keeping’ or ‘controlling’ one’s own body, vessel, sexual organ, wife, and so on depends on which etymological data set is given place of prominence and, in truth, the linguistic evidence for making a definitive decision is minimal. Add to this that the scenarios painted by different interpreters are more or less reasonable, and one must admit that a final decision is a matter of informed choice rather than clear deduction. My own inclination is to take the command to mean that one should control one’s body in sexual relationships. 18 The language here is ‘because the lord (kyrios) is an avenger in these things’. Typically, in this letter kyrios refers to Christ, but as Collins points out, this phrase seems to be an allusion to Psalm 94:1 (LXX), where God is clearly the subject. Collins concludes, ‘Indeed it can be said the language of v. 6 evokes the traditional Jewish description of God in the Septuagint . . . and is consistent with

Complements to human resilience 97 5:2 where, in another eschatological context, kurios likewise designates God rather than Christ’ (Collins 1984, 320). 9 I rely on the work of Linda Zagzebski for understanding of virtue ethics in order 1 to interpret Paul’s ‘pointing’ strategy and its capacity to locate his audience in terms of their responsibilities. See Zagzebski (2004, 2017).

Bibliography Akhtar, Salman. 2013. Good Stuff: Courage, Resilience, Generosity, Forgiveness, and Sacrifice. New York: Jason Aronson. Alexander, D.E. 2013. ‘Resilience and Disaster Risk Reduction: An Etymological Journey’. National Hazards and Earth System Sciences 13: 2707–16 (Open Access. www.nat-hazards-earth-syst-sci.net/13/2707/2014/doi:10.5-94/ nhess-13-2707-2013). Bauer, Walter, Frederick W. Danker, William Arndt, and F.W. Gingrich. 2000. A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Becker, Eve-Marie, Jan Dochhorn, and Else Holt, eds. 2014. Trauma and Traumatization in Individual and Collective Dimensions: Insights from Biblical Studies and Beyond. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Boland, James, Simon Davoudi, and Jennifer Lawrence, eds. 2018. The Resilience Machine. New York: Routledge. Boring, Eugene. 2015. I & II Thessalonians: A Commentary. Louisville: Westm­ inster John Knox. Carr, David. 2014. Holy Resilience: The Bible’s Traumatic Origins. New Haven: Yale University Press. Collins, Raymond. 1984. ‘This Is the Will of God: Your Sanctification (1 Thess 4:3)’. In Studies on the First Letter to the Thessalonians, edited by Raymond Collins, 299–325. Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press. de Villiers, Pieter. 2006. ‘A Life Worthy of God: Identity and Ethics in The Thessalonian Correspondence’. In Identity, Ethics, and Ethos in the New Testament, edited by Jan G. van der Watt, 335–55. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Grove, Kevin. 2018. Resilience. New York: Routledge. Malherbe, Abraham. 2008. The Letters to the Thessalonians (Anchor Bible). New Haven: Yale University Press. Morgan, Teresa. 2015. Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in the Early Roman Empire and Early Churches. New York: Oxford University Press. Tobin, Graham A. 1999. ‘Sustainability and Community Resilience: The Holy Grail of Hazards Planning?’ Environmental Hazards 1: 13–25. Weima, Jeffrey. 2014. 1–2 Thessalonians. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Windle, Gill. 2011. ‘What Is Resilience? A Review and Concept Analysis’. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology 21 (2): 152–69. Zagzebski, Linda. 2004. Divine Motivation Theory. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2017. Exemplarist Moral Theory. New York: Oxford University Press.

8 Resilience in 1 Peter Faithfulness and hope in the face of adversity Katherine M. Hockey

Introduction Our aim in this chapter will be to examine resilience in 1 Peter. We will not explore the whole letter but focus primarily on 1 Peter 1:1–2:10. Out of the New Testament letters, 1 Peter is perhaps one of the most obviously relevant to the theme of resilience. The letter claims to be written by the Apostle Peter to a group of churches in Asia Minor (1:1) who are experiencing hostility on account of their Christian faith.1 The letter aims to encourage them to stand firm in the faith (see 5:12) and centres on a number of themes that will help them do this, notably, reminding them of their identity and providing advice on how to act in the face of opposition. We will unpack more fully the relevant aspects of the letter’s audience and purpose as our discussion progresses. However, first we need to determine what we mean by resilience and what it encompasses, since this theoretical framework will clearly affect how we are approaching the letter and which data we select.

Understanding resilience For Bonanno, resilience pertains to the ability of adults in otherwise normal circumstances who are exposed to an isolated and potentially highly disruptive event, such as the death of a close relation or a violent or life-threatening situation, to maintain relatively stable, healthy levels of psychological and physical functioning. (Bonanno 2004, 20) From this we can see that the concepts of disruption or threat and the need for a good outcome (stable and healthy functioning) are key to determining resilience. According to Bonanno, ‘across time’, resilient individuals exhibit ‘transient perturbations’ but have generally stable functioning ‘as well as the capacity for generative experiences and positive emotions’ (Bonanno 2004, 21). Therefore, to understand resilience it seems necessary to observe

Resilience in 1 Peter 99 how the person responds to adversity. However, this is not possible with an ancient letter. We cannot observe this early Christian community over time. We can only access a snapshot of its experience as the letter presents it. This does not mean that all concepts of time or progression are absent from the letter. The believers are referred to as babies who need to grow up into their salvation (2:2). In fact, salvation is identified as the believer’s goal (1:9). Furthermore, whilst addressing the present status of the believer, the letter frequently references future events (1:5, 7, 13, etc.), giving the letter a strong eschatological tone. From the explicit mention of goals coupled with this eschatological framework, we are starting to get an impression of what a good outcome might be for our author and therefore what he thinks resilience is. This will become clearer as our discussion progresses. What we have not mentioned thus far is how the person might move from a position of threat to a positive outcome. Cook and White are useful in this regard. They highlight three features of resilience: (i) confrontation of significant adversity or risk; (ii) use of internal and external resources to adapt despite adversity; and (iii) a positive outcome. (Cook and White 2018, 513) Therefore, it is important that our investigation not only takes account of elements of risk/threat and positive outcomes, but it also needs to examine what resources the author makes available to the believers to enable them to achieve this end. Before investigating 1 Peter, it is helpful to consider Masten’s comments: Resilience is an inferential and contextual construct that requires two major kinds of judgements. . . . The first judgement addresses the threat side of the inference. Individuals are not considered resilient if there has never been a significant threat to their development. . . . The second judgement involved in an inference about resilience is the criteria by which the quality of adaption or developmental outcome is assessed or evaluated as “good” or “OK.” There is little debate about whether such criteria exist, but much controversy remains about who should define resilience by what standards. (Masten 2001, 228) Masten is discussing child development. Yet she helpfully highlights that the concept of resilience is based on two judgments. These judgments arise in a particular historical and social context and therefore shape what might be understood as threat/risk and also what would be considered a good outcome. To put it another way, ‘threat/risk’ and ‘good’ are culturally determined constructs (cf. Ungar 2012, 17–18, 21). Subsequently, in exploring resilience in 1 Peter, we need to seek to understand what the letter itself

100  Katherine M. Hockey presents as the risks facing the recipients and what the author thinks a positive outcome is. Additionally, there is a power dynamic in view. It is not the audience who is coming up with its own self-understanding. Instead, the audience is being asked by another to see itself and its situation a particular way.2 Consequently, we will be examining an ideal. Whether or not the audience ever inhabited this ideal and as such could be classed as ‘resilient’ will be left unanswered. With this in mind, we can turn to 1 Peter. We will start by examining risk and threat as it relates to our audience. We will then determine what the author presents as a good outcome before finally revealing the resources available to the believer. In this way, we will build up a picture of what, according to 1 Peter, a resilient life looks like. Adversity In line with what was discussed previously, if the believers are to be considered resilient, then they need to be confronting some kind of risk or threat to their well-being. We could start by considering the status of the addressees and whether this likely brings with it more risk of potentially negative outcomes.3 The letter addresses slaves (2:18) and wives (3:1), who were lower in social status. In fact, it is unlikely that any of the audience would have been high-ranking.4 The slaves and wives appear to be suffering from harsh treatment (2:18–19) and intimidation (3:6). So, perhaps the audience finds itself already in a socially precarious position from which one might anticipate hinderances to flourishing.5 Having said this, we need to keep in mind that for the letter the ultimate goal may be spiritual (e.g., salvation) and, therefore, these normal predictors of negative outcomes may be less relevant. So, it seems better to identify more obvious threats. The letter is clear that the audience is going through trials on account of its Christian identity (1:6– 7; 4:12–16). Commentators agree that these trials refer to the hostility the believers are facing from people outside of the Christian community. Some of this hostility is verbal – that is, via reproach and accusations (2:12; 3:9; 4:14) – and some was likely physical (2:18–20; cf. 3:13–17). More recently, it has been argued that there was the prospect of legal charges being brought against the Christian (cf. 3:15; 5:9; see Williams 2012, 138–78, 303–16). We can link these threats with potentially negative outcomes such as loss of honour, and physical and emotional harm. But are these the negative outcomes the letter is concerned with? Some, such as Balch, have argued that the letter, via its commands to do good (e.g., 3:13–17) along with the household code section (2:18–3:7), is seeking to encourage the audience towards assimilation to surrounding culture. This would remove hostility and the likely negative outcomes of mistreatment by and estrangement from surrounding society (Balch 1981, 81–116). However, as I have argued elsewhere, I do not think this is the case. The surrounding culture is not presented in a positive light (4:3–4). Instead, strong bonds between the audience

Resilience in 1 Peter 101 members themselves and, more importantly, between the believer and God and Christ are encouraged (see Hockey 2019, esp. 257–66). Despite the fact that the letter acknowledges the believers’ suffering, it does not seek to avoid this outcome if the suffering is occurring for the right reason, that is, on account of the believers’ allegiance to Christ. Moreover, paradoxically, the believers can rejoice in their suffering if it is a participation in Christ’s (4:12–13) and can consider themselves blessed (4:14).6 If, as hinted at previously, what is of concern to the author is the audience’s ultimate salvation, and he believes they will attain this by remaining faithful to God in the face of hostility (see the following section), then the negative outcome that needs to be avoided is defection from the faith and disobedience (the primary disobedience being to reject Christ; cf. 1:2, 14, 22–23; 2:6–8).7 Here we can see that the ‘risk’ centres on the believers’ identity and associations. If their Christian identity and primary relationships are eroded then, for the author, this is likely to result in a negative outcome. Conversely, if the audience understands its identity and the value of the foundational relationships this is rooted in, then it is more likely to behave in a manner that will result in desired outcomes. That is, the audience will exhibit the ability to be resilient in the face of hostility that directly attacks this same identity. Since we have started to think about outcomes, we must unpack these further. Good outcomes As noted, there are some explicit references in the letter that seem concerned with the audience’s progress. In 2:1–5 the author says: Rid yourselves, therefore, of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation – if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good. Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones, let yourselves be built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. New Revised Standard Version, Anglicised (NRSVA) Here, the author is asking the audience to grow up into the fullness of its salvation which will be evidenced by a holy life patterned after God’s holiness (see 1:13–16).8 The desire to crave the good which allows them to grow successfully is based on the fact that they have already tasted the goodness of the Lord.9 Lord here refers to Christ (cf. 1:3; 2:13; 3:15; see Michaels 1988, 90; Feldmeier 2008, 131). In fact, it is through coming to Christ, the stone that others reject, that they will find full maturity, being made into a spiritual house and holy priesthood whose worship is acceptable to God.

102  Katherine M. Hockey Verse 2:9 goes on to explain that the purpose of being made a new people is to ‘proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light’ (NRSVA). We can see that the believer’s successful flourishing is tied to his/her relationship with God and Christ. Yet, it is not a life that is isolated, only concerned with the divine. It is one that is deeply connected with other believers and one that looks outwards to witness to others.10 The previous mention of salvation is not the first in the letter. It occurs in 1:5, where the author declares that they have attained a number of things because of their new birth. One of which is the promise that on account of their faith/faithfulness God will deliver them safely to salvation. Salvation is spoken of as something to occur in the future – revealed in the last times – presumably when Christ returns. From the content of 1:13 we can link salvation with receiving grace from God at the revelation of Christ.11 Thus, it appears that the salvation that the believers are to grow into lies in the future. However, the letter also speaks of the audience obtaining salvation in the present. In 1:8–9 the believers are depicted as those who because of their belief/trust in Christ are obtaining the goal (to telos) of their faith – the salvation of their souls.12 Thus, the goal is made explicit. But the audience is declared to be already obtaining it. Yet, given 1:5 and 1:13, somehow, the full consummation of this salvation lies in the future (see Achtemeier 1996, 97–98, 104; Elliott 2000, 402). For our purposes we do not need to work out the intricacies of this. We need only recognise that the outcome of a successful life as far as our author is concerned is one that grows up into its salvation both in the present and the future. At this point, it is worth highlighting that both 1:5 and 1:9 make a direct connection between the believers’ faith/faithfulness and their salvation.13 It is faith/faithfulness that will lead to the positive outcome desired.14 The importance of faith/faithfulness is affirmed in 1:6–7 since it is proven faithfulness in the midst of trials that is of greater value than gold. In fact, such faithfulness will not only lead to salvation but will result in praise, glory, and honour at the revelation of Christ. Presumably, it is God who bestows these on the believer in the last day (cf. 1:17; Michaels 1988, 31; Achtemeier 1996, 102). We can assume that they will receive at the same time the imperishable inheritance that is being kept in the heavens for them (1:4). For our author, such faith and hope in God is possible because in Christ’s resurrection God has already demonstrated his ability to vindicate the innocent (1:17–21; cf. 2:21–23). In 5:9–10 the believers are reminded of what awaits them if they put their trust in God: ‘the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you’ (NRSVA). Moreover, emphatically, faithfulness is linked with resistance and is made the route to the good. Therefore, we can determine that a resilient life for our author is one that demonstrates faithfulness to God and Christ in the midst of hostility. As such, it is a life marked by the grace and mercy of God that is both deeply

Resilience in 1 Peter 103 connected with Christ and with other believers. This community, like the one who has called them, is to exhibit obedience and holiness, and, as such, is to bear witness to the one who has brought them from darkness to light, that is, to the one in whom they hope completely (1:13, 21 cf. 3:15–16). The negative foil to this positive outcome is shown by the fate of the non-believing person who stumbles over Christ (2:7–8) and, we might infer, is shamed (see Michaels 1988, 113; Elliott 2000, 427–35). It is from this vain way of life that the believers have been redeemed (1:18). This negative counterpart reaffirms the positive position of the audience as those that have demonstrated obedience through their acceptance of Christ. It appears that normal goals such as personal safety and social esteem are not the primary concern of our author nor a marker of a resilient life. For 1 Peter, all other goods such as these need to be considered in light of the ultimate goal: faithfulness to God leading to salvation. With this understanding of a resilient life we can now turn to exploring the resources that the author makes available to the believers in order to equip them to face hostility with faith/faithfulness.

Resources for resilience According to Windle, researchers agree that ‘in order for resilience to be achieved’, ‘assets’, ‘resources’, or ‘strengths’ are crucial, and ‘through their dynamic interplay, enable the ability to respond positively to risks and alter or reduce the effects of adversity’ (Windle 2011, 157). Cook and White agree, asserting that ‘an individual may use various “resources”, “assets”, or “strengths” to sustain well-being despite adversity. These resources may be either internal or external to the individual and may encompass a wide variety of types of assets’ (Cook and White 2018, 513). For Windle, these resources can occur across three levels of functioning: (1) individual (e.g. psychological, neurobiological), (2) social (e.g. family cohesion, parental support) and (3) community/society (e.g. support systems generated through social and political capital, institutional and economic factors). (Windle 2011, 157) It is interesting that in her analysis Windle does not mention spiritual resources. For Cook and White, spirituality is a ‘psychosocial and cultural resource’ that aids resilient adaption (Cook and White 2018, 513). Such spirituality includes the transcendent and the immanent, so that which is ‘above and beyond the individual’ and that which is ‘experientially immediate to the individual’ (Cook and White 2018, 513). The very fact that the letter is concerned with the audience’s relationship with God means that the transcendent and experientially immediate are intimately interwoven. The audience is experiencing hostility in the present on account of its connection

104  Katherine M. Hockey with that which is above and beyond itself – God – but its perspective on and response to its adversity – the experientially immediate – is to be shaped by this same connection with the Father. In such a way, we can determine that the following discussion can be seen broadly through the lens of being a spiritual resource. Yet there are various aspects we can draw out. Here Windle’s categories are helpful. Community/society The opening portions of 1 Peter (1:3–2.10), which focus on the believers’ corporate identity, bring the sociological to the forefront. However, given that the letter frames the community and its ethics in familial terms (e.g., 1:3–4, 14–17, 22–23; 2:2, etc.), the following includes both types of identity – that of community and family. As we have argued, the author is not concerned that the believers build social capital with those outside of the Christian community. What matters is capital with God. The letter affirms again and again that to suffer for doing good – that is, being obedient to Christ – is of worth to God (1:6–8; 2:6–7, 19–20; 3:13–14, 17; 4:14–16) and will eventually result in reward for the believer. The affirmation that the believers are those who are chosen and blessed suggests that the audience’s natural response to suffering is not to see themselves as honoured, that is, not in possession of vital capital.15 As Elliott highlights, in a shame culture ‘attitudes and actions’ are governed ‘primarily by the opinion and appraisals of significant others’ (Elliott 1995, 168). Through valuing faithfulness to God, the author brings to the fore the believers’ relationship with God and Christ, both making God the ‘significant other’ and, concurrently, providing a different perspective on the believers’ status.16 Via this new interpretation of events, the believers can see themselves as in a favourable position. Christ is presented as precious and chosen, and those who recognise this will come to him, put their trust in him, and will be honoured (2:7).17 To have this alternative perspective and value system is only possible when the audience understands itself as part of a new Christian community in which assets, and therefore its own status, are measured differently (cf. Holloway 2009, 157).18 We see that the opening of the letter, alongside promoting the value of faithfulness, also affirms the chosen, precious, and dignified nature of the community (esp. 2:4–10).19 They are a newly begotten people (1:3), one that has already received mercy (1:3; 2:10). As such, they stand in possession of a number of eternal goods: a living hope, an imperishable inheritance being kept in the heavens, and God’s protection which will guard them for salvation (1:3–5). In bringing the believer into a new people, the author also brings the believer’s personal history into a new and larger corporate narrative which looks back to the prophets (1:10–11) and exemplars (3:6, 20) and looks forward to the return of Christ (1:7, 13). Moreover, her story is tied to the story of Christ whose life and resurrection provides assurance of her

Resilience in 1 Peter 105 own vindication (1:17–21). Because of Christ’s resurrection, God can be understood as faithful and just, and the one to whom she can unwaveringly commit herself (cf. 1:17; 2:21–23; 4:19; see also Elliott 1995, 171–73). The audience is not just asked to believe this story; it is asked to inhabit it.20 Concomitantly, ties with previous family history and traditions are cut (1:18; 4:2–4). Consequently, the present suffering of the individual is to be assessed in light of her place within this new community, a community who has a living hope and whose lived faithfulness will result in praise, glory, and honour. Inhabiting this narrative allows the believers to place themselves and their suffering into ‘a larger framework of meaning’ and make sense of their adversity positively (cf. Cook and White 2018, 516–17). Moreover, finding identity within this community allows the believer to place herself within a secure relational network despite the conflict that such identity causes outside of this community. This new Christian community offers a valuable support system and, by taking on its alternative value system, encourages good self-esteem and bolsters the believers’ inner strength to overcome adversity. It is important that Christian identity is made central to a resilient life since it need not be disrupted by adversity. Bonanno et al., following social psychologists, emphasise the multifaceted nature of the self and that narrative can play an important part in self-understanding.21 This narrative element of identity has the capacity to change over the course of life and therefore allows identity to be flexible and survive threatening life events (Bonanno, Papa and O’Neill 2002, 196). In the author’s account of the situation, the believers’ identity as the people of God is not altered by their experience but is instead is affirmed by it (cf. 1:7; 3:14; 4:14). Thus, the larger narrative in which their identity is located encompasses their current experience and makes sense of it positively (cf. Bonanno, Papa, and O’Neill 2002, 197). That their Christian identity is linked with positive outcomes allows the believers to recognise that being part of this community is a route to flourishing and, as such, is likely to foster resilience to external threats that attack this same identity (4:14–16). In this way, the believers are equipped to face losses such as the loss of honour in surrounding society or even physical harm. Such grief is not devastating since it does not destroy identity or foundational relationships which remain intact regardless.22 To use Bonanno et al.’s language, the believers are able to ‘maintain a continuous sense of self in relation to the normal, shifting challenges and social relationships in everyday life’ (Bonanno, Papa, and O’Neill 2002, 195), enabling resilience. In the corporate narrative, we find that the spatial and temporal lines are blurred. Resources such as an imperishable inheritance that the believers possess currently exist in the heavens and will eventually come to full fruition. Yet the believer cannot tangibly hold onto these things or present them to their non-Christian neighbours. They are eternal resources. However, this heavenly perspective will still shape present behaviour since it enables a reassessment of the assets one thinks one has access to. The audience is no

106  Katherine M. Hockey longer in a position of loss due to slander and dishonour; it can have selfesteem because it already has access to a number of eternal goods that will outlast the present. These resources are present on account of the believer’s connection to Christ and, as such, an awareness of these assets encourages faithfulness to Christ, that is, resilience. Individual In our preceding discussion on identity we have started to touch on inner psychological resources. The strong emotional tone of the letter expands the psychological resources available to the believer.23 My previous work on the role of emotions in 1 Peter has revealed how the author deploys emotion terms to build an alternative view of reality for the audience (see Hockey 2019). In the opening of the letter with which we are concerned, a couple of things take place. Firstly, the negative emotions of distress (1:6–7) and shame (2:6) are minimised. Secondly, the believers are depicted as those with positive emotions such as joy (1:6, 8), hope (1:3, 13, 21), and love (1:8, 22). Even the emotion of fear, when used in relation to God (1:17), is positive in the letter.24 The positive emotions are directed towards God, Christ, and other believers and so, again, they reinforce the value of these primary relationships. In fact, such an emotional stance not only impacts the individual but becomes a marker of the community (e.g., they are those who rejoice in God). Because emotions are interpretative in that they evaluate the relevance (benefit or harm) of an object to one’s personal goals (Lazarus 1991, 819–21; Moors et al. 2013, 120–21; cf. Hockey 2019, 27–31), by encouraging a particular emotional stance, the author is able to interpret events a particular way and, thus, encourage the audience towards certain behavioural outcomes.25 If one feels positively about one’s identity and primary relationships it is likely to promote allegiance to those relationship and resilience in the face of opposition. Elsewhere in the letter, the believers are encouraged not to fear their hostile neighbours (3:6, 14) or to allow themselves to feel a sense of shame (4:14–16) because of the opposition they are facing. Again, the author seeks to boost self-esteem and to build inner strength in order to resist negative outside forces. We noted previously that the outcome of the non-believer’s rejection of Christ provides the negative foil that affirms the believers’ faith (2:4–10). This comparative approach to conflict is well recognised as a mode of coping with negative events that challenge self-identity. The self is thought of in favourable terms over and against the dominant group (see Holloway 2009, 123).26 As such, actions that arise from the identity under challenge are justified whilst that same identity is bolstered, enabling resilience. Having said this, the letter is as much about God’s action as it is about the believers’ status, since many of the key verbs relating to the believers’ current status are passive and require another agent – generally understood as God (e.g., 1:3, 13; 2:4–5, 7–8, etc.; Achtemeier 1996, 97). It is his action

Resilience in 1 Peter 107 that enables their current standing. In this way, the immanent is tied to the transcendent and the inner to the external. It appears to me that the believers are being asked to find strength in that which is beyond themselves – that is, in their relationship to the divine – and to also appreciate that the goods they desire are beyond their capacity to ultimately affect. Their sole action is to hope in God and remain faithful. It is God who, through his action in Christ, has brought them into their newly begotten status and secures their present and future.27 The narrative of the letter emphasises God’s actions for them (1:10–12, 18–21). Consequently, the believers are not being asked to find within themselves inner strength in the face of opposition; they are being asked to allow their inner life and actions to be strengthened by their relationship with the external and transcendent. As Aristotle recognised, to have that which is stronger, and we might add above, on your side breeds confidence (Rhet. 2.5.17).28 This does call into question arguments that highlight self-efficacy as key to resilience. In 1 Peter, much of the resource available to the individual, though it affects the inner life of the person, is in fact rooted in her dependence on that outside of herself. But, given the blurring of space and time in the letter, that which is above and beyond is not necessarily distant. It is, however, enduring and unaffected by present circumstance.29 The stability of these external resources and the awareness that God is for them (cf. 2:25; 3:12; 5:7, 10) encourages hope and faith/ faithfulness, that is, resilience.

Conclusion From the previous discussion, it is clear that, for the author of 1 Peter, a resilient life is one that faces the threat of hostile opposition with hope in and faithfulness towards God, knowing that such hope and faithfulness will lead to the positive outcomes desired – salvation, glory, and honour. In order to encourage the audience to face threats in this manner the author affirms the believers’ Christian identity, making central to their defining corporate narrative their connection with God, Christ, and each other. The resources they require come from an appreciation of this identity and what, because of God’s action through Christ, they possess. Consequently, the believers can face suffering with confidence because they can find resolve in that which is intimate yet above, that is, in the dynamics of their enduring relationship with the God who acts for them.

Notes 1 There is much discussion in Petrine scholarship concerning the authorship, purpose, and date of the letter. Most modern scholars think the letter is pseudonymous, though Michaels argues that authorship cannot be settled as decisively as some claim (1988, lxii–lxvii). Some such as Elliott see 1 Peter as arising from a Petrine circle (Elliott 2000, 118–30), others emphasise the influence of Pauline tradition on the letter. For a helpful analysis of these themes see Horrell 2002.

108  Katherine M. Hockey Many agree that the letter dates from roughly the latter part of the first century (e.g., see Achtemeier 1996, 43–50; Elliott 2000, 134–38; Feldmeier 2008, 39–40). 2 Though we might argue that the author sees himself as part of the wider Christian community under threat (cf. 1 Peter 5:9), a section of which he is addressing. 3 For Masten, risks are ‘actuarially based predictors of undesirable outcomes’ such as low socio-economic status and mistreatment or violence (Masten 2001, 228). 4 As would be true for the majority of early Christian communities. See Friesen 2004, 323–61; Longenecker 2009, 243–78. For examination of the likely status of 1 Peter’s audience see Williams 2012, 117–27; cf. Horrell 2013a, 105–14, 122–29. 5 This does not mean, contra Elliott, that the believers’ precarious status is due to being part of a distinct legal-social class identified by the term paroikos. See Elliott 1981, 67–73. 6 For more on suffering in 1 Peter see Hockey 2019, 142–76. 7 Here, I am in more agreement with Elliott than Balch (see Elliott 1981, esp. 101–64). We cannot discuss fully 1 Peter’s social strategy here. For more see Hockey 2019, 257–66. 8 As Feldmeier notes, it is ‘the responsibility of the believers to comply with the new birth through a new ethical orientation’ but at the same time ‘their dependence on God is underlined’ (see Feldmeier 2008, 125–26). 9 Cf. Ephesians 4:15. See Michaels (1988, 83) who recognises ‘[t]he result of this relationship [with Christ] is growth, and the goal of growth is “salvation” ’. 10 As Feldmeier comments, ‘the new life of the regenerate has the form of a new community. Only as a “building”, as a collective, can the “living stones” fulfil their intended purpose’ (Feldmeier 2008, 135). There is debate as to whether 2:9 infers witness to outsiders. For support see Elliott 2000, 439–40; Feldmeier 2008, 136. 11 I agree with Michaels that salvation is principally God’s ‘deliverance’, that is, ‘God’s power and will to deliver and vindicate’ the believers (Michaels 1988, 89). 12 For more on salvation of the soul in 1 Peter see Feldmeier 2008, 87–92. 13 Cf. Michaels 1988, 89–90. 14 Here I include faith and faithfulness as a translation of pistis, since ‘[f]aith is . . . not simply the human being’s holding something to be true, but the acceptance of the message of salvation, by means of which the human is at once placed into a new relationship to God, into an attitude of trust that embraces and determines his or her whole existence, of commitment, of hope’ (Feldmeier 2008, 78). 15 According to Elliott, the author of 1 Peter ‘perceived and interpreted this conflict between the Christians of Asia Minor and their detractors as one over honor and shame, grace and disgrace’ (Elliott 1995, 167). 16 For more on how the author re-evaluates trials so that they are no longer distressing but are an opportunity to demonstrate faithful allegiance to Christ see Hockey 2019, 132–36. 17 For a longer treatment of honour and shame in 1 Peter see Campbell 1998. 18 According to Holloway, this involves a strategy of ‘disidentification’ with the ‘here and now’ in order to prefer the rewards of the world to come. The ‘future world and its rewards’ are made ‘absolutely central to their [the believers] value system in response to the negative outcomes that they are increasingly experiencing in the present’ (157). Holloway highlights how such a redirecting of one’s values also ‘entails the adoption of a new identity supportive of those new values . . . in 1:14–2:10 the author of 1 Peter constructs just such a new identity for his readers as born-again members of the apocalyptic family of God’ (159). 19 Holloway notes that 22 out of 23 verses in 1:14–2.10 are ‘devoted to constructing the readers’ new identity’ (Holloway 2009, 159).

Resilience in 1 Peter 109 20 For more on 1 Peter’s narrative theological worldview and its impact on ethics see de Waal Dryden 2006, 64–89. 21 ‘[T]he self is not a stable, unitary entity, but rather a multifaceted, flexible collection of experienced, anticipated, and remembered selves. . . . [T]he processes by which people maintain identity continuity are relatively more subjective and fluid than previously assumed. . . . [P]eople achieve identity continuity in the form of life stories that evolve across the life span’ (Bonanno, Papa, and O’Neill 2002, 196). 22 Bonanno highlights that continuity of social identity is an important factor when considering someone’s resilience in the face of loss (see Bonanno, Papa, and O’Neill 2002, 193; cf. Bonanno 2004, 26). 23 Bonanno et al. note the importance of emotion regulation for coping with loss. The capacity to minimise negative emotions and have positive emotions can help with social relationships and consequently identity continuity, and therefore resilience (see Bonanno, Papa, and O’Neill 2002, 199–200). 24 For more on the positive use of fear in 1 Peter see Hockey 2019, 179–202, 222–25. 25 This is because emotions have an associated action-tendency. See Frijda, Kuipers, and Schure 1989, 213; Lazarus 1991, 822. 26 See also Horrell 2013b. 27 See Feldmeier 2008, 126, who notes that ‘the regenerate are in the first place only receivers, and precisely that is the condition for their becoming new’. 28 Cook and White acknowledge that ‘for many, the transcendent includes recognition of an agent who can act on behalf of the individual, especially during adverse circumstances. This is particularly true, though not exclusively so, of those who believe in God or gods’ (Cook and White 2018, 517). 29 Cook and White recognise that ‘connection with the transcendent supports resilient adaptation’ since ‘belief in that which is transcendent can provide stability despite change or perception of change’ (Cook and White 2018, 517).

Bibliography Achtemeier, Paul J. 1996. 1 Peter: A Commentary on First Peter. Hermeneia. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Balch, David L. 1981. Let Wives Be Submissive: The Domestic Code in 1 Peter. The Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 26. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Bonanno, George A. 2004. ‘Loss, Trauma, and Human Resilience: Have we Underestimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Aversive Events?’ American Psychologist 59 (1): 20–28. Bonanno, George A., Anthony Papa, and Kathleen O’Neill. 2002. ‘Loss and Human Resilience’. Applied and Preventative Psychology 10: 193–206. De Waal Dryden, J. 2006. Theology and Ethics in 1 Peter: Paraenetic Strategies for Christian Character Formation. WUNT 2.209. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Campbell, Barth L. 1998. Honor, Shame, and the Rhetoric of 1 Peter. Society of Biblical Literature Dissertation Series 160. Atlanta: Scholars Press. Cook, Christopher C.H., and Nathan H. White. 2018. ‘Resilience and the Role of Spirituality’. In The Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health, edited by Dinesh Bhugra, Kam Bhui, Samuel Wong, and Stephen Gilman, 513–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Elliott, John H. 1981. A Home for the Homeless: A Sociological Exegesis of 1 Peter. Its Situation and Strategy. Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

110  Katherine M. Hockey ———. 1995. ‘Disgraced Yet Graced: The Gospel According to 1 Peter in the Key of Honor and Shame’. Biblical Theology Bulletin 25: 166–78. ———. 2000. 1 Peter: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary. The Anchor Bible 37B. New York: Doubleday. Feldmeier, Reinhard. 2008. The First Letter of Peter: A Commentary on the Greek Text. Translated from the German by Peter H. Davids. Waco: Baylor University Press. Friesen, Steven J. 2004. ‘Poverty in Pauline Studies: Beyond the So-Called New Consensus’. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 26: 323–61. Frijda, Nico H., Peter Kuipers, and Elisabeth ter Schure. 1989. ‘Relations Among Emotion, Appraisal, and Emotional Action Readiness’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57: 212–28. Hockey, Katherine M. 2019. The Role of Emotion in 1 Peter. Society for New Testament Studies Monograph Series 173. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holloway, Paul A. 2009. Coping with Prejudice: 1 Peter in Social- Psychological Perspective. WUNT 244. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. Horrell, David G. 2002. ‘The Product of a Petrine Circle? A Reassessment of the Origin and Character of 1 Peter’. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 86: 29–60. ———. 2013a. ‘Aliens and Strangers? The Socio-Economic Location of the Addressees of 1 Peter’. In Becoming Christian: Essays on 1 Peter and the Making of Christian Identity, edited by David G. Horrell, 100–32. Library of New Testament Studies 394. London: T&T Clark. ———. 2013b. ‘The Label Χριστιανός (1 Pet. 4.16): Suffering, Conflict, and the Making of Christian Identity’. In Becoming Christian: Essays on 1 Peter and the Making of Christian Identity, edited by David G. Horrell, 164–210. Library of New Testament Studies 394. London: T&T Clark. Lazarus, Richard S. 1991. ‘Progress on a Cognitive- Motivational- Relational Theory of Emotion’. American Psychologist 46: 819–34. Longenecker, Bruce W. 2009. ‘Exposing the Economic Middle: A Revised Economy of Scale for the Study of Early Urban Christianity’. Journal for the Study of the New Testament 31: 243–78. Masten, Ann S. 2001. ‘Ordinary Magic: Resilience Processes in Development’. American Psychologist 56 (3): 227–38. Michaels, J. Ramsey. 1988. 1 Peter. Word Biblical Commentary 49. Nashville: Thomas Nelson. Moors, Agnes, Phoebe C. Ellsworth, Klaus R. Scherer, and Nico H. Frijda. 2013. ‘Appraisal Theories of Emotion: State of the Art and Future Development’. Emotion Review 5: 119–24. Ungar, Michael. 2012. ‘Social Ecologies and Their Contribution to Resilience’. In The Social Ecology of Resilience: A Handbook of Theory and Practice, edited by Michael Ungar, 13–31. New York: Springer. Williams, Travis B. 2012. Persecution in 1 Peter: Differentiating and Contextualizing Early Christian Suffering. Supplements to Novum Testamentum 145. Leiden: Brill. Windle, Gill. 2011. ‘What Is Resilience? A Review and Concept Analysis’. Reviews in Clinical Gerontology 21: 152–69.

Section 2

Theological visions of resilience

9 Resilience and music in the early Church Carol Harrison

There is an aria in Handel’s opera, Saul, in which the young shepherd boy, David, plays his harp and sings for King Saul. For the early Christian writers who I will be examining in this paper, the passage from 1 Samuel,1 in which David is summoned to play in order to soothe the tormented King’s troubled spirit, became a topos for the power of music to calm, heal, and console. In Handel’s opera the aria is sung by the (as it were) unbroken, pure, boyish voice of a counter tenor. The orchestra accompanies his song of gratitude for God’s mercies with the pizzicato sound of a harp: ‘Lord thy mercies numberless’. It is sublime music, and I would defy any hearer not to be calmed, consoled, and healed by it.

Music and the mind Cognitive science has long taken account of the effect of music on the brain,2 and music therapy – which is now hugely popular and widely practiced – has given this research a practical application, with extraordinary results. Anyone who has watched the effect of hearing music on frightened animals, fractious children, or dementia sufferers, or the effect of performing music on a choir, a congregation, or a marching band, will attest to this. We have all experienced it, in everyday life as well as on special occasions. Music undeniably moves. In this paper I would like to examine early Christian reflection on its role in inspiring, sustaining, and reinforcing the subject of this volume, resilience, and begin to ask why it has this effect. The English word ‘resilience’ is an odd one. The Greek hypomene captures it well; in Latin it is rather more difficult to pin down, but tolerantia probably comes closest. Both words attempt to capture the staying power or endurance of someone who, when faced by difficulties or on encountering challenges, is not completely overwhelmed or defeated by them. How does one become resilient? There are aspects of early Christian reflection which suggest that it is something which is cultivated, nurtured, and grows through practice. This is characteristic of works which give advice on the ascetic, monastic life, where the concept of hypomene recurs frequently as a virtue which is acquired through spiritual exercises, including

114  Carol Harrison fasting, reading, prayer, observance of the commandments, and a virtuous life – exercises which, in turn, are reinforced by the resilience they foster. But there are other aspects of Christian reflection in which resilience is acquired in a less self-conscious manner, less through rules and more through intuitive responses and actions. It is here, I think, that music has a role. Resilience, after all, is something that we all, without exception, want to possess, even if subconsciously; we instinctively think and act in ways which will enable us to stand firm, to get through whatever challenges we must face; we have an instinct for survival. Reflection on the role of music is one of the contexts in which this intuitive, instinctive, sub-conscious reaction comes to the surface and is recognised, described, and – in the early Church – given theological scrutiny. This was and is important, not least because the inherent power of something like music is one which, although universally acknowledged, can move and form the hearer towards the bad as well as the good. Conscious reflection on it, such as we will examine in this paper, was necessary to ensure that it was, indeed, rightly directed.

How does music effect resilience? Athanasius on the Psalms How and why, then, does music inculcate resilience? To begin to answer this question I’d like to consider two texts which, together, afford a glimpse of the salient features of an early Christian appreciation of the role of music. The first is a letter written by Bishop Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 356) to a certain Marcellinus,3 on the Psalms;4 the second is Augustine of Hippo’s description of the effect of singing Psalm 4 while on retreat, following his conversion in Milan in 386, in book 9 of his Confessions. The first text sets out in theory, as it were, what the second text demonstrates in practice. The Psalms had become what has justly been described as the ‘hymn book of the Church’. They were the air the early Christians breathed and were present at every turn, in every context, on the lips of every type of person, in every situation.5 They gave early Christians a language, an imaginative world, a form of devotion, a cast of characters in which they identified themselves, found a voice, and in the process, a means of forming, sustaining, and furthering their Christian lives.6 It is this which Athanasius tries to capture for Marcellinus when he first of all tries to demonstrate that the Psalms in fact contain every genre of scripture, from the patriarchs to the histories, the prophets to the gospel – nothing is missing. More significantly, they contain every movement of the human soul, every shade of emotion, every passion. Unlike the law or the prophets, they tell the reader or singer not only what they should do but how to do it. In other words, they are songs which affect not only the mind but also the heart; they not only inform but inspire and move. As Athanasius comments: [In] other books one hears only what one must do and what one must not do. . . . But in the Book of the Psalms, the one who hears, in addition

Resilience and music in the early Church 115 to learning these things, also comprehends and is taught in it the emotions of the soul, and consequently, on the basis of that which affects him and by which he is constrained, he also is enabled by this book to possess the image deriving from the words. (10) ‘The image deriving from the words’ is an unusual expression. It presumably means: not only what the words say but what they actually communicate. This was often understood to take the form of an image, which originated in sense perception and was received and impressed by the soul upon the mind, where what was perceived or felt could be stored in the memory and be ready for recollection and subsequent representation when needed. Possessing ‘the image deriving from the words’ would therefore indicate that what is said has been impressed on the mind and can, by being recalled, form or even reform, subsequent thought, feeling, and action. Of course, this was the case with all sense perception and all words, but as we have just noted, Athanasius is convinced that the image deriving from the words of the Psalms is one that not only informs but moves; it does not just tell us what but how. The key to this distinctive role is what Athanasius calls the ‘emotions of the soul’. For the Psalms are, above all, a theatre of human emotions, in which every shade of human feeling is played out in language which does not just recount and describe it but is itself an impassioned expression of it, arising from the depths of the soul. The reader, hearer, or singer of the psalms does not so much recite them as enact them; they cannot help but identify with, be affected by, caught up into – indeed, be consumed by – what they hear. They are no longer passive hearers but impassioned performers. Athanasius therefore contrasts Paul’s account of Christian resilience with that of the Psalms: one is an impersonal statement whereas the other is a personal, practical performance of it: the Apostle said “Suffering produces endurance” in the soul “and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us” (Romans 5: 3, 5). In the Psalms it is written and inscribed how one must bear sufferings, what one must say to one suffering afflictions, what to say after afflictions, how each person is tested, and what the words of those who hope in God are. (10) In the Psalms, therefore, we do not just read about people in the past, who we do not know and are other to us, rather we hear a voice which is present and immediate, one with which we identify – to such an extent that it becomes our own: we are the people we read about (11). In a very real sense, then, in the Psalms the voice of the other becomes our own and we do not just admire or seek to emulate them, we become them. As Athanasius observes: ‘he who takes up this book – the Psalter . . . he recognizes as

116  Carol Harrison being his own words. And the one who hears is deeply moved, as though he himself were speaking, and is affected by the words of the songs, as if they were his own songs’ (11). The transformative effect of the Psalms therefore lies not in admiration or imitation but in participation and relation. The resilience of the Psalmist becomes ours. How? The answer lies partly in performance and affectivity – but above all, Athanasius seems to suggest, in the fact that the Psalms are sung. Reciting them, we not only join our voices to that of the Psalmist but our voice becomes that of the Psalmist; we sing and their words become ours: their suffering, afflictions, testing – and hope – are ours. As Athanasius writes: he who recites the Psalms is uttering [them] . . . as his own words, and each sings them as if they were written concerning him, and he accepts them and recites them not as if another were speaking, nor as if speaking about someone else. But he handles them as if he is speaking about himself. And the things spoken are such that he lifts them up to God as himself acting and speaking them from himself. The caution of speaking another’s words is replaced, then, by the confidence of speaking in one’s own. (11) Athanasius captures the transformative effect of singing with an image which was often used of the scriptures, but which here takes on a much more immediate meaning: the words of the Psalms, he observes, ‘become like a mirror to the person singing them, so that he might perceive himself and the emotions of his soul, and thus affected, he might recite them’ (12). Again, this is not a matter of imitation or emulation of another’s words or actions but a participation in and feeling of them, such that they become our own as we perform them ourselves; they give expression to ‘the stirrings of our souls’ (12) so that ‘from the Psalms he who wants to do so can learn the emotions and dispositions of the souls, finding in them also the therapy and correction suited for each emotion’ (13). Athanasius identifies particular Psalms for maintaining resilience – for overcoming the trials and tribulations which threaten our ability to stand firm, hold fast, and remain undefeated by the sufferings and challenges we encounter. Thus, he comments in a general way: If you are being persecuted by your own people, and you have many who rise up against you, say the third psalm (15) . . . even if some people take counsel against you . . . sing Psalm 7 and place your confidence in the God who defends you (15). . . . And if they savagely attack you, and the enemies become multitudinous, as rank upon rank, eyeing you with contempt . . . do not crouch in fear, but sing the twenty-sixth psalm (17) . . . if you should see the foe attacking . . . and should wish to fortify

Resilience and music in the early Church 117 yourself for the contest against him, recite Psalm 38. And if, when the enemies set upon you, you persevere in the face of the trials, and you want to learn the advantage of endurance, sing Psalm 39 (19) . . . if you should hear the adversaries chiding you . . . cheer on your own soul by the hope placed in God. And in that hope supporting and mollifying the soul’s sorrows in life, say the forty-first psalm (19). . . . Since our nature is feeble, when you come to be like a beggar because of life’s distresses, if at some time you are exhausted and you wish to be encouraged, you have the one hundred and first psalm. (24) The importance of the Psalms – and especially of singing the Psalms – in order to inculcate resilience is clear. But the question of how they do so to some extent remains. Apposite words and emotions, singing, affectivity, and transformative identification are all elements of this, but Athanasius is aware that he must also address the nature and the effect of the actual music in which the Psalms are sung. Clearly, this had been a matter of contention, and those who supposed that the Psalms were sung simply ‘for the sake of the ear’s delight’ (27) as he puts it, need to be corrected. He does not deny that the sound is pleasing (or ‘sweet’ – the usual word to describe the delight of music) but insists that this is ‘for the benefit of the soul’ (27). In this respect he contrasts the narrow prose (or what he calls the ‘close sequence’) of the histories, prophets, and New Testament, with the broader sound of psalms, odes, and songs. What he seems to want to convey by this intriguing contrast is, I think, the open-ness of song – its ability to convey the affective as well as the rational, to allow the soul to express its love for God with, as he puts it, its ‘whole strength and power’ (27). The other reason he offers for why singing is beneficial is the way in which it brings harmony and unity to the body and soul of the one who sings, and to those who sing together. The reason for this appears to be that singing arises not only from the body but from the soul; its sweetness is the mark of a soul made calm and undisturbed by its devotion to God, and can, in turn, smooth away any disturbing, rough, and disorderly emotions; heal grief and bring hope. So the spiritual harmony of the soul is expressed in melody, just as the ideas we have in our minds are expressed in words. The difference is that melody engages the mind, soul, and body as well as the reason, passions, and actions, and thus ensures that inner harmony is maintained against all that might challenge or upset it (27–28). Athanasius offers the following analogy: Thus, as in music there is a plectrum, so the man becoming himself a stringed instrument and devoting himself completely to the Spirit may obey in all his members and emotions, and serve the will of God. The harmonious reading of the Psalms is a figure and type of such undisturbed and calm equanimity of our thoughts. For just as we discover the ideas of the soul and communicate them through the words we put

118  Carol Harrison forth, so also the Lord, wishing the melody of the words to be a symbol of the spiritual harmony in a soul, has ordered that the odes be chanted tunefully, and the Psalms recited with song. (28) Athanasius observes that such singing is beneficial not only to the one who sings but also to the one who listens to them; they too, like Saul listening to David, can be calmed and healed (29). His summary of the effects of singing upon the soul is no more and no less than a description of the source and manner of its resilience: ‘For thus beautifully singing praises, he brings rhythm to his soul and leads it, so to speak, from disproportion to proportion, with the result that, due to its steadfast nature, it is not frightened by something, but rather imagines positive things, even possessing a full desire for future goods. And gaining its composure by the singing of the phrases, it becomes forgetful of the passions and, while rejoicing, sees in accordance with the mind of Christ, conceiving the most excellent thoughts’ (29). Singing the psalms, he concludes, gives us confidence, encouragement and protection from evil; it stops us from sinning and strengthens us as we stretch ahead to the prize that lies before us (32).

How does music effect resilience? Augustine and Psalm 4 I suggested that what we find Athanasius describing to Marcellinus in theory is demonstrated in practice in Augustine’s description of the effect of singing Psalm 4 in the days after his conversion. The similarities between the two accounts no doubt reflect various commonly held beliefs concerning the role of music, and especially of the Psalms, in Christian devotion. Nevertheless, Augustine’s extraordinarily personal and passionate account in Confessions 9 is a rare, actual demonstration of music’s powers, which confirm Athanasius’ observations in his letter. Augustine’s account is first and foremost an attempt to convey the emotions which he felt within himself and which he found voice for in Psalm 4. It is no quiet recitation or meditation but a full throated, dramatic rendering: ‘How loudly I cried out to you, my God, as I read the psalms of David, songs full of faith, outbursts of devotion with no room in them for the breath of pride’ (9.4.8), he comments. Singing them inflamed him even more: ‘how I was inflamed by them with love for you and fired to recite them to the whole world, were I able, as a remedy against human pride’. Augustine here is very much Athanasius’ singer; one who not only recites the Psalms but makes them their own, finding in them a voice and a mirror for their own thoughts and feelings, their mind, soul, and body, moved by the Psalms’ rhythms and sweet melodies to express and act upon their devotion. ‘I shuddered with awe, yet all the while hope and joy surged up within me at your mercy, Father. It all found an outlet through my eyes and

Resilience and music in the early Church 119 voice’. The words of the Psalm reminded him of his past sins and errors and of God’s saving grace: ‘How long will you be heavy-hearted? Why love emptiness and chase falsehood? Be sure of this: the Lord has glorified his Holy One’ (Ps. 4: 3–4). And he not only heard but, in Athanasius’ words, ‘possessed the image deriving from the words’. That is, their message and meaning were inwardly impressed upon him, so that he was not only able to recognise and recall them but also be moved by them. On verse 6: Who will show us good things? The light of your countenance has set its seal upon us, O Lord’ he exclaims that he ‘could see the eternal reality within . . . had tasted it. . . . There within, where I had grown angry with myself, there in the inner chamber where I was pierced with sorrow . . . there you had begun to make me feel your sweetness and had given me “joy in my heart”. (9.4.10) As Athanasius had described, the words or singing of the Psalm effected an inward transformation which was in turn expressed in song and harmonious action: ‘As I read these words outwardly and experienced their truth inwardly I shouted for joy, and lost my desire to dissipate myself amid a profusion of earthly goods’ (9.4.10), Augustine comments. At the back of his mind, throughout this passage, are the Manichees, the Gnostic-type sect he had belonged to for over nine years, who now represent his former, proud, sinful self, deaf to the sweet melody of the psalms, bitterly and blindly ‘baying against honey-sweet scriptures distilled from heaven’s honey, scriptures luminous by your light’. He desperately wants them to share his experience of the Psalms, his joy, his overwhelming delight in their sweetness, and the way they have touched and transformed his mind, soul and actions. He wants them to share the ‘remedy’, the ‘antidote’ which would heal them as it has healed him (9.4.8). Above all, as Athanasius had observed of Saul listening to David, he wishes that they could have heard the Psalm and seen the effect that the Psalm had upon him, and be moved to share it: ‘I could wish that they had been somewhere nearby, without my knowing it, and had gazed upon my face and listened to my voice as I read the fourth psalm . . . would that they had heard what these words of the psalm did to me’ (9.4.8). But more than this, he is careful to add that he would want them to overhear without his knowing it, lest they should think that what he said and did was for their benefit, rather than what he describes as ‘the intimate expression of my mind, as I conversed with myself and addressed myself in your presence’ (9.4.8). Clearly, Augustine was prompted by the Psalm to address God, to express in words – or song – the transformation it had effected within. Augustine’s account of Psalm 4 is not so much one that describes the resilience it inculcated in him as a demonstration or enactment of that resilience. Despite his continued consciousness of his own weakness and sinfulness, he

120  Carol Harrison writes with confidence, devotion, faith, hope, love, and above all, joy, desirous that others might similarly hear the Psalm, be healed, and share them with him. This is an account written on the other side of conversion, when singing the Psalm has taken its effect and Augustine can cry out in a loud voice, with ‘songs full of faith, outbursts of devotion’.

The role of performance Both Athanasius and Augustine emphasise the importance of actually singing the Psalms: it is not simply a matter of reading, but of making the words our own by giving them voice, performing them, enacting them in body and in spirit. Only in this way can the ‘image derived from the words’ be impressed upon the soul so that it is formed and transformed by it. This could happen in very mundane contexts, but it was often in precisely those contexts that resilience was most required. The use of song to overcome fear or weariness while travelling, and to encourage, sustain, and strengthen workers in all sorts of different contexts is frequently commented on by early Christian writers. The observations of Augustine’s contemporary, John Chrysostom, preaching on Psalm 1, are representative of this commonly held understanding: To such an extent, indeed, is our nature delighted by chants and songs that even infants at the breast, if they be weeping or afflicted, are by reason of it lulled to sleep. Nurses, carrying them in their arms, walking to and fro and singing childish songs to them, often cause them to close their eyes. For this reason travelers also, driving at noon the yoked animals, sing as they do so, lightening by their chants the hardships of the journey. And not only travellers, but also peasants often sing as they tread the grapes in the wine press, gather the vintage, tend the vine and perform their other tasks. Sailors do likewise, pulling at the oars. Women, too, weaving and parting the tangled threads with the shuttle, often sing a certain melody, sometimes individually and to themselves, sometimes all together in concert. This they do, the women, travellers, peasants and sailors, striving to lighten with a chant the labour endured in working, for the mind suffers hardships and difficulties more easily when it hears songs and chants.7 Before we return to the question of just what it is about singing that has these powers to encourage resilience, we might note that its powers are not limited to the Psalms. Augustine’s description of singing Psalm 4 is, in fact, the first of a number of significant episodes which include singing in book 9 of the Confessions. Congregational singing of hymns – in this instance, hymns newly composed by the then Bishop of Milan, Ambrose, is another. The occasion was a dramatic one: the congregation, whom Augustine tells us were ready to die with their bishop, were literally holding a sit-in, an

Resilience and music in the early Church 121 overnight vigil, to prevent heretics from taking possession of their Church. To strengthen and encourage themselves they resorted to a practice which, if we follow Augustine, had only recently been introduced in Milan and which was proving enormously popular and effective. He writes: The faithful of the Church in Milan had begun to find comfort and encouragement in the liturgy through the practice of singing hymns, in which everyone fervently joined with voice and heart . . . it was then that the practice was established of singing hymns and psalms in the manner customary in regions of the East, to prevent the people from losing heart and fainting from weariness. This custom has persisted from that time until the present, and in other parts of the world also many . . . churches imitate the practice; indeed nearly all of them.8 In a sermon preached during Easter week Augustine reflects on the church’s practice of singing Alleluia at this time. Like Athanasius, he urges that it be sung not only with the tongue and voice but with our whole being – our lives and our behaviour – it must be enacted, in other words. The reason Augustine offers also resonates with Athanasius’: we must sing in order to ensure that our inward state is not discordant with our outward words and actions, but that, by singing, the one is able to inform the other. He writes, ‘So let us praise the Lord, brothers and sisters, with our lives and our tongues, with hearts and mouths, with our voices and our behaviour. That, surely, is how God wants alleluia to be sung to him, so that there is no discord in the singer’.9 He is painfully aware of the contrast between the carefree, eternal, harmonious, heavenly song of the angels and the anxious, temporal singing of those still travelling towards their goal – weary, weak, and faltering under the weight of sin, never at rest, always longing and journeying towards a goal they will not attain in this life. In the face of the inevitable trials and tribulations of the journey he urges the traveller to find hope and resilience in singing: to walk and to sing. He concludes his sermon: ‘So now, my dear brothers and sisters, let us sing, not to delight our leisure, but to ease our toil. In the way travellers are in the habit of singing; sing, but keep on walking. Ease your toil by singing, don’t fall in love with laziness. Sing, and keep on walking. What’s “keep on walking”? Make some progress, make progress in goodness’.10

Alleluia – here and hereafter But singing is not just a matter of ‘the ears’ delight’11 or ‘to delight our leisure’12 while, as it were, accompanying our journey; rather singing inspires, informs, and sustains it. Nor is it really important what we sing, rather it is how we sing that matters. For Athanasius and Augustine it is the act or performance of singing, in time, with our bodily mouths and voices, that matters, because in this way, mind and body, heart and voice, inward spiritual

122  Carol Harrison harmony and outward harmony are united: one informs – and transforms – the other. This was not quite as odd as it might at first sound for us. Early Christians believed that created reality – and especially human beings, created in the image of God, with reason and will – was not only harmonious but was actually constituted by harmony; unity, harmony, and order was what gave human beings existence and form. If, by sinning, they became fractured, dissonant and discordant, then they would also be diminished; they would lose form and existence, and fall back to the nothingness from which they had been created. Sometimes this was expressed in terms of the Christian doctrines of creation from nothing and the Fall; sometimes in terms of classical ideas of cosmic harmony, of the macrocosm and human microcosm. The reason why singing inculcates resilience, should, then, become clearer: singing is no more and no less than an enactment of what we are created to be and of how we are created to be: unified, harmonious, ordered. Its performance helps us to become what we are: souls and bodies created by God to be turned towards him in everlasting praise. In this life, we can only do that in temporal songs, in the midst of our anxieties and cares (though even here, it calms, heals, encourages, and consoles); in the life to come, where supreme harmony reigns, we will offer our unceasing alleluias to God in heart and voice unhindered by the consequences of our fallen sinfulness: ‘Let alleluia be sung. Then will come about the word that is written, a word no longer of people embattled but of people triumphant: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Let alleluia be sung’.13 Resilience will give way to eternal rejoicing.

Notes 1 1 Samuel 16:14–23. 2 E.g., (Cross 1999; Honing 2011; Koelsch 2012; Patel 2008; Peretz and Zatorre 2003; Sloboda 1985). 3 We do not know who he was, for certain; possibly a priest in Alexandria. 4 E.g., (Athanasius 1980), PG 27.11–46; (Kolbet 2006, 85–101). 5 E.g., Pseudo-Chrysostom De poenitentia (cited by [McKinnon 1989, 90]). 6 It is difficult to over-estimate the early Christian obsession with the psalms. It is reflected in the many sermons devoted to the Psalter by, for example, Chrysostom, Basil, and Augustine. Rondeau (1982–85). 7 Exposition of Psalm 41. PG 55. 155–59. 8 Conf. 9.7.15. For what ‘singing in the manner of the east’ might signify see Harrison (2019, 92–95). Augustine again reverts to one of Ambrose’s hymns following the death of his mother, Monica, in Milan, in 387. Towards the end of Confessions book 9 (9.12.32–33) he tells us that hearing in a dream Ambrose’s Deus Creator Omnium, he was finally able to weep for her and find consolation in his grief. 9 Sermon 256.1 in Works of Saint Augustine III/7. 10 Ibid., 3. 11 Athanasius to Marcellinus, 27. 12 Sermon 256.3. 13 Ibid., 2.

Resilience and music in the early Church 123

Bibliography Primary sources Athanasius. 1980. Athanasius: The Life of Antony and the Letter to Marcellinus. Translated by R.C. Gregg. Classics of Western Spirituality. Mahwah, NJ: Paulist. Augustine. Exposition of Psalm 41. PG 55. 155–59. ———. 1962. Confessiones. Bibliotheque Augustinienne. 13–14. Paris: Études Augustiniennes. ———. 1992. Works of Saint Augustine III/7. Translated by E. Hill. New York: New City Press. ———. 2002. Confessions. Translated by M. Boulding. Works of Saint Augustine I.1. New York: New City Press. Pseudo-Chrysostom. De poenitentia. Cited by J. McKinnon. 1989. Music in Early Christian Literature, 90. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Secondary sources Cross, I., ed. 1999. Music, Mind and Science. Seoul: Seoul National University Press. Harrison, C. 2019. Reading Augustine: On Music, Sense, Affect and Voice. New York: Bloomsbury. Honing, H. 2011. The Illiterate Listener: On Music Cognition, Musicality and Methodology. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Koelsch, S. 2012. Brain and Music. Oxford: Wiley. Kolbet, Paul. 2006. ‘Athanasius, The Psalms, and the Reformation of the Self’. Harvard Theological Review 99 (1): 85–101. McKinnon, J. 1989. Music in Early Christian Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Patel, A.D. 2008. Music, Language, and the Brain. New York: Oxford University Press. Peretz, I., and R. Zatorre, eds. 2003. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rondeau, M-J. 1982–1985. Les Commentaires patristiques du Psautier (IIIe-Ve siècles). Vol. I and II. Orientalia Christiana Analecta, 219–20. Rome: Pontifical Institutum Studiorum Orientalium. Sloboda, J.A. 1985. The Musical Mind: The Cognitive Psychology of Music. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

10 Virtue and resilience Aquinas’ Christian approach to virtue applied to resilience Craig Steven Titus

Virtue and resilience This chapter responds to the question: How might Aquinas’ Christian vision of the person and virtue serve as a framework for a dialogue with psychosocial research and Christian reflections on human resilience, and particularly on the resilience of helping professionals?1 Resilience is defined in many ways, as has been recorded in the introduction and contributions to this volume. These definitions build upon the core notion of resilience as the capacity to recover from stress (Smith et al. 2008). This chapter cannot explicitly engage all aspects of resilience; one might also explicate, for instance, relational resilience (Jordan 2004) or maternal resilience (Baraitser and Noack 2007) in light of the framework presented here. For its part, this chapter focuses on psychosocial research to identify three major aspects of resilience: coping resilience, integrity resilience, and flourishing growth resilience (Titus 2006, 363–69; see also Fletcher and Sarkar 2013). Similar characteristics of resilience are identified by Cook and White (2018; this volume). Likewise, Collicutt (Chapter 15, this volume) identifies comparable concepts: recovery, resistance, and reconfiguration. Coping, integrity, and flourishing growth resilience As mentioned, this chapter explores three aspects of resilience, of which the first is the strategic coping resilience and adaptive action that leads to good outcomes in the face of stress, difficulty, or opposition. Coping involves the functioning of human cognitive and affective powers that can be observed and balanced in the person and in groups. Bio-neurological and psychosocial coping with difficulty is perhaps the most commonly recognised aspect of resilience (Smith et al. 2008). Coping resilience is active in distinct ways. It requires the activation of personal capacities (such as memory, imagination, and emotions) and the effective rallying of resources in the face of external and internal stressors (Philippe, Lecours, and Beaulieu-Pelletier 2009, 169). For instance, there is a need for the mental health practitioner to have the competency to defuse stress related to challenges and opportunities that

Virtue and resilience 125 may be interpersonal (e.g., irritable clients and colleagues), temporal (e.g., time schedules and planning), and administrative (e.g., billing and record keeping). Second, integrity resilience is the capacity to retain personal integrity, dispositions, and strengths in adversity. This aspect of resilience sustains physical, mental, and sociocultural capacities. It prevents their dis-integrity (disintegration), which can happen when coping is achieved at the cost of physical injury, mental distortions, or damage to social bonds or other capacities. Integrity resilience is a preventive aspect of personal and interpersonal resilience that makes it possible to resist cognitive and affective distortions, and to prevent interpersonal and moral injury (Litz et al. 2009). In the face of the different types of challenge, opportunity, and suffering, there are different ways to protect one’s own personal integrity. What mental health practitioners call self-care requires integrity resilience that protects and strengthens one’s capacities by discipline, education, and formation (Wicks and Maynard 2014). Third, there is stress-related positive growth resilience, which describes the positive changes the person or the group experiences that follow on difficulty, trauma, and adversity (Dwiwardani et al. 2014; Seery, Holman, and Silver 2010, 1036). This aspect of flourishing resilience is called positive change in adversity, adversarial growth, posttraumatic growth, or thriving in difficulty (Linley and Joseph 2004; Werdel 2014). Of particular interest is the promotion of positive growth that emerges out of stress and difficulty through practices of love, patience, forgiveness, fortitude, work, supervision and mentoring, reflection and meditation, natural empathy, and listening to stories about resilience and healing (Wicks and Maynard 2014). These resilience practices have been shown to be strengthened in the interpersonal attachment of marital, family, and group settings (Dwiwardani et al. 2014; Mikulincer and Shaver 2007). We will explore the utility of conceptualising resilience in these three ways. Aquinas’ Christian approach to virtue applied to resilience Aquinas’ (1273/1981) Christian approach to natural (acquired) and transcendent (infused) virtue can also be applied to these three aspects of resilience. Resilience is found in actualising the potential of the virtues: human reason is strengthened by practical wisdom, emotion by fortitude (courage) and patience, volition by hope and charity, and interpersonal relationships by each of them. When these virtues strengthen their human potentials, the virtuous person can exhibit everyday, or acquired, resilience. There is also the transcendent resilience of infused virtues – the spiritual agency enabled through grace (Aquinas, I-II qq. 60–62).2 Aquinas’ approach to virtue and grace as building up nature helps identify the expanded spiritual potential for purposeful action and resilience. This resilience is based in the cognitive, affective, and interpersonal capacities needed to cope well,

126  Craig Steven Titus retain integrity, and foster flourishing growth in adversity. This Christian theological dimension of virtue and transcendent resilience also enhances the agency of human nature and the acquired virtues. The person is transformed at three levels of Christian calling: the calls to (1) goodness, justice, and holiness (Aquinas, I-II, qq. 1–5); (2) interpersonal vocational commitments, and (3) work and service, as well as meaningful expressions of leisure and contemplation (II-II, qq. 179–82; Pieper 1952/2009; Vitz, Nordling, and Titus 2019). The natural or basic meaning of flourishing provides a foundation for understanding the transcendent, extended meaning of Christian faith. To understand how Aquinas’ virtue theory might be applied to resilience, we will identify several basic principles of his approach to knowledge and science. For Aquinas, human experience, science, and religion share a common principle: that change is caused, that is, that nothing simply causes itself (I, 5.4; John Paul II 1998, §4; see also Aristotle Physics & Metaphysics). Things change (formal causes) because they are caused to change (efficient causes) (Austin 2017). This approach to virtues and science is based on a realist confidence in the non-simplistic intelligibility of human action and freedom, which uses four groups of conditions or causes: the material, formal, efficient, and final causes. These causes involve different methodologies that overlap in contemporary scientific, philosophical, and theological disciplines (Ashley 2006; Wallace 1996). Aquinas’ approach, because it adopts rational principles of the causal meaning of human experience, is open to contemporary psychosocial sciences. It puts science in a philosophical and theological framework that resists reductionism, determinism, materialism, and relativism. In particular, Aquinas’ approach recognises the need for the input such as that of the psychological sciences (theoretical, empirical, and clinical) as especially pertinent for understanding the moral development, responsibility, and flourishing made possible by virtue or distorted by vice.

Natural resilience of acquired virtue Aquinas’ treatment of virtue, as mentioned, offers a multidimensional approach to the person and human resilience. His moral reflections are structured by the cardinal virtues, as well as by the network of associated virtues (II-II, qq. 1–189). The theological-transcendent dimension of virtue and resilience is addressed in part III of this chapter. At the philosophical or general level, Aquinas defines virtue as ‘a certain perfection of a capacity’ (I-II, 55.1) aimed at the good of the person and his or her actions. The dimensions of virtue include its being perfective (virtuous dispositions are strengthened), performative (virtuous acts are done), and purposeful (virtuous acts and dispositions aim at good ends). These dimensions strengthen the different types of goods that are found in intellectual, moral, and theological virtues (see Vitz, Nordling, and Titus 2019).

Virtue and resilience 127 Aquinas’ virtue theory differentiates the conceptual structure and meaning of moral virtues (which are formal causes) according to capacities (which are material causes) that virtuous acts strengthen. For instance, the virtue of practical wisdom (prudence) refines the dispositions of intellectual cognition at personal and interpersonal levels, including in the work of coping with stress. Justice strengthens the will to do what is right, including the resistance to moral injuries. Temperance (self-control) and fortitude (courage) refine the emotions of desire and difficulty respectively. Aquinas’ virtue theory, furthermore, differentiates the virtues according to the ends or goals of the virtues (final causes or conditions). People are strengthened according to different goals of the virtues. A benefit of Aquinas’ approach is that it is developmental, offering a framework for studying how virtues are gained or diminished, and how vices are acquired or overcome, through personal effort (efficient causes), the modelling of others (exemplar causes), and the purposes at which they aim, including normative ones (final causes). This approach requires input from the biopsychosocial sciences if one is to understand the development of virtue and the pathways to flourishing. Coping through virtue How does the virtues’ potential become actualised and acquired through the acts, dispositions, and purposes needed for coping in adversity? Virtues by their nature require effort. They confront some level of difficulty to attain good goals, actualise potential for flourishing, and correct disordered dispositions. Particular virtues are apt to address particular types of difficulty. Consideration of the particular virtues that strengthen and actualise rational, volitional, emotional, and pre-rational cognitive capacities provides a way to understand competency and coping resilience (Ashley 2013). Aquinas holds that, to be more fully actualised, the virtues must be connected or supported by each other (I-II, 65.1). Although this interconnection and development of the virtues is a difficult and life-long process, humans do have a natural inclination to truth; that inclination is expressed in conscience and in practical wisdom, which plays a unique role in connecting the natural virtues (II-II, qq. 47–56). Although we posit that the whole range of virtues contributes to human development and strength, this section highlights how practical wisdom and fortitude contribute to coping resilience. Practical wisdom (which perfects intellectual cognition or reason) has been understood to be the major source for the growth and coherence of the natural virtues, while charity-love (which perfects intellectual affect or will) serves a similar function for the infused virtues. Nonetheless, for Aquinas, practical wisdom and charity are dependent on reason and will (III, 2.10), as are the other virtues. Part of this insight is found in the recognition that virtues, such as fortitude, require a secure interpersonal attachment

128  Craig Steven Titus (secure-base and safe haven) (Dwiwardani et al. 2014). The secure attachment is indicative of charity-love, without charity-love’s being reduced to attachment. Coping with adversity thus requires constructive and balanced intellectual affect and emotions. Aquinas identifies that the irascible emotions correlate with adversity. They are represented by fear and daring, hope and despair, and anger (I-II, qq. 41–48). The cardinal virtue of fortitude manages these emotions, especially extremes of fear and anxiety. Fortitude is an example of how virtuous practices manifest resilience. Other virtues, related to fortitude and to mastering emotions in difficult situations, relate to the coping involved in endurance (virtues of patience and perseverance) and initiative-taking (the virtue of natural hope and generosity), which are treated in the next section on integrity resilience. For Aquinas, fortitude and its associated virtues can be promoted through intentional and habitual practices, which, we would posit, involve coping with difficulty and promoting self-care and character strength. Aquinas’ vision of such virtues realises that a resilient practice, however, in order to be considered virtuous, needs to intend and aim at the good of the person. For instance, research has shown that personal, interpersonal, and specifically professional practices of memory (and imagination) and recounting difficult events that turned out well can help people cope with difficult issues and overcome extremes of anxiety and sadness in the present (Philippe, Lecours, and Beaulieu-Pelletier 2009). Such is the case when intentionally managing one’s stress before meeting with an uncooperative and abusive client. These practices can help a practitioner to attain a virtuous fear (attentiveness) that is between fearlessness (intrepidity in the face of clinical abusiveness) and fearfulness (cowardliness to face difficult topics with a client). A balanced experience of fear can help manage related emotions, as can daring, hope, and anger. Nonetheless, the simple functional mastery of emotions in difficulty does not constitute virtue for Aquinas; the moral quality of the act is also needed. In addition, reason-based virtues actualise cognitive intellectual competency, or practical wisdom and its related virtues, to make coping possible and moral. Rational competency is a significant part of facing difficulty at the individual level, as personal problem-solving is an important part of coping resilience. Aquinas also notes that right reason will seek the moral good and true flourishing of the person (II-II, qq. 47–51). Research has shown that in the face of adversity, such as exposure to violence, coping resilience is correlated to the effective use and development of reasoning, such as to effectively avoid violent confrontation (Munoz and Pence 2016). There is an interpersonal aspect of coping through virtue as well. Aquinas posits that the reason-based and affective virtues are social, because the person is social. Coping is, therefore, also found in expressions of group-based practical wisdom, especially in families (domestic prudence), in the military (military prudence), in politics (political prudence), among friends (friendship prudence), and in pastoral and clinical settings (pastoral and clinical prudence) (Aquinas, II-II, 48; Greeff and Van den Berg 2013).

Virtue and resilience 129 Resisting loss of integrity through virtue A second aspect of natural resilience is found in the virtues that help one retain personal and social integrity when confronting challenges related to family and friends, work and service, culture and faith. As mentioned previously, integrity resilience – the need to resist the loss of actualised capacities and relationships – is a major aspect of resilience. Through it, people face suffering, stress, difficulty in prioritising and managing ends, waiting, burn-out, and sorrow without losing personal wholeness. The capacity to retain integrity, character strengths, and virtues is a protective resilience. Aquinas likewise understands that virtues are not won at once and forever. Progress and integrity are possible (II-II, 23), but so are relapse and the forming of vice. Virtues need to be sustained in the face of physical, mental, and spiritual suffering and loss. Integrity resilience is also operative in the resistance of the virtues of patience and perseverance (Titus 2006, 241–63). Aquinas recognises that the force of emotion can be very strong when a person is suffering (II-II, 128, 136, 137). A person, though, can experience patience when enduring adversity or managing suffering or sorrow to achieve good and avoid evil (II-II, 128, 136.4). When one must endure a commitment to a difficult good, the virtue of perseverance helps one wait when the good is long in coming (II-II, 137). Aquinas says that perseverance is necessary, since we need to endure delays, as long as need be, in efforts at being temperate and courageous, and in the other virtues (II-II, 137.1). The clinician will need a particular kind of balanced and fortified patience and perseverance to persist without burning out in the often long work of accompanying those with mental distortions and emotional illness. Moreover, the clinician faces stress when life commitments vie for limited time and energy. When pushed to extremes, a clinician him- or herself can perform distorted acts that lead to distorted dispositions. Related psychological disorders or experiential distortions are practices such as over-work, procrastination, anxious behaviours, yielding to peer-pressure, and ruminative depression, which may be addressed or avoided through perseverance and patience. Another acquired virtue that supports integrity resilience is the personal and interpersonal capacity to find meaning sense of meaning (which can relate to (prudence, natural theology, and theodicy), that is, the practical wisdom to find sense that there is a meaning in life, especially in the midst of terrible and senseless suffering. Viktor Frankl (1959) identifies such a sense of meaning. In particular, he observes that prisoners – in the Nazi work and death camps in which he was also interned – who found meaning in their suffering were more likely to survive the terrible situation of the camps. Moreover, they were also likely to come out of the experience with fewer psychological disorders and distortions. This type of moral meaning in life, found through insight and through reasoning, requires fortitude to do what is right in the face of adversity. For instance, there is a risk when professionals share themselves in clinical or

130  Craig Steven Titus pastoral settings, for it is possible that they will be wounded emotionally (Rushton 2018). An emotional injury may be the cost of the clinician’s being open and vulnerable to the client, who may be emotionally abusive, violent, insulting, or hateful (Kern 2014). To mitigate this risk, there are protective factors, which are commonly assessed by resilience measures, such as having clear beliefs and values and having the moral strength to make unpopular decisions and to manage unpleasant emotions (Lachman 2016, 123). The moral dimension of resilience also helps one retain one’s integrity in the face of moral injury (Litz et al. 2009). Moral injury occurs when a person becomes associated with an immoral act (fraud, libel, killing of an innocent person, and so on) either by committing the act or by witnessing it, or by hearing about it from someone else, such as a client. Immoral acts challenge the moral disposition of one’s character strengths and virtues. Since a helping professional may be exposed to immoral acts, there is a need to strengthen one’s own self-care to prevent moral injury from damaging the helping professional’s moral integrity and resilience (Lachman 2016) and possibly causing burn-out (Rossetti and Rhoades 2013). Stress-related flourishing change through virtue A third aspect of natural resilience is found in the different virtues that enable stress-related positive change. By its very nature, virtue is conceived of as requiring good acts that develop into dispositions towards virtuous good ends and towards the performance of similar virtuous acts in the future (Aquinas, I-II, qq. 55–56, 63). Virtues are a person’s strength-base to actualise, develop, and refine the capacities needed for flourishing at personal and interpersonal dimensions. Virtues are perfective and corrective: they foster growth and healing. The positive development brought about through the virtues can also be seen in resilience factors (Masten et al. 2011), for both aim to overcome distortions, ills, and vice. The contrary parallel is between vices and vulnerability factors, which both tend to embody languishing instead of flourishing growth, healing, and virtue. Studies identify how in the face of difficulty growth can arise through love and attachment, fortitude and initiative, patience and perseverance, forgiveness, work and meaningful leisure, self-control, prayer, and mediation (Wicks and Maynard 2014). All these qualities are important in the life of the clinician. One could further add the need for the professional prudence involved in mental health practice, including supervision and mentoring, observation and diagnosis, and natural empathy. Although each virtue may potentially embody some positive change after or in the midst of adversity, we outline only one of them: the natural virtue of hope. Hope, as a natural virtue, is more about taking initiative in difficult goals, acts, and dispositions than about optimistic temperament, mood, or emotion per se. Through natural hope one retains sight of a future difficult good.

Virtue and resilience 131 One must also plan fitting pathways, resources, and action to attain it (Rand and Cheavens 2011). Aquinas defines the natural virtue of hope in terms of the great efforts that mark life and require what he calls great-souledness (magnanimity) and what we can call excellence in initiative-taking (I-II, 60.4; II-II, 129.3, 129.5). Hope brings positive growth through the striving for excellence that is synonymous with virtue (Titus 2006, 214–40). Hope is one of the most well-documented resilience factors in psychosocial research. It combines cognitive, affective, and interpersonal supports (Cheavens et al. 2006; Larsen and Stege 2010; Ripley et al. 2013). In the wake of trauma and adversity and in the presence of difficulty and suffering, the virtue of hope is informative (planning what to do), performative (making good things happen), and transformative (changing the person in the process).

Transcendent resilience of Christian-infused virtue How does Aquinas’ Christian understanding of the person serve to explain and promote the transcendent resilience of infused virtue? Before answering this question, we will note that divergent understandings of the person and virtue arise from reductionist notions of nature and deterministic conceptions of grace, especially when grace is not seen to be able to transform nature. Aquinas’ vision offers an alternative perspective, in which the infused virtues are the basis for the transcendent resilience of the plan of salvation (e.g., justification and salvation) and of development in holiness and healing the effects of sin (e.g., sanctification). For Aquinas, God’s offer of divine grace presupposes the structure of nature (I, 2.2 ad 1), as it transforms nature according to the manner and potential of the particular nature (I, 62.5; I-II, 109.3) and according to the provident wisdom and love of God. Although rooted in the same human nature, the infused virtues differ from acquired virtues. The infused virtues are supported by the providential, faith-based grace that aims at the realisation of the Kingdom of God. The acquired virtues are nonetheless supported by the basic help of God (auxilium Dei) aimed at the basic goodness and justice of raising families and working for the common good (I-II, 109.3). Infused virtues are ‘a good quality of the mind, by which we live righteously, of which no one can make bad use, which God works in us, without us’ (Aquinas, I-II, 55.4). This theological definition, which Aquinas borrows from Augustine (395/2010, II.19), identifies that infused virtues aim at the ultimate goal of human life. In particular, it is the theological virtues that imbue practical wisdom, justice, fortitude, self-control (infused cardinal virtues) and their associated virtues with a new kind of meaning (faith), future (hope), and attachment (charity-love). The transcendent resilience of the theological and the infused cardinal virtues are of special interest for the Christian seeking a psychologically and spiritually resilient life. Aquinas holds that Jesus Christ is the

132  Craig Steven Titus exemplar par excellence of these virtues (III, 3.8; II-II, 23.7; see also John 14:6), including the virtues that directly face adversity and death. These infused cardinal virtues aid believers to imitate Christ even while needing to face the effects of sin throughout the life-long process of sanctification (Rom. 8; Sherwin 2009). Transcendent coping through grace and virtue A dialogue between Aquinas’ theological virtue theory and psychosocial research offers a way to understand transcendent coping resilience. The account given so far of Aquinas’ virtue theory is a solid moral and spiritual basis. However, his full account of theological and infused virtues involves a further transformation of the purpose and modelling of each virtue. According to Aquinas (I-II, qq. 68–70), to understand the transcendent coping resilience of infused virtue, one needs to consider also the dynamics of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, Beatitudes, fruits of the Holy Spirit, and Decalogue. For instance, the transcendent coping of the infused virtue of fortitude is rooted in trust, since God works through the Holy Spirit’s giving a spiritual ‘instinct’ or gift of confidence (Aquinas, I-II, 68.1; Pinckaers 2005, 385–95). Aquinas recognises also that the infused fortitude is counterintuitive, for it involves becoming ready to offer one’s life for others, not just for the good of one’s family and country (II-II, 124.1) but also as martyr for the Kingdom of God and in the name of justice. Resilience studies further explain how religious faith and spiritual practices aid people to cope with psychological stress and disorder (Cook et al. 2011, 35), manage stressful events in life (Dein et al. 2010), and, especially for the helping professional, face compassion fatigue, care-related stress, burn-out, and vicarious traumatisation (Canfield 2005). These studies suggest that spiritual competency makes coping possible, as when religious beliefs and practices influence appraisal of and coping with adversity (Pargament et al. 1990). Preparation for such negative experiences requires selfrenewal and self-care to strengthen one’s spiritual coping resources, such as a sense of spiritual meaning, control, and connectedness (Pargament 1997). Research also shows that religious coping is correlated with active involvement in a religious community, spiritual practices of prayer and meditation, reading of sacred texts, participation in sacraments, and practice of religious virtues, such as compassion, forgiveness, acceptance (Falb and Pargament 2014, 338; VanderWeele 2017). In contrast, research has shown that negative outcomes result from less adaptive or negative spiritual practices and struggles. A negative spiritual coping strategy that springs from tension and struggle with self, others, or the sacred is correlated with negative outcomes. For example, greater risk of PTSD has been linked to problems of forgiveness, negative strategies of religious coping, and negative concepts of God (Currier, Holland, and Drescher 2015, 4; Koenig, King, and Carson 2012).

Virtue and resilience 133 Transcendent resistance to loss of integrity through grace and virtue There is also a range of transcendent acts, dispositions, and purposes that aid the person in resisting loss of personal integrity, damage to interpersonal commitments, and impairment of social bonding. This transcendent integrity resilience is rooted in the wholeness provided by grace and virtue. Aquinas’ account of the virtues supports such a Christ-focused transcendent preventative dimension. Transcendent resistance to the loss of integrity is a dimension of the theological virtues, for instance patience (Aquinas, II-II, 136). Belief, hope, and charity-love specify the purpose of infused patience, which becomes imitation of Christ’s suffering from the incomprehension and disrespect of others. The transcendent resilience of infused patience can transform the experience of mental health practice, because the meaning of the suffering and sacrifice of Christ helps to change the meaning of the practitioner’s own suffering and helps one to conform to truth and one’s conscience even when misunderstood by others. The transcendent resilience of patience takes on further meaning because of the grace of (1) the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially humble knowledge of one’s own weakness and need for fortitude to address the difficulty in responding generously to the calling to give of one’s self (Is. 11:2); (2) the Beatitudes, especially the beatitude of those who mourn the broken human condition and of those who seek justice (Matt. 5:2–12); (3) the fruits of the Holy Spirit, in particular, patience in suffering, whether it be unavoidable suffering or that suffering chosen for the good that can result from it (Gal. 5:22–23; Aquinas, I-II, 70.1); and (4) the precepts that call for fortitude and perseverance in difficulty, for instance, when delaying self-gratification to serve the healing of others (Aquinas, II-II, 137). This transformation is due both to God’s grace building up nature and to one’s commitment to follow Christ in one’s calling. For instance, the infused virtues of patience and perseverance are needed for a helping professional to retain his or her integrity in sessions with a difficult and disrespectful client who causes the professional real suffering. The respectful and empathic care offered can be experienced as more than the basic (and necessary) expression of professional best practices and ethical duty. The transcendent preventive aspect of personal and interpersonal resilience guides faith-based attempts to resist cognitive distortions, prevent moral injury, resist burn-out, and retain spiritual virtues. For Aquinas, the Christian perspective seeks flourishing, in the ultimate calling of salvation and sanctification, however, also in the everyday calling of the helping professional (Rossetti and Rhoades 2013). Transcendent stress-related positive change through grace and virtue The transcendent stress-related flourishing enabled by the infused virtues is another dimension of resilience. For Aquinas, this positive change is based

134  Craig Steven Titus in a person’s being created in the image of God (ad imaginem Dei), while at the same time needing growth and healing, forgiveness and sanctification (Gen. 1:26–27; Aquinas, I-II, 61.5; I, 44.3). Difficulty is faced and growth emerges according to the threefold structure of the image of God: intelligence (knowing), free will (loving), and self-agency (doing) (Aquinas, I-II, Preface [citing St John Damascene]; III, 2.10). Faith, hope, charity-love, and the other infused virtues promote transformation modelled on Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection (I-II, 69), the Sermon on the Mount, the Gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit (I-II, 68, 70), and the New Law of grace imprinted in the human heart (I-II, 106.1). As mentioned earlier, hope is a major factor for stress-related growth resilience. An integrated approach to transcendent post-stress flourishing will incorporate insights about optimistic temperament and moods, hopeful emotion, and the natural virtue of hope into the larger framework of the theological virtue of hope and the transcendent promises that guide it. To hope in God does not replace a person’s need for the natural hope that also serves human flourishing and vocations. Both natural and theological hopes are rooted in a good that is difficult, future, and possible. Both become actual only when confronted with stress, difficulty, and even death. Theological hope, however, involves a transcendent stress-related flourishing. For Aquinas, when one has theological hope, one has confidence that others – but primarily God – will assist one’s flourishing (II-II, 17.2, 17.4). Theologically speaking, hope’s principal object is God, who has promised an ultimate meaning to life: eternal beatitude with God (II-II, 17.1) for oneself and for one’s neighbour (II-II, 17.3). The transcendent resilience of hope is transformative also because of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the gift of filial fear that reverences God. This type of respect is rooted in affection, humility, and charity-love, as demonstrated in St Paul’s image of adoption, through which we call out ‘Abba, Father’ (Rom. 8:15; Aquinas, II-II, 19.2 ad 3, 19.9). It is a transformative filial fear (the loving respect of a son or daughter for a beloved father or mother), rather than servile fear (the forced obedience of a slave) (II-II, 19.2–6), that gives confidence in God’s help when one needs to rebuild in the midst of stress and trauma (II-II, 19.9 ad 2). This work of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and all the infused virtues first provides a source for understanding transcendent stress-related flourishing as the transcendent resilience of God’s gift of salvation (redemption). This work bolsters growth in charity-love and in the healing of the effects of sin throughout life (sanctification). Moreover, it transforms everyday growth aimed at the goals of one’s natural and transcendent callings to goodness, life commitments, and work.

Conclusion This chapter has posited that Aquinas’ understanding of virtue is beneficial as a framework for interpreting natural and transcendent resilience.

Virtue and resilience 135 Psychosocial research on resilience, for its part, illustrates the cognitive pathways, affective motivation, and interpersonal relationality that drive the virtues. Aquinas’ conception of human nature is a foundation for understanding both acquired and infused virtues. Nature has an objective structure that divine grace does not de-form but rather transforms by the extended and perfected, transcendent meaning of faith. A Christian understanding of the transcendent resilience of infused virtues is rooted in a life of faith in Christ. It benefits, also, from the input of the psychosocial sciences, which help in understanding human nature better – its strengths and weaknesses. From these perspectives of science, philosophy, and theology, human action is capable of free correct, good, and virtuous acts, as well as erroneous, evil, and even vicious ones. For Aquinas, knowledge of nature and virtue is needed if one is to understand how God’s grace transforms weak human beings. God is active both before and while a person cooperates with God. If one considers such divinehuman activity as increased agency and this strength as flourishing in which humans need to collaborate with God, these virtues are examples of actualisation of self-care (as well as family- and community-care) and of prevention of burn-out and the loss of moral and spiritual strengths. Ultimately the transcendent resilience of the infused virtues is a gift of God, who is gracious to whom he is gracious – to some God gives gifts more abundantly, to others seemingly not at all. In Aquinas’ Christian approach to virtue, transcendent resilience is advanced by the free imitation of Christ in love of God the Father and in seeking the good of others through charity-love with the help of the Spirit. Practical wisdom helps one to connect the virtues and apply a fuller expression of resilience (coping, integrity, and growth) in everyday healing and flourishing. However, the transcendent resilience of the dynamic virtues of faith, hope, and charity-love employ human potential and ends to realise further the image of God in human persons and families and in their calling to benevolent friendship with all people (John 15:13; Aquinas, II-II, 23.1).

Notes 1 There are a number of people to whom I would like to express my gratitude for their contributions to this chapter: Paul C. Vitz, for his collaboration on a conference that we prepared concerning how a Christian vision of the person can strengthen resilience; Anna Sproull, for her input as research assistant; and the Editors, for their insightful suggestions and kind patience. 2 All references to Aquinas pertain to his Summa Theologica (1273/1981), which is divided into Parts (capital Roman numbers) and Questions (Arabic numerals).

Bibliography Aquinas, T. 1981 [1273]. Summa Theologiae. Translated by the English Dominican Province. Westminster, MD: Christian Classics. Ashley, B. 2006. The Way Toward Wisdom: An Interdisciplinary and Intercultural Introduction to Metaphysics. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame.

136  Craig Steven Titus ———. 2013. Healing for Freedom: A Christian Perspective on Personhood and Psychotherapy. Arlington, VA: The Institute for the Psychological Sciences Press. Augustine. 2010 [395]. Augustine: On the Free Choice of the Will, On Grace and Free Choice, and Other Writings. Translated and edited by P. King. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Austin, N. 2017. Aquinas on Virtue: A Causal Reading. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. Baraitser, L., and Noack, A. 2007. ‘Mother Courage: Reflections on Maternal Resilience’. British Journal of Psychotherapy 23 (2): 171–88. Canfield, J. 2005. ‘Secondary Traumatization, Burnout, and Vicarious Traumatization: A Review of the Literature as It Relates to Therapists Who Treat Trauma’. Smith College Studies in Social Work 75 (2): 81–101. Cheavens, J.S., D.B. Feldman, J.T. Woodward, and C.R. Snyder. 2006. ‘Hope in Cognitive Psychotherapies: On Working with Client Strength’. Journal of Cognitive Psychotherapy 20 (2): 135–45. Cook, C.C.H., A. Powell, A. Sims, and S. Eagger. 2011. ‘Spirituality and Secularity: Professional Boundaries in Psychiatry’. Mental Health, Religion & Culture 14 (1): 35–42. Cook, C.C.H., and N.H. White. 2018. ‘Resilience and the Role of Spirituality’. In The Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health, edited by D. Bhugra, K. Bhui, S.Y.S. Wong, and S.E. Gilman, 513–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Currier, J.M., J.M. Holland, and K.D. Drescher. 2015. ‘Spirituality Factors in the Prediction of Outcomes of PTSD Treatment for U.S. Military Veterans’. Journal of Traumatic Stress 28 (1): 57–64. Dein, S., C.C.H. Cook, A. Powell, and S. Eagger. 2010. ‘Religion, Spirituality and Mental Health’. Psychiatrist 34 (2): 63–64. Dwiwardani, C., P.C. Hill, R.A. Bollinger, L.F. Marks, J.R. Steele, H.N. Doolin, S.L. Wood, J.N. Hook, and D.E. Davis. 2014. ‘Virtues Develop from a Secure Base: Attachment and Resilience as Predictors of Humility, Gratitude, and Forgiveness’. Journal of Psychology & Theology 42 (1): 83–90. Falb, M.D., and K.I. Pargament. 2014. ‘Spiritual Coping Resources for Self-Renewal of Clients and Therapists’. In The Clinician’s Guide to Self Renewal, edited by R.J. Wicks and E.A. Maynard, 335–54. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Fletcher, D., and M. Sarkar. 2013. ‘Psychological Resilience: A Review and Critique of Definitions, Concepts, and Theory’. European Psychologist 18 (1): 12–23. Frankl, V. 1959. Man’s Search for Meaning. Boston: Beacon Press. Greeff, A.P., and E. Van den Berg. 2013. ‘Resilience in Families in Which a Child Is Bullied’. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling 41 (5): 504–17. John Paul II. 1998. Fides et Ratio [Encylical, On Faith and Reason]. Vatican City, Vatican: Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Jordan, J.V. 2004. ‘Relational Resilience’. In The Complexity of Connection, edited by J.V. Jordan, M. Walker, and L.M. Hartling, 28–46. New York: Guildford Press. Kern, E.O. 2014. ‘The Pathologized Counselor: Effectively Integrating Vulnerability and Professional Identity’. Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 9 (2): 304–16. Koenig, H.G., D. King, and V.B. Carson, eds. 2012. Handbook of Religion and Health. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. Lachman, V.D. 2016. ‘Moral Resilience: Managing and Preventing Moral Distress and Moral Residue’. MEDSURG Nursing 25 (2): 121–24.

Virtue and resilience 137 Larsen, D.J., and R. Stege. 2010. ‘Hope-Focused Practices during Early Psychotherapy Sessions: Part I: Implicit Approaches’. Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 20 (3): 271–92. Linley, P.A., and S. Joseph. 2004. ‘Positive Change following Trauma and Adversity: A Review’. Journal of Traumatic Stress 17 (1): 11–21. Litz, B.T., N. Stein, E. Delaney, L. Lebowitz, W.P. Nash, C. Silva, and S. Maguen. 2009. ‘Moral Injury and Moral Repair in War Veterans: A Preliminary Model and Intervention Strategy’. Clinical Psychology Review 29 (8): 695–706. Masten, A.S., J.J. Cutuli, J.E. Herbers, and M.G. Reed. 2011. ‘Resilience in Development’. In The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, edited by C.R. Snyder and S.J. Lopez, 117–31. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Mikulincer, M., and P.R. Shaver. 2007. Attachment in Adulthood: Structure, Dynamics, and Change. New York: Guilford Press. Munoz, A.E., and M.E. Pence. 2016. ‘Fortitude in the Face of Adversity: Resilience as a Moderator of the Developmental Pathway from Childhood Exposure to Violence to Dating Violence Perpetration’. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma 9 (2): 167–77. Pargament, K.I. 1997. The Psychology of Religion and Coping: Theory, Research, Practice. New York: Guilford Press. Pargament, K.I., D.S. Ensing, K. Falgout, H. Olsen, B. Reilly, K. Van Haitsma, and R. Warren. 1990. ‘God Help Me:(I): Religious Coping Efforts as Predictors of the Outcomes to Significant Negative Life Events’. American Journal of Community Psychology 18 (6): 793–824. Philippe, F.L., S. Lecours, and G. Beaulieu-Pelletier. 2009. ‘Resilience and Positive Emotions: Examining the Role of Emotional Memories’. Journal of Personality 77 (1): 139–76. Pieper, J. 2009 [1952]. Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Translated by A. Dru. San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press. Pinckaers, S. 2005. The Pinckaers Reader: Renewing Thomistic Moral Theology. Washington, DC: CUA Press. Rand, K.L., and J.S. Cheavens. 2011. ‘Hope Theory’. In The Oxford Handbook of Positive Psychology, edited by C.R. Snyder and S.J. Lopez, 323–44. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ripley, J.S., V. Maclin, J.N. Hook, and E.L. Worthington Jr. 2013. ‘The HopeFocused Couples Approach to Counseling and Enrichment’. In Evidence-Based Practices for Christian Counseling and Psychotherapy, edited by E.L. Worthington Jr, E.L. Johnson, J.N. Hook, and J.D. Aten, 189–208. Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press. Rossetti, S.J., and C.J. Rhoades. 2013. ‘Burnout in Catholic Clergy: A Predictive Model Using Psychological and Spiritual Variables’. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 5 (4): 335–41. Rushton, C.H. 2018. Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seery, M.D., E.A. Holman, and R.C. Silver. 2010. ‘Whatever Does Not Kill Us: Cumulative Lifetime Adversity, Vulnerability, and Resilience’. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99 (6): 1025–41. Sherwin, M.S. 2009. ‘Infused Virtue and the Effects of Acquired Vice: A Test Case for the Thomistic Theory of Infused Cardinal Virtues’. The Thomist 73 (1): 29–52.

138  Craig Steven Titus Smith, B.W., J. Dalen, K. Wiggins, E. Tooley, P. Christopher, and J. Bernard. 2008. ‘The Brief Resilience Scale: Assessing the Ability to Bounce Back’. International Journal of Behavioral Medicine 15 (3): 194–200. Titus, C.S. 2006. Resilience and the Virtue of Fortitude: Aquinas in Dialogue with the Psychosocial Sciences. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. VanderWeele, T.J. 2017. ‘Religion and Health: A Synthesis’. In Spirituality and Religion Within the Culture of Medicine: From Evidence to Practice, edited by M.J. Balboni and J.R. Peteet, 357–401. New York: Oxford University Press. Vitz, P.C., W.J. Nordling, and C.S. Titus, eds. 2019. A Catholic Christian Meta Model of the Person: Integration with Psychology and Mental Health Practice. Sterling, VA: Divine Mercy University Press. Wallace, W.A. 1996. The Modeling of Nature: The Philosophy of Science and the Philosophy of Nature in Synthesis. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press. Werdel, M.B. 2014. ‘Blooming in the Night: Themes of Self-Renewal in PostTraumatic Growth’. In Clinician’s Guide to Self-Renewal: Essential Advice from the Field, edited by R.J. Wicks and E.A. Maynard, 175–88. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley. Wicks, R.J., and Maynard, E.A. eds. 2014. Clinician’s Guide to Self-Renewal: Essential Advice from the Field. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

11 The certainty of God’s promises Martin Luther’s pastoral use of the Gospel Carl L. Beckwith Introduction Every aspect of Martin Luther’s theology relates to the Gospel and the doctrine of justification by faith. Luther insists that this doctrine alone creates true theologians and is therefore indispensable for the church (LW 34:157; WA 39/1:87). He urges pastors to discuss and teach it constantly: ‘For if the doctrine of justification is lost, the whole of Christian doctrine is lost’ (LW 26:9; WA 40/1:48); ‘if we lose the doctrine of justification, we lose simply everything’ (LW 26:26; WA 40/1:72). Everything rests upon the purity of the Gospel: ‘Therefore this doctrine can never be discussed and taught enough. If it is lost and perishes, the whole knowledge of truth, life, and salvation is lost and perishes at the same time’ (LW 26:3; WA 40/1:39). Again, ‘If we lose this, we lose God, Christ, all the promises, faith, righteousness, and eternal life’ (LW 26:91; WA 40/1:168). All of these comments come from the 1530s and express Luther’s mature insights and convictions on the Gospel. Every article of faith, every aspect of the believer’s life, depends upon the proper preaching of the Gospel and its reception by grace through faith. The Gospel alone bestows upon the believer the certainty of salvation, the freedom and power to live for the sake of others in ordinary vocations, and the comfort and consolation to live with hope amidst the disappointments and uncertainties of life. Luther especially emphasises this final point, the pastoral use of the Gospel, in his classroom lectures and sermons of the 1530s. The life of the believer too often seems at odds with the remarkable promises of God. When these moments begin to overwhelm, when doubts and anxieties unsettle the conscience, believers look to the certain promises of the Gospel given to them in baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper for strength and resilience. This chapter focuses on the pastoral use of the Gospel in Luther’s mature theology of the 1530s. The historical setting is important. Luther grew up as a young priest and friar in a church that emphasised the uncertainty of salvation. Believers merited eternal life through meritorious acts of love. The believer’s uncertainty did not rest chiefly with whether a person had done enough good works but whether the person possessed the sanctifying

140  Carl L. Beckwith grace (gratia gratum faciens) needed to produce works worthy of eternal life (Beckwith 2017, viii–x).1 Luther’s Reformation breakthrough, his recovery of the Gospel, rejected the uncertain salvation of works by the believer and championed the certain salvation of faith in the atoning work of Christ. By 1521 Luther had been excommunicated by the Roman Church for his teaching on the Gospel and declared an outlaw by Charles V (r. 1519– 1560), the Holy Roman Emperor. The political manoeuvrings of Frederick the Wise and his successors in Electoral Saxony and the westward advance of the Ottoman Turks prevented the emperor from pursuing the troublesome friar in Wittenberg. By 1530, however, the political winds had shifted and the emperor determined to resolve the Luther affair. He summoned the German princes to Augsburg to present their evangelical faith (Beckwith 2017, 198–99, 259–60). After months of unsuccessful negotiations, the emperor ruled against the German princes and declared that they had until 15 April 1531 to return to the Roman Church or face the consequences. Luther believed war likely. The political winds shifted once again in the spring of 1531; the deadline came and passed. The Turks were again threatening the borders, and the emperor could not risk losing the political support of the Protestants. Negotiations resumed between the emperor and the Protestants, resulting in a temporary peace agreement signed at Nuremberg in 1532. The threats of the emperor and the precarious peace agreements of the 1530s gave rise to some of Luther’s most remarkable lectures and sermons. He used the classroom and pulpit to steady the people of Wittenberg and to restate with vigour and clarity the central truths of the Reformation (Beckwith 2017, 259–60). He began lecturing on St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians in the spring of 1531. The strong statements above on the necessity of the Gospel and the doctrine of justification all come from these lectures. Paul’s letter mirrored for Luther the struggle of his day. Paul stood for the purity of the Gospel and the believer’s freedom in Christ from all laws and ceremonies. This was the very issue now facing the German people following the emperor’s edict at Augsburg and any subsequent negotiations with Rome. Would they enslave themselves once more to the uncertainty of salvation by returning to Rome as the emperor demanded or would they stand with the outlaw Luther for the purity of the Gospel?2 A few years after completing his lectures on Galatians, Luther began his final course of university lectures on the book of Genesis (Beckwith 2017, 303–5). Luther frequently highlights how the great figures of Genesis trust in the certain promises of God and exemplify for believers of all times what it means to live the Christian life. Luther presents his understanding of the Christian life against both Rome and those Protestants who reject the sacraments. He emphasises how God uses ordinary, created means to bestow his grace and blessing upon believers. Luther sees this pattern throughout scripture and traces it back to the Garden of Eden. What the reader observes in the Garden with Adam and Eve is the same pattern of God’s working

The certainty of God’s promises 141 for believers today with baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. Luther dwells on the sacramental working of God because this is how the certain promises of the Gospel come to believers and steady them amidst trial and temptation. Luther then turns to how God’s promise of blessing sustains the faith of the patriarchs in Genesis. Jacob’s blessing stands at odds with his life of exile and hardship. Although fear and doubt press heavy upon him, Jacob remains resilient, even when wrestling with God, by trusting in the certain promise of blessing given to him. Jacob’s victory models for Luther the life of the believer who struggles to make sense of God’s promises amidst the adversities of life. He uses Jacob to show the pastoral use of the Gospel for the strength and resilience of the believer today.

Luther’s certainty of salvation In the years leading up to the posting of the Ninety-five Theses in 1517, Luther turned to the scriptures and discovered a different teaching on sin, grace, faith, works, and righteousness than that taught by his university professors and the medieval schoolmen. According to Paul, believers receive the righteousness of God, which alone avails for salvation, by grace through faith and not by their best efforts or works (Rom. 1:16–17). For Luther the schoolmen failed to distinguish between active and passive righteousness (Phil. 3:8–11; Titus 3:4–7), between the imperfect righteousness believers have in themselves, which never suffices for salvation, and the perfect righteousness of Christ, which stands outside of believers and becomes theirs by faith alone.3 Certainty rests never in the self but always in Christ and his perfect and complete saving work for all who believe. This was the good news, the Gospel, the church’s most holy treasure, proclaimed by Paul. Luther’s early university lectures addressed sin, grace, and righteousness so often that others accused him of always singing the same old song. In the first publication of his own work, Luther remarks: Now someone might say to me: “Can’t you ever do anything but speak only about the righteousness, wisdom, and strength of God rather than of man, always expounding Scripture from the standpoint of God’s righteousness and grace, always harping on the same string and singing the same old song?” (LW 14:204; WA 18:529) Luther ignored the criticism and never stopped singing this song throughout his life. Twenty years later he insisted that one doctrine alone, faith in Christ, rules in his heart, and can never be exhausted: ‘From it, through it, and to it all my theological thought flows and returns, day and night; yet I am aware that all I have grasped of this wisdom in its height, width, and depth are a few poor and insignificant first fruits and fragments’ (LW 27:145; WA 40/1:33).

142  Carl L. Beckwith When the emperor issued his edict against the German princes and their citizens, Luther quickly composed a warning to his dear German people about the emperor’s threats, reminding them of the true Gospel they had received. He writes, ‘But now – praise be to God – it has come to pass that man and woman, young and old, know the catechism; they know how to believe, to live, to pray, to suffer, and to die’ (LW 47:52; WA 30/3:317). They knew these things because they had come to know the purity of the Gospel. In the spring of 1531, Luther responded to the emperor’s assault upon the Gospel by lecturing on St Paul’s Letter to the Galatians. Luther succinctly restates his reforming position in these lectures. The Gospel frees believers from themselves and from the monster of uncertainty, indeed the greatest of all monsters, the doubts of conscience. Luther explains: The chief point of all Scripture is that we should not doubt but hope, trust, and believe for a certainty that God is merciful, kind, and patient, that He does not lie and deceive but is faithful and true. He keeps His promises and has now accomplished what He had promised, handing over His only Son into death for our sins, so that everyone who believes in the Son should not perish but have eternal life. (LW 26:386; WA 40/1:588; John 3:16) For Luther, Christ’s perfect and sufficient work of salvation paid the debt of all sins of all people of all times. Christ bears ‘the sins of the entire world, past, present, and future’ and this means that in Christ ‘the whole world is purged and expiated from all sins, and thus it is set free from death and from every evil’ (LW 26:280–81; WA 40/1:438).4 When sin weighs heavily upon believers, they must direct their gaze to Christ who bears all sins. Only in doing this will the believer find comfort. Luther explains that ‘this is our highest comfort, to clothe and wrap Christ this way in my sins, your sins, and the sins of the entire world, and in this way to behold Him bearing all our sins’ (LW 26:279; WA 40/1:436). Certainty resides only in the perfect, objective, and completed work of Christ. If believers direct their gaze to the self, the monster of uncertainty returns. Luther writes: And this is the reason why our theology is certain: it snatches us away from ourselves and places us outside ourselves, so that we do not depend on our own strength, conscience, experience, person, or works but depend on that which is outside ourselves, that is, on the promise and truth of God, which cannot deceive. (LW 26:387; WA 40/1:589)5 The same old song, perhaps, but one that Luther never tired of singing from the pulpit and in the classroom.

The certainty of God’s promises 143

Luther’s evangelical piety When Luther rejected the late-medieval theology of salvation, he also rejected the piety taught by the church that focused on masses, vigils, relics, pilgrimages, and indulgences. A major undertaking for him was to teach a new piety, a new way of living the Christian life, in accordance with a proper understanding of the Gospel. The medieval practices of the church focused believers on what they could do for God to make satisfaction for their sins and merit eternal life. Luther refers to this as a person’s active righteousness. It busies itself with good works and spiritual practices that never achieve salvation. Human reason especially retreats to this sort of righteousness amidst doubt, uncertainty, trial, and tribulation. Passive righteousness, on the other hand, is the righteousness of Christ received by grace through faith. This righteousness stands outside of the believer and alone avails for salvation. Only faith knows this sort of righteousness for only faith, worked by the Holy Spirit through Word and sacrament, lifts the believer’s gaze from the self to Christ. The law directs people to active righteousness, to what God commands them to do, and this never suffices for salvation; the Gospel directs people to passive righteousness, to what God has done for them in Christ, and this always brings life and salvation. Therefore, it is appropriate to call the righteousness of faith or Christian righteousness “passive.” This is a righteousness hidden in a mystery, which the world does not understand. In fact, Christians themselves do not adequately understand it or grasp it in the midst of their temptations. Therefore it must always be taught and continually exercised. And anyone who does not grasp or take hold of it in afflictions and terrors of conscience cannot stand. For there is no comfort of conscience so solid and certain as is this passive righteousness. (LW 26:5; WA 40/1:41) Here we begin to see Luther’s evangelical piety. When it comes to salvation and the life of salvation, everything rests on certainty. The burdened conscience finds no comfort in ambiguous assurances or probable promises. Believers must know that the Gospel’s promise of forgiveness in Christ belongs to them. They know this not by looking inward at the heart or by examining their feelings but by looking outside of themselves to the objective work of God for them. The comfort and consolation needed by the conscience exists in defined places and actions, in God’s ministry of Word and sacrament in the church for the believer. Here the believer hears and receives the certain promises of God through the preaching of the Word, baptism, absolution, and the Lord’s Supper. In his final course of university lectures on the book of Genesis, Luther reflects at length on how God imparts his blessing and promise to believers.

144  Carl L. Beckwith He dwells on the pattern of God’s sacramental working in the Garden of Eden, which becomes for him the pattern of God’s working throughout scripture for all believers. Luther’s chief point is that God’s objective and certain work for believers stands apart from their faith and their best efforts. Faith never establishes the truth of God’s work; faith always receives the benefit of God’s work. For this reason alone, believers live confidently and boldly by faith in God’s promises at all times and especially when disappointment and doubt threaten their lives. The Garden of Eden The Bible records a number of events that raise more questions for the curious reader than it answers. The opening chapters of Genesis certainly fit this description. Luther, too, has more questions than he can answer. When did Adam and Eve fall? Where is the Garden of Eden? These questions belong to the category of speculation for Luther because the Bible does not answer them. Other questions have easy enough answers, but the answers only raise harder questions. How did God sustain Adam and Eve in perfect heath, free of disease and weariness? The answer given by scripture is clear enough. It was the tree of life. But why would God use the fruit of a tree to do such a thing? Could God not have sustained them in some miraculous and extraordinary way, apart from the physical eating of common food? The answer, of course, is that he could have done any number of things – he is God after all – but he did not. This is a crucial point for Luther. Although believers may raise a number of questions, they must never obscure what God has actually done. Faith accepts God’s working; human reason mocks it. Faith confesses what God makes known: the Incarnation, virgin birth, victory of the cross, baptism, absolution, Lord’s Supper. Reason objects to all of these things. For Luther faith knows more than reason. Does that mean questions may not be asked about what God has done? No, for Luther, the questions raised by faith seek answers from scripture and therefore seek to deepen faith in what God has done. This is how faith seeks understanding. Although God could have sustained Adam and Eve spiritually, without the physical eating of food, he did not. Instead, he nourished and sustained their life through the creaturely and material means of a tree’s fruit. How, asks Luther, could such fruit forever maintain Adam’s life and his powers at their utmost vigour? Similarly, how could the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil bring death? The answer is the same in both cases. The power to do such things rests not with the inherent character of the fruit but solely with God’s command and promise. The tree of life was not life-giving by nature; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was not deadly by nature. Luther explains, ‘The tree of life makes alive through the potency of the Word of Him who gives the promise and ordains it so; the tree of the knowledge of good and evil kills through the potency of the Word

The certainty of God’s promises 145 of Him who issues the prohibition’ (LW 1:96; WA 42:73). It is the power of the Word attached to the created fruit that makes it either life-giving or death-dealing (LW 1:226–27; WA 42:169). Luther pauses to emphasise that the way God works in the Garden remains after the Fall. The bronze serpent raised up by Moses had no power in itself but only from the Word attached to it. Luther explains, ‘the Word which was added to that brazen serpent was life-giving because God commanded the serpent to be set up, and added the Word (Num. 21:8): “Whoever looks at it will be healed” ’ (LW 1:227; WA 42:169–70). The power for healing came from God’s command and promise. God commanded the Israelites through Moses to look at the bronze serpent when bitten by the fiery serpents and promised that in so doing they would live. The tree gives life and the bronze serpent heals not because of their inherent character but solely because of the command and promise of God’s Word. Luther’s reflection on the sacramental activity of God in the Garden and with the bronze serpent in the wilderness leads him to a consideration of baptism and the Lord’s Supper. He begins by distinguishing his view from Rome and the Protestants who reject the sacraments, whom he refers to as Sacramentarians. The medieval schoolmen misunderstood how baptism makes a person righteous. They thought God bestowed a special power upon the baptismal water rather than ascribing baptism’s power to the Word attached to it (LW 1:227–28; WA 42:170). Luther responds, ‘[W]e say that the water is water, in no wise better in quality than that which a cow drinks. But we maintain that to the simple water the Word of promise has been added (Mark 16:16): “He that believes and is baptized will be saved”; likewise (John 3:5): “Man must be born again of water and the Spirit” ’ (LW 1:228; WA 42:170). The power rests in the Word of promise. What makes water or bread and wine life-giving follows the same pattern as the tree of life in the Garden or the bronze serpent in the wilderness. If the schoolmen mistakenly assign a special power to the sacraments apart from the Word, the Sacramentarians mistakenly dismiss the power of the Word and thereby regard the sacraments as mere symbols or unnecessary externals to Christian faith. The power, significance, and benefit of the trees in the Garden of Eden, the bronze serpent, baptism, and Lord’s Supper rest firmly on God’s command and promise (LW 1:229; WA 42:170–71). At the same time, the material or creaturely element used by God really does convey what God promises. These two things always remain together for Luther. God really did convey life through the actual eating of the tree of life; God really did deliver death through the actual eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; God really did preserve the life of the Israelites who actually looked upon the bronze serpent. Similarly, for Luther, God really does save through the water of baptism; God really does impart forgiveness of sins through his true Body and Blood under the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper.

146  Carl L. Beckwith God’s ordinary works Luther’s high view of the sacraments as means of grace met strong opposition from the Sacramentarians. They maintained that “externals” are of no profit for salvation (LW 3:272; WA 43:70). Luther presents their position in the form of a syllogism: Nothing external is profitable for salvation. Baptism, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Lord’s Supper are externals; hence they are of no avail for salvation. (LW 3:273; WA 43:70) Luther insists that the truth of the major premise depends on who authors the external. Anything instituted for our salvation by the will of man or by the church without the Word of God profits nothing (Matt. 15:9). Anything instituted by God’s command and bearing his promise of forgiveness necessarily profits for salvation. Baptism, absolution, the preaching of the Gospel, and the Lord’s Supper are externals given by the command and promise of God for salvation. Once again Luther insists that the power of these externals rests with the Word: ‘Separate the Word from Baptism, from Absolution, and from the Lord’s Supper, and they will be nothing’ (LW 3:272; WA 43:70). Why would God use material things to convey such significant blessings? Luther offers both polemical and constructive arguments. On the one hand, all people have a body and soul. God heals and saves both the body and soul and therefore applies his medicine of salvation both physically and spiritually. The desire to spiritualise the faith by rejecting all externals misunderstands the believer’s own creaturely constitution. The everyday lives of all people further show this pattern of God’s care. God warms the earth through the sun and sends rain through clouds. Those who deny externals simply deny their own created reality and God’s use of created things to bestow his blessings (LW 3:273; WA 43:71). Does such a view of creation and sacraments limit God? Luther uses the scholastic distinction between the absolute and ordered power of God to explain how God works in creation. A close reading of scripture shows that God exercises his divine power in both remarkable and ordinary ways. Sometimes he rains manna from heaven and feeds his people in an extraordinary way; most of the time he provides daily bread through farmers, markets, and the labour of people. Sometimes he creates human beings in an extraordinary way by using a clod of earth or the rib of a man; most of the time he creates through the sexual union of male and female. Ordinarily fire burns. And yet one day in Babylon God made a fire that did not burn (Dan. 3:25). Should believers gather around the dinner table and expect God to rain manna from heaven? Should they step into a fire because God once made a fire that did not burn? For Luther this would be nonsense:

The certainty of God’s promises 147 ‘[God] does not command us to act in accordance with this absolute power, for He wants us to act in accordance with the ordered power’ (LW 3:274; WA 43:71). God ordinarily works through the Word and sacrament ministry of others to convey his grace, forgiveness, and salvation. Although he certainly could work apart from means by his absolute power, such work remains hidden from believers. The focus of the believer rests always upon God’s revealed commands and promises. A great deal of comfort and certainty comes to believers who focus on these definite and certain works of God. Luther illustrates this by reflecting on two particularly vexing issues in his day – the purpose of the Christian life and the question of predestination. The church had for a very long time distinguished between the contemplative and active life. People were encouraged to devote their lives to the contemplation of God in monasteries and convents in order to achieve a greater piety than ordinary, common believers. Luther laments that he too once believed this. Pious monks and nuns long for special visions and revelations, for extraordinary illuminations apart from external means. As Luther more colourfully puts it, they try to climb to heaven without ladders (LW 3:275; WA 43:71–72). They seek to contemplate God but not by means of the ordinary things given by God to believers in scripture. Luther warns, ‘Let him who wants to contemplate in the right way reflect on his Baptism; let him read his Bible, hear sermons, honor father and mother, and come to the aid of a brother in distress’ (LW 3:275; WA 43:72). Believers properly contemplate God in Word and sacrament, in their vocations, and in their lives of loving service to their neighbours. True contemplation for Luther must be on God’s terms and not derived from the lofty desires of human reason. God’s ordinary working always offends human reason. The Sacramentarians want God’s grace and salvation but not through ordinary water, bread and wine, or the voice of the pastor. The monks and nuns want to contemplate God but not in the ordinary way that others do. Both groups seek something contrary to God’s Word in order to feel or appear extraordinary. Luther regards this as the temptation of reason and a ploy of the devil. Both types of people distance themselves from God’s ministry through Word and sacrament and seek a different and better expression of piety on their own terms. Both seek the absolute power of God and abandon the comfort and consolation of the ordered power of God. They seek the hidden God, the God of possibility and potential but not of promise, abandoning the revealed God of scripture who creates, feeds, blesses, forgives, and saves through his ordered power. When people seek God where he has not promised to be, they fall into doubt, uncertainty, and ultimately despair. Luther sees this especially with the vexing question of predestination. He laments that so many people busy themselves with spiritually harmful questions on God’s predestination and foreknowledge: ‘For this is what they say: “If I am predestined, I shall be

148  Carl L. Beckwith saved, whether I do good or evil. If I am not predestined, I shall be condemned regardless of my works” ’ (LW 5:42; WA 43:457). If these questions were true, then everything God has done for salvation would be uncertain and meaningless. Luther responds: For what end did it serve to send His Son to suffer and to be crucified for us? Of what use was it to institute the sacraments if they are uncertain or completely useless for our salvation? For otherwise, if someone had been predestined, he would have been saved without the Son and without the sacraments or Holy Scripture. Consequently, God, according to the blasphemy of these people, was horribly foolish when He sent His Son, promulgated the Law and the Gospel, and sent the apostles if the only thing He wanted was that we should be uncertain and in doubt whether we are to be saved or really to be damned. (LW 5:43; WA 43:458) Those who ignore God’s revealed works, the things he has actually done, not only misunderstand the purpose of what God has done but show contempt for him. Christ came into the world ‘to make us completely certain’ and gave the scriptures, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper to strengthen believers ‘over against uncertainty and doubt’ (LW 5:43; WA 43:458). For Luther it is necessary above all else to insist upon this certainty. But to these thoughts one must oppose the true and firm knowledge of Christ, just as I often remind you that it is profitable and necessary above all that the knowledge of God be completely certain in us and that we cling to it with firm assent of the heart. Otherwise our faith is useless. For if God does not stand by His promises, then our salvation is lost, while, on the other hand, this is our comfort, that, although we change, we nevertheless flee for refuge to Him who is unchangeable. (LW 5:43; WA 43:458; Mal. 3:6; Rom. 11:29) Although God can exercise his absolute power at any time, although he may rain manna from heaven or once again make a fire that does not burn, all of this remains hidden from believers. What they know with certainty is what he reveals, what he commands and promises for them. Luther insists that faith must trust only in what God has made known. Those who peer into the hidden things of God find no Word, no certainty, no consolation. Luther concludes, ‘If you listen to Him, are baptized in His name, and love His Word, then you are surely predestined and are certain of your salvation’ (LW 5:45; WA 43:459).6 Jacob’s resilience Luther uses the blessings and trials of the patriarch Jacob to show the practical side of trusting in God’s promises. God promised Jacob an abundance

The certainty of God’s promises 149 of temporal goods, temporal authority over nations, and spiritual authority over his brothers (Gen. 27:28–29). God’s blessings are not like our blessings. We bless by expressing wishes and hopes for another but we have no power to bring about these blessings. God’s blessings work differently. He bestows what his words say (LW 5:140; WA 43:524–25). God’s blessings are definite and establish the sure, firm, and living faith of Jacob and the other patriarchs. The patriarchs placed their trust in God’s promise, even when life seemed contrary to his blessing. Scripture’s record of their remarkable faith in these difficult moments serves as an encouragement for believers of all times. They are for Luther models of resilience. The end of the blessing given to Jacob repeats the warning given to ­Abraham and Isaac: ‘Cursed be everyone who curses you’ (Gen. 27:29). Luther understands this to mean that hardship will find Jacob as others will curse him. God’s blessing covered every aspect of Jacob’s life and, as his life unfolds, he will see curses instead of blessing in these very places. Although God promised that his brothers would bow down before him, Jacob finds himself fleeing for his life as Esau plans to kill him. Although God promised that peoples would serve him and nations would bow down before him, Jacob finds himself in exile and in servitude to Laban. Although God promised an abundance of temporal goods, the fatness of the earth and plenty of grain and wine, Jacob, in his later years, endured severe famine, forcing him to move his family to Egypt. Although God promised Jacob great blessings, the experience of his life more often seems contrary to these blessings. What do you do when nothing God has promised seems to be true? At these crucial times, explains Luther, God teaches Jacob and all believers, ‘Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ (LW 5:143–44; WA 43:527; Matt. 4:4; Deut. 8:3). God’s Word, his most certain Word, sustains believers amidst fortune and misfortune. Why, though, do God’s blessings not always align with the experience of our lives? Luther explains, ‘The Lord bestows a blessing mixed with patience and adorned with reminders of the holy cross, in order that we may be instructed in our trials and learn that our life depends not on bread alone but on every word of God’ (LW 5:144; WA 43:527). For Luther the Christian life often seems filled with more curse than blessing. When crosses arise, believers should ponder the steadfast faith of the patriarchs and imitate their trust in God’s promises. Abraham was ordered to sacrifice Isaac; David, after being anointed king, lived in exile for ten years; and Jacob no sooner received his blessing and had to flee for his life. Luther reflects on these episodes and applies them to the believers of his day. This is the constant course of the church at all times, namely, that promises are made and that then those who believe the promises are treated in such a way that they are compelled to wait for things that are invisible, to believe what they do not see, and to hope for what does not appear. He who does not do this is not a Christian. (LW 5:202; WA 43:567)

150  Carl L. Beckwith God uses crosses and hardship to strengthen the resolve and faith of believers. All must learn to live not only by bread but also by the Word. Luther reminds his students that Jacob was not without sin and certainly felt doubts during his trials. He must have thought at times that nothing would come of God’s great blessings and promise. During these struggles, Luther imagines that Jacob cried out, ‘ “Flesh and Satan, you are lying for God has spoken and has made a promise. He will not lie, even if the opposite happens or I die in the meantime.” Thus faith spoke and ordered the light to shine out of darkness’ (LW 5:205; WA 43:570). The faithful stand on the promises of God, especially when life appears contrary to what God has promised. No matter the experience of life, no matter the trials and tribulations or the crosses and burdens, God’s Word authenticates a believer’s life and faith. It is never the other way around for Luther. Jacob did not use his misfortunes to interpret God’s promise to him; he ordered his life according to the promise even when, especially when, his life seemed more curse than blessing. All believers must do the same. Luther writes, ‘For I believe in Christ, whom I do not see. But I have His Baptism, the Sacrament of the Altar, and consolation through the Word and Absolution. Yet I see nothing of what He promises. Indeed, I feel the opposite in my flesh. Here, then, one must struggle and do battle against unbelief and doubt’ (LW 5:205; WA 43:570). When weakness and doubt arise, the believer must declare, ‘I have been baptized and have the hope of eternal life’ (LW 5:204; WA 43:569). God’s promise conveys what he says and these promises never disappoint. Even if believers find themselves wrestling with God as Jacob did at the Jabbok or the Canaanite woman did with Jesus, they remain steadfast in his promises and indeed conquer God by their faith. Luther explains: If [God] pretends that He is unfriendly and angry with you inasmuch as He does not want to hear you and help you, then say: “Lord God, You have promised this in Your Word. Therefore You will not change Your promise. I have been baptized: I have been absolved.” If you persistently urge and press on in this way, He will be conquered and say: “Let it be done unto you as you have petitioned, for you have the promise and the blessing. I have to give in to you. For a constant and persistent seeker and petitioner is the sweetest sacrifice”. (LW 6:141; WA 44:105) Although disappointments and trials fill the lives of believers, they find strength and resilience not in themselves but in the certain promises of God bestowed upon them in baptism, absolution, the Lord’s Supper, and the preaching of the Gospel (LW 6:132, 141, 149; WA 44:98, 105, 111). These promises make sense of their lives and steady them even when the world seems contrary to all that God has said.

The certainty of God’s promises 151

Conclusion The emperor’s ultimatum following the meeting at Augsburg in the fall of 1530 drove Luther to restate with vigour and clarity the Gospel and the doctrine of justification by faith. Luther used his lectures and sermons to impress upon the students and people of Wittenberg the significance of the situation. To lose the Gospel is to lose everything. The Gospel alone brings certainty by pointing the believer to Christ and the sure promise of forgiveness and salvation in him alone. This same Gospel comforts and consoles the believer amidst the disappointments and uncertainties of life. Luther’s pastoral use of the Gospel rests here. Life often does not align with the promises of God. This was true of Jacob and it is true for all believers of all times. When the experiences of life stand at odds with the promises of God, when difficulties overwhelm or when vexing questions like predestination disturb the conscience, believers steady themselves by looking to the certainty of the Gospel and to the certain places where God has placed his promise upon them. Luther insists that God delivers his comforting and consoling promises on his terms through material means – whether trees in the Garden of Eden, a bronze serpent in the wilderness, the water of baptism, the pastor’s voice of absolution, or the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper. God has promised to be at work in these defined places to nourish and sustain faith and to provide comfort and strength. Believers find resilience amidst the difficulties of life by trusting the certain promises of God given to them in Word and sacrament.

Notes 1 On meriting eternal life, see Bonaventure (2005, 178 and 181); Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 114, a. 3. On whether believers know they have sanctifying grace, see Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 112, a. 5. In 1531, Luther preached, ‘Thus all the monks have publicly taught that no one can know whether or not he is in a state of grace. It serves them right that because they despise faith and truly godly works and seek their own purity, they must never see God or know how they stand in relation to Him’ (LW 21:38; WA 32:329). In the decree on justification in 1547, the Council of Trent declares, ‘no one can know with a certitude of faith – that cannot be subject to error – that he has obtained God’s grace’ (DS 1534). 2 For an example of what Luther will concede and not concede in these negotiations, see Lectures on Galatians, 1531 (LW 26:90–91; WA 40/1:167–68). 3 Luther consistently recounts his Reformation breakthrough in these terms: Lectures on Psalm 51, 1532 (LW 12:313–14); Lectures on Genesis, 1535–45 (LW 5:157–58); Preface to Latin Writings, 1545 (LW 34:336–38). 4 Cf. Commentary on Psalm 51, 1532 (LW 12:363; WA 40/2:402): ‘Let us seek the sprinkling of the Spirit and the inward washing which Peter (1 Peter 1:2) calls “sprinkling with Christ’s blood,” by which all of us who hear and believe the Gospel of Christ are cleansed. The mouth of a man who teaches the Gospel is the hyssop and the sprinkler by which the teaching of the Gospel, colored and sealed with the blood of Christ, is sprinkled upon the church. Those who do not believe

152  Carl L. Beckwith this Word are still sprinkled; the blood of Christ and the Word of Christ will judge them, but their unbelief will prevent them from being cleansed’. 5 For Trent’s response and rejection to the certainty emphasised by Luther, see Decree on Justification, canons 12–14 (DS 1562–64). 6 Cf. Council of Trent, Decree on Justification, canon 15 (DS 1565): ‘If anyone says that a man who has been reborn and justified is bound by faith to believe that he is certainly among the number of the predestined, let him be anathema’.

Bibliography Primary sources Beckwith, Carl L. 2017. Martin Luther’s Basic Exegetical Writings. St. Louis: Concordia [cited as Beckwith]. Bonaventure. 2005. Breviloquium. Translated by Dominic V. Monti. St. Bonaventure, NY: The Franciscan Institute. Denzinger, Heinrich. 2012. Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals. 43rd ed. San Francisco: Ignatius [cited as DS]. Luther, Martin. 1517 [revised 1525]. The Seven Penitential Psalms. LW 14; WA 18. ———. 1530 [published 1531]. Warning to His Dear German People. LW 47; WA 30/3. ———. 1531 [published 1535]. Lectures on Galatians. LW 26–27; WA 40/1–40/2. ———. 1532. Lectures on Psalm 51. LW 12; WA 40/2. ———. 1535–45. Lectures on Genesis. LW 1–8; WA 42–44. ———. 1536. The Disputation Concerning Justification. LW 34; WA 39/1. Luthers Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Schriften. 1883–1993. Weimar: Böhlau [cited as WA]. Luther’s Works: American Edition. 1955-. St. Louis; Philadelphia: Concordia and Fortress [cited as LW]. Mayes, Benjamin T.G. 2018. Martin Luther on Holy Baptism: Sermons to the People (1525–39). St. Louis: Concordia.

Secondary sources Gerrish, Brian. 1962. Grace and Reason: A Study in the Theology of Luther. Oxford: Clarendon. Hendrix, Scott. 2015. Martin Luther: Visionary Reformer. New Haven: Yale University Press. Kolb, Robert. 2009. Martin Luther: Confessor of the Faith. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Oberman, Heiko. 1963. The Harvest of Medieval Theology. Boston: Harvard University Press. Rittgers, Ronald. 2012. The Reformation of Suffering: Pastoral Theology and Lay Piety in Late Medieval and Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zachman, Randall. 1993. The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.

12 ‘The science of the Cross’ Edith Stein and resilience Peter Tyler

A scientia crucis (‘science of the cross’) can be gained only when one feels oneself grounded in the Cross. –Edith Stein, 3 December 1941*

Is there not something monstrous, obscene even, in discussing the travails, trials, and tortures of Edith Stein, Saint Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, in the context of a book about psycho-theological reflections upon resilience? Surely resilience does not extend to the extreme conditions which this gentle woman had to endure? Yet I will argue in this chapter that Stein’s experiences, so intimately bound up with her writings, reveal something of the deeper nature of resilience within the Christian milieu. In their 2018 essay on the subject, Cook and White suggest that there are three essential elements of resilience: (i) confrontation of significant adversity or risk; (ii) use of internal and external resources to adapt despite adversity [in their Introduction to the present volume this is altered to ‘the utilisation of resources to cope amidst adversity’]; and (iii) a positive outcome. (Cook and White 2018, 513) Edith Stein’s experience at the hands of the Nazis in the 1930s and 1940s clearly came under category one, and she certainly displayed, in testimonials and letters, an ability to ‘cope amidst adversity’ (rather than ‘adapt despite adversity’). But, a ‘positive outcome’? Systematic humiliation and trial, transportation across Germany in a stinking cattle wagon with no food or water (‘It’s terrible. We don’t even have containers to relieve ourselves’, Edith Stein’s last recorded conversation with Johannes Wieners, 7 August 1942 quoted in Herbstrith 1992, 192), leading to the eventual extermination of a wise, pious, and compassionate middle-aged woman in the degradation of Auschwitz – can this be called a positive outcome? Well, on the basis of psycho-somatic metrics, obviously not. Yet this is a book centred around theological reflection on resilience, and if there is one thing we

154  Peter Tyler can learn from the Christian scriptures it is that the ‘foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and that God’s weakness is stronger than human strength’ (1 Cor. 1:25). Thus, in this chapter I want to bring Edith Stein, her experiences, and her reflections thereupon, into conversation with the emerging discourse of resilience. Already it will be apparent that the unique circumstances of Stein’s life force us into new positions, perhaps uncomfortable to the psychologist but always rewarding for the theologian. In this respect I see this chapter as part of an ongoing project of dialogue between theology and psychology that began with my book The Pursuit of the Soul (Tyler 2016). What is clear in the emerging discourse of resilience, as initiated by scholars such as Cook and White, is that a distinction can be made between the healthy individual and the resilient individual, which distinguishes it from the now well-established discourse of mental health, with all its pitfalls and problems. In this regard I have been influenced (not uncritically, see Tyler 2016, 121–46) by the work of the American analyst James Hillman (1926–2011), who famously critiqued the ‘medical paradigm’ in relation to the psyche. Much of what Hillman wrote has been considered controversial (something the psychologist seemed to relish at times), yet his writings hold up a mirror to the discourse of ‘mental health’, often with surprising and helpful results. As he put it in a late interview with Laura Pozzo: The analyst coming at therapy with a medical background sees the pathologies within a medical framework and has to deal with them as medical problems to be cured or healed or treated. If you come at the pathology from a psychological perspective, then you’re dealing with pathology in terms of the soul’s way of working on itself. Then the pathology, I think, is necessary to that working of imagination. (Hillman 1983, 23) Which is to say that rather than borrowing its terminology from medical tropes, the language of resilience encourages us to move beyond the borders of the purely medical as we stray into the borders of spirituality and religion. Hillman suggested in his earlier Re-Visioning Psychology that we ‘meet pathologies in an act of faith’ (Hillman 1975, 75), which is very much the position I adopt in this chapter. That is, that pathology and human suffering, rather than being something to be swept under the carpet are ‘authentic, real and valuable as they are’ (Hillman 1975, 75). In this respect the language of resilience, as I argued in my earlier book, opens up the possibility of ambiguity, paradox, unknowing, and the symbolic in our relationship to the human psyche (or, better, soul) when faced with the extreme conditions of human existence (see Tyler 2016, 177–79), and this will be a major theme of this chapter as we explore the ‘soul-language’ of Edith Stein. Secondly, the exploration of the discourse of resilience allows us to expand upon the transcendent perspective in relation to the individual. As

‘The science of the Cross’ 155 Cook and White put it: ‘the transcendent provides a perspective beyond that of the individual – one that supersedes the supremacy of the ego’ (Cook and White 2018, 517). As we shall see, the transcendent perspective is an essential dimension of the psyche in Stein’s anthropology, and if we are to make sense of her resilience in the face of the horrors and perversions of the Holocaust then we cannot avoid a discussion of her analysis of the human being as being essentially a homo transcendens.1 Finally the third aspect of this chapter will be to root the theoretical perspectives of Stein’s theological anthropology in the actual lived experiences of resilience in the face of the horrific circumstances of her final days. In so doing I aim to gently challenge the editors of the current volume to question whether the third element of resilience as they define it – the achievement of a positive outcome – is necessarily central to a Christian understanding of resilience, especially resilience as experienced within the shadow of the Cross.

The darkness of this time: the transcendent perspective to resilience The editors began this volume by pointing towards what Wittgenstein once called ‘the darkness of this time’ (Wittgenstein 1958, viii). That is, ‘a burgeoning lack of well-being experienced amidst perceived difficulty by those in Western culture at large’, especially pronounced, so they tell us, in younger generations (Chapter 1, this volume, p. XX). I cannot demur from their description of rising anxiety, depression, suicide, and addiction in our Western lands. It is hard to look at the political, economic, and social turmoil of the past decade and declare that it would have no impact on the souls of our fellow citizens. Along with the interest in resilience, psychologists themselves have begun to look outside the traditional post-Freudian bounds of the psyche to areas as diverse as well-being, mindfulness, and spirituality to seek answers to our ever-pressing problems. From the Christian perspective such a ‘science of the soul’ must have a transcendent perspective. Indeed, writing in the 1930s on her fellow German, St Elizabeth of Thuringia, Stein characterised the chief malaises of her own time as arising from the lack of, and hunger, for the transcendent: We are a spiritually impoverished generation; we search in all the places the Spirit ever flowed in the hope of finding water. And that is a valid impulse. For if the Spirit is living and never dies, he must still be present wherever he once was active forming human life and the work of human hands. Not in a trail of monuments, however, but in secret, mysterious life. He is like a small but carefully tended spark, ready to flare, glow and burst into flame the moment he feels the first enkindling breath. (Stein 1931, 1)

156  Peter Tyler As stated already, for Edith the transcendent is a sine qua non for the human soul. Pace Freud and most contemporary psychology, Stein’s understanding of personhood is essentially, as said, that of a homo transcendens. In most of her writing Stein understands the language of the soul (German Seele, again see Tyler 2016 for an extended discussion of this) as that which fosters union and wholeness in the self – it is a locus where body, mind, heart, and spirit can be usefully identified and held in creative tension. This is the libidinal creativity of soul-language that I mentioned at the outset. From her early writings, then, she creates a picture of the soul where all four categories of being can be held together. In her late work, Die Seelenburg, a commentary on Teresa of Avila’s ‘Interior Castle’, she attempted a synthesis between her own phenomenological anthropology and the medieval Christian writing she had come to admire so much (including, as well as that of Teresa of Avila, that of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and Dionysius the Areopagite). From Aquinas she accepted the Aristotelian notion of the soul as form of the body, whilst from Dionysius she saw the essential unknowing that lies at the heart of the human self. This she deftly combined with what she saw as the dynamic sense of self that Teresa of Avila provides in her notion of the ‘Interior Castle’. As she put it in Endliches und Ewiges Sein: The soul is often spoken as a sort of ‘space’ (Raum) with ‘depth’ (Tiefe) and ‘surface’ (Oberfläche). In such fashion belongs the picture (Bild) of the ‘castle of the soul’ (Seelenburg), that has outer and inner chambers and ultimately an innermost abode. The ‘I’ (Ich) inhabits this castle, and it may choose to reside in one of the outer chambers, or it may retire into an innerer one. The examples cited can help us to understand the sense of these pictures (diese Bilder): they remain however always a necessary help (Notbehelf) to grasp relationships which are fully without space (sie bleiben ja immer ein Notbehelf, um völlig unräumliche Verhältnisse zu veranshaulichen). (Stein 1986, 398)2 Over-concretisation or literalism is for Stein the enemy of grasping the nature of self, and she understands that ‘soulish’ (seelische)3 language will undermine the concretisation of empirical and pseudo-scientific methods of understanding the self. As she puts it in Endliches und Ewiges Sein: ‘the I has no life that is not the life of the soul’ (Stein 1986, 398).4 As her career as a phenomenological psychologist progressed Stein was increasingly unhappy with a ‘psychology without soul’ (psychologie ohne Seele) (Stein 1962, 63) that had been growing in popularity in the Germanspeaking lands of the mid-20th century. The empiricist reductionism of the self was for Stein a grave element that threatened to destroy the unity of the self. In contrast to this movement Stein recognised a ‘life-way’ (Lebewesen) at the heart of the human self (Stein 1962, 65) that sought expression through ‘the soulish’ (seelische). Only the person with a ‘hot heart’ (heisse Herz) who

‘The science of the Cross’ 157 had seized the world, could, she suggested (clearly in autobiographical terms but also reflecting Ss Augustine and Teresa) really appreciate the Lebewesen that lies at the heart of the self. Thus, she concludes, the soul is: A personal-spiritual picture within which is expressed the innermost and most actual, the essence, from which the person’s strengths and ability to change arises. Not, then, an unknown X that we seek to clarify through experienced facts, but something which enlightens us and can be felt whilst always remaining mysterious. (Stein 1962, 67)5 At this point, like St Augustine, she sees in the inner contradiction and mysterious tension of the soul a reflection of the Trinity itself. Thus, Stein’s solution to the problem of the soul in postmodern context is essentially that envisaged by Augustine in De Trinitate and places her writing firmly in the Augustinian tradition. For her, the multiplicity of perspective of the soul is held in the unity of apperception which is Christ. The ‘human spirit’ (Menschengeist), she wrote in Endliches und Ewiges Sein, is determined ‘from above’ (von obern) and ‘from below’ (von unten) (Stein 1986, 336, 7.3.1; c.f. Freud and Jung’s conscious and unconscious). Thus the soul for Stein consists of a choreography of Geist/spirit and Leib/body: ‘the spiritual life of the human person rises from a dark ground. It rises like a candle-flame that illumines itself nourished by non-luminous matter’. The human self, as a composite of matter and spirit, is what for Edith is determining of the term ‘soul’ and reflects the trinitarian nature of God: ‘therefore the human soul is not a mean between spirit and matter but a spiritual creation – not only a formation of the spirit but a spirit that begets formation’ (Stein 1986, 336).6 Thus, returning to our opening discussion on resilience, I think that the editors of the present volume are correct to emphasise the role of the transcendent as an essential element in defining the dynamic of resilience. If we follow Stein’s argument then the contemporary human thirst for the transcendent is actually a mirror of the ground of the human soul in its relation to the infinite. Or, as the Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins put it, the ‘ground of being, and the granite of it’ (The Wreck of the Deutschland in Hopkins 1985, 23). To crush the transcendent desire is to court disaster, or at the very least maim the soul. Yet, as sufferers such as Stein reveal, to open the self to the possibility of the transcendent revivifies and redirects the vital energy of the self to its home in the transcendent. This is the glowing spark of the Holy Spirit that Stein mentions which, even in adversity, can blow up into a raging furnace of hope.

The symbolic nature of the soul I turn now to the second aspect of Stein’s work which I would like to discuss here: the light her work throws on the essentially symbolic nature of the

158  Peter Tyler self. From earliest times, beginning with Plato in the West, the symbolic and mythic have become the special locus for human reflection on the nature of the self. James Hillman saw this symbolic sense as indicative of that mode of consciousness that ‘recognises all realities as primarily symbolic or metaphorical’ experienced through ‘reflective speculation, dream, image and fantasy’ (1975, x). In fact we could suggest that the ‘symbolic mentality’ is at the heart of a Christian view of the world (the same ‘symbolic mentality’ of a poet such as Hopkins). This is not ‘a psychological game played by an aesthete’ (Chenu 1957, 99, even though, he adds, ‘literary elegance – elegans pictura – is also involved’). Rather than an escape from reality, from suffering, the symbolic mode is one that draws us to the ‘granite of being’: ‘the profound truth that lies hidden within the dense substance of things and is revealed by these means’ (Chenu 1957, 99). Why then do I introduce what may be seen an unnecessary metaphysical layer at this point in the book? Essentially because central to the argument of my chapter is that resilience, from a Christian perspective, is not about ‘getting through a difficult patch’. Yes some of the psychological discourse points us in that direction, and this is clearly uppermost in much clinical investigation of the phenomenon. But, from the Christian point of view, this must always be secondary – resilience, or better the response to suffering, pain, and humiliation, must rather reveal to us something of the structure of the universe, which for the Christian is God’s saving (and loving) plan for us.7 In this respect the winter storms that destroy the Deutschland, the steam ship carrying the five Franciscan nuns that founders on the Kent coast that becomes the subject of Hopkins’ famous (and much misunderstood) poem, become the symbolic signifiers for Hopkins’ vision of the Creator’s plan for his creation. Like Stein’s humiliation before the Nazis, the nuns’ suffering off the Kent coast becomes the means for their instantiation of the grace of God: Thy unchancelling poising palms were weighing the worth, Thou martyr-master: in thy sight Storm flakes were scroll-leaved flowers, lily showers – sweet heaven was astrew in them. (Hopkins 1985, 19) From this perspective, then, resilience in the face of life’s adversity is not so much a ‘managing’ as an insight into the profound truth that lies hidden within our selves and our world.8 Appropriately enough, in the light of this discussion, the last academic paper Edith wrote before her death was on this self-same subject. In 1940 Professor Marvin Farber, one of Edith’s old circle of Göttingen phenomenologists who had been driven out of German by the anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis, wrote to Stein at her convent in Echt asking for a contribution to the newly created journal of Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (see Stein 2000, xii).9 The result was the article we now know as ‘Ways to know God: The “Symbolic Theology” of

‘The science of the Cross’ 159 Dionysius the Areopagite and its Objective Presupposition’ (Wege der Gotteserkenntnis: die Symbolische Theologie des Areopagiten und ihre sachlichen Voraussetzungen). Stein begins her discussion in this article by noting that part of our problem with accepting the symbolic perspective lies in the ambiguity hidden within the term ‘theology’. Stein sees Dionysius the Areopagite, the medieval master of the symbolic theology on whom her article is based, as not seeing theology as ‘a science or systematic doctrine about God’, but rather as ‘Holy Scripture – God’s word’ (Stein 2000, 87) and those who speak this word, ‘the sacred writers’ are the theologians. That is, people who ‘speak of God because God has taken hold of them’ – in this respect then Christ becomes the highest of the theologians, the first theologian – der Ur-Theologe. Thus, different theologies become ‘different manners of speaking about God or manners of knowing God’ (Stein 2000, 87). Accordingly, what we are speaking of here, the highest resilience, theology even, in the face of the darkest acts of humanity, is on the threshold of the deepest mysteries of God’s action in our lives and ‘the higher the knowledge, the darker and more mysterious it is, the less it can be put into words’ (Stein 2000, 87). The symbol, then, is a Bild, a picture that holds all together – light and dark, evil and holiness, love and hate – here Stein takes her lead from the original Greek meaning of the term ‘symbol’: ‘a throwingtogether’ (Stein 2000, 96), for as she reminds us, ‘the creed, the mark by which the Christians were recognised, was called the “symbol” ’ (Stein 2000, 96), this was their distinctive characteristic. This Christian ‘symbol’ will appear as words, things named, events narrated or actions ‘by which the prophets often graphically illustrate what they were to preach, as Christ, too revealed divine truth not only by word but also by deed, and as the church through her liturgical acts gives us matters to understand’ (Stein 2000, 96). The believer, the ‘theologian’ thus speaks the word of God through speech, action, and deed (and having done unto). They become themselves a symbol in its deepest sense: What the prophet hears and sees is as it were the great school of symbolic theology where images and words become available to the sacred writer so that the unsayable may be said and the invisible made visible. (Stein 2003, 49) Therefore, we can suggest, for the Christian resilience is never a matter of ‘just about managing’ – the Christian act of resilience turns the actor into a symbol of God’s action in the world: whether it is the German sisters on their doomed ship, Stein in her filthy cattle wagon, or any depressed or lonely patient seeking meaning in a meaningless world. These, for the Christian, must all be ways to know God, especially God at the foot of the Cross, which are expressed symbolically. In this respect the artist, poet, musician and liturgist are the ‘high-priests’ of resilience – for in

160  Peter Tyler their symbolic language the outward sign of resilience is manifest. As Hillman, again, puts it: Those who are most dependent upon the imagination for their work – poets, painters, fantasts – have not wanted their pathologizing degraded into the ‘unconscious’ and subjected to clinical literalism. . . . The crazy artist, the daft poet and mad professor are neither romantic clichés nor antibourgeois postures. They are metaphors for the intimate relation between pathologizing and imagination. Pathologizing processes are a source of imaginative work, and the work provides a container for the pathologizing processes. (Hillman 1975, 107) Thus, in her life and act of resilience Stein (as indeed does Hopkins) becomes the symbol that she so prophetically describes in her last published essay.

Conclusions: resilience – the science of the Cross In the long hot summer of 1942, as Nazi deportations and persecutions of the Jews in Holland continued unabated, the Dutch churches composed a joint pastoral letter for their respective congregations opposing the vile acts. The Bishop of Utrecht had it read in all Catholic parishes in his diocese on 26 July 1942: Dear Brethren, When Jesus drew near to Jerusalem and saw the city before him, he wept over it and said, ‘Oh! If even today you understood the things that make for peace! But now they are concealed from your sight.’ . . . Dear brethren, let us begin by examining ourselves in a spirit of profound humility and sorrow. Are we not partly to blame for the calamities which we are suffering? Have we always sought first for God’s Kingdom and his righteousness? Have we always fulfilled the demands of justice and charity towards our neighbours?’ (Pastoral Letter of the Dutch Catholic Bishops, 20 July 1942, in Herbstrith 1992, 178) In her Carmelite convent at Echt, Stein was working on her last published book – The Science of the Cross (Kreuzeswissenschaft) – which she had begun in 1941 as a commentary on St John of the Cross for the 400th anniversary of his birth. Here she wrote of how the symbolism of the 16thcentury master embodied the theology of the man. As with her earlier exposition of the term ‘theology’ in her article on Dionysius, again she explained her meaning of the term ‘science’ (Wissenschaft): When we speak of a science of the cross, this is not to be understood in the usual meaning of science: it is not mere theory, that is, not a pure

‘The science of the Cross’ 161 juxtaposition of – real or presumed – true propositions. Neither are we dealing with a structure built of ideas laid out in reasoned steps. It is well-recognised truth – a theology of the cross – but a living, real and effective truth: a seed-corn buried deep in the soul which takes root there and grows, giving the soul a distinct impression or shape (Gepräge) and determining what it does and omits. (Stein 1950, 3) St John, Stein emphasised in her prelude, was first and foremost an artist, and as an artist he was able to hold the symbolic value of all that he experienced in his own suffering resilience. The pictures he presented (Bilder) were, for Stein ‘simultaneously picture (Bild) in which something manifests itself (zur Darstellung kommt) and pattern (Gebilde) as something formed into a complete and all-encompassing little world of its own’ (Stein 1950, 6).10 For as she states, reiterating her previous essay, ‘every genuine work of art is in addition a symbol (Sinnbild) whether or not it is the creator’s intention’. But, the master, ‘the Crucified One’, ‘demands from the artist more than a mere portrayal of the picture. He demands that the artist, just as every other person, follows him: that they themselves become the picture of the Cross-Bearer and Crucified One and allow themselves to be so transformed’ (Stein 1950, 6).11 As Stein wrote these words did she know that shortly she would be asked to walk this very same ‘way of the Cross’ and become a ‘Cross-bearer’ herself and so become the symbol she had so passionately advocated? In the early evening of 2 August 1942 SS officers arrived at the Echt convent where Edith was staying, demanding that she leave with her sister, Rosa, who had become an extern sister at the convent. In the shock and surprise, the whole neighbourhood came out to protest at this indecent act. In the crowd and confusion Rosa became alarmed and upset. In this distress and confusion Edith gently took her hand and said: ‘come, Rosa. We’re going for our people’.12 We have fragmentary accounts of what happened to Edith next including reports from Westerbork, the Nazi holding camp in Holland for all deported Jews (where the other great Jewish mystic, Etty Hillesum, would also be held) and from guards and functionaries as her train moved slowly east to the killing fields of Auschwitz. One account, from the Dutch official Mr Wielek at Westerbork, will suffice to give a sense of Edith’s last days on earth: The one sister who impressed me immediately, whose warm, glowing smile has never been erased from my memory, despite the disgusting incidents I was forced to witness, is the one whom I think the Vatican may one day canonize. From the moment I met her in the camp at Westerbork . . . I knew: here is someone truly great. For a couple of days she lived in that hellhole, walking, talking and praying . . . like a saint. And she really was one. That is the only fitting way to describe

162  Peter Tyler this middle-aged woman who struck everyone as so young, who was so whole and honest and genuine. (in Herbstrith 1992, 186) Edith went to her death at Auschwitz, we assume it was on 9 August 1942, the day on which she has now been celebrated as Saint Teresa Benedicta at the Cross since 1998. In conclusion, it seems that resilience lies upon a paradox: on the one hand the grim reality within which we must make sense of suffering, on the other the promise of a ‘positive outcome’ – of a better way of being, loving, and happening. My argument here, following Stein, is that Christian anthropology, reflecting the immanent and transcendent nature of the human being, invites us to enter into the symbol of suffering which will be made manifest by what we now term ‘resilience’. The shorthand for this symbol is, of course, ‘the Cross’. The Cross, for the Christian, straddles these two realities of existential despair and eschatological fulfilment. The Christian, as Stein suggested, thus becomes the symbol as they face the Cross in an act of ‘resilience’. As Chenu puts it: To join two realities within a single symbol was to put the mind into secret contact with transcendent reality . . . the result was a double resonance within the single grasp of a ‘dissimilar similitude’. (ch 1957, 131; c.f., Dionysius, The Celestial Hierarchy, chapter 2, in Parker 1899) What then are the implications of this ‘science of the Cross’ for the living out of resilience in the contemporary situation? The editors began this volume by suggesting that resilience can foster three aspects of the personality: an adaptation to adversity, an ability to cope with adverse circumstances, and an ability to deal with situations of ‘significant adversity’. Rather than an unnecessary roadblock on the way to our eternal happiness, this chapter has argued that adversity may well turn out to be the unique instance where we glimpse the ‘science of the Cross’. The ‘positive outcome’ thus becomes that vision of the Saviour suggested by Hopkins. In this respect I would agree with the editors that resilient attitude rejects ‘the necessarily causal relationship between adversity and a negative outcome’. However whether the outcome is ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ will be decided not by the court of this world. As stated, from one perspective the outcome is disastrously negative, yet what has been argued in this chapter is that a negative outcome, for example public humiliation and crucifixion, might indeed – in fact, must, from a Christian perspective – be the instantiation of something that is completely and ultimately positive. Our editors began the book by suggesting that ‘biblical and theological perspectives on human resilience to adversity exhibit a richness, complexity and nuance not often found in contemporary discussions surrounding this

‘The science of the Cross’ 163 topic’ (Chapter 1, this volume). My argument in this chapter has been that the resilient response of someone such as Edith Stein to the most extreme adversity is not a random happening, rather it is based on a spiritual anthropology that allows the unique Christian perspective to alter our relationship to adversity. An anthropology that balances the transcendent perspective with the material will mean that resilience for a martyr such as Stein is not reduced to simplistic ‘input-output’ mechanics limited ‘by naturalistic materialist assumptions’ (Chapter 1, this volume). Rather, contemplating Stein’s (or the Franciscan nuns’) response to adversity we are asked to part company with simplistic materialist notions of the self and enter the symbolic world as described by medieval theologians such as Dionysius and Duns Scotus. In this respect the crisis itself becomes a symbol in the rich sense delineated by Stein. In practical terms this will have implications in treating patients displaying negative responses to adversity. For the ‘symptom’ now becomes a ‘symbol’ rather than an adversity to battle. I began the chapter by gently questioning our prevailing medical paradigm of mental health and suggesting that the discourse of resilience may be able to initiate an alternative narrative not over-dominated by ‘mental health’. Writing in 1975 in Revisioning Psychology, James Hillman stated: Today we have rather lost this difference that most cultures, even tribal ones, know and live in terms of. Our distinctions are Cartesian: between outer tangible reality and inner states of mind, or between body and a fuzzy conglomerate of mind, psyche and spirit. We have lost the third, middle position which earlier in our tradition and in others too, was the place of soul: a world of imagination, passion, fantasy, reflection, that is neither physical and material on the one hand, nor spiritual and abstract on the other, yet bound to them both. (Hillman 1975, 67–68) Hillman waged a life-long war against what he termed the ‘nominalism’ of medical terminology applied to psychic states (or what he would refer to as ‘soul-states’, see inter alia, Hillman 1983, 40–43). The choreography of labelling the ‘sickness’ of ‘depression’, ‘anxiety’, ‘paranoia’, etc., possesses, he argued, its own sickness: The ‘real’ sickness is probably less in the style – paranoid, depressed – and more in the fixedness, the literalism with which the style is taken by the patient and the doctor. (Hillman 1983, 42) Rather, he encouraged the counsellor/psychologist/therapist to work with the symptoms, to ‘befriend’ and explore them, to enable them to do the work they have to do for the person at that time in their life. What Hillman calls ‘staying with the mess’ (1975, 74): ‘we try to follow the soul wherever

164  Peter Tyler it leads, trying to learn what the imagination is doing in its madness. By staying with the mess, the morbid, the fantastic, we do not abandon method itself, only its medical model. Instead we adopt the method of the imagination’ (Hillman 1975, 74). In a similar fashion, I contend here, the non-pathological language of resilience is a tentative invitation to return to that, dare I say it, playful place. Not a world dominated by the grey symptomology of pathological psychology but a richly coloured one that sees the extremes of human adversity as the unique locus for God’s action in the world and in the psyche. For the Christian, following Stein’s (and Hopkins’) metaphysics, this is the moment that through suffering the sufferer literally becomes the symbol, which for Christians will, ultimately, always be Christ. This chapter has necessarily dealt with the extremes of human experience, yet the truths revealed by Stein hold too, I would contend, for the most mundane situations encountered in a day-to-day clinical setting. The explorations of this chapter, and indeed this book, remind us that psychology is situated between science, art, and religion. Often when all else fails, only by unleashing the imagination, the symbolic quality of the psyche, can the necessary healing conditions of the mind be initiated. From the Christian perspective such a healing will also, as we have seen, contain a necessary transcendent function. In this spirit I leave the last words with Hopkins: Thou mastering me God! giver of breath and bread; World’s strand, sway of the sea; Lord of living and dead; Thou hast bound bones and veins in me, fastened me flesh, And after it almost unmade, what with dread, Thy doing: and dost thou touch me afresh? Over again I feel thy finger and find thee. (Hopkins 1985, 12)

Notes * Eine “scientia crucis” (Kreuzeswissenschaft) kann man nur gewinnen, wenn man das Kreuz gründlich zu spüren bekommt’, Letter 710 to Mother Ambrosia Antonia Engelmann, the Prioress of Echt Convent in Stein 2015. 1 I am aware at this point of Hillman’s critique of the ‘transcendental denial’ with respect to soul-language (Hillman 1975, 64–67). However Hillman in these passages is mainly concerned with what he sees as the excessive transcendentalism of, for example, humanistic and Western oriental-styled psychology (the modern cult of mindfulness would be a good example of the latter). Later on in ReVisioning Psychology he acknowledges the role of religions, especially Christianity, as providing ‘containers for psychopathology’ (1975, 95) and in this respect the present chapter advocates a discussion of religion from this perspective – which, of course, is not to ‘baptise’ Hillman, who retained a strong anti-Christian temperament for most of his life (for more on this debate see Tyler 2016).

‘The science of the Cross’ 165 2 I have largely made my own translations of Stein’s work and include the bibliographical details in the Bibliography. Where problematic German terms occur I have included the original German. 3 Again, see Tyler (2016) for more on the etymology of the term. 4 ‘Das Ich hat kein Leben, das nicht Leben der Seele ware’. 5 ‘Ist ein persönlich-geistiges Gebilde, darum ist ihr Innerstes und Eigentlichstes, ihr Wesen, aus dem ihre Kräfte und das Wechselspiel ihres Lebens entspringen, nicht nu rein unbekanntes X, das wir zur Erklärung der erfahrbaren seelischen Tatsachen annehmen, sondern etwas, was uns aufleuchten und spürbar warden kann, wenn es auch immer geheimnisvoll bleibt’. 6 ‘Die Menschenseele ist nicht nur ein Mittleres zwischen Geist und Stoff, sondern ein geistiges Geschöpf, nicht nur Gebilde des Geistes, sonder bildender Geist’. 7 This thought, of course, takes us much deeper than the scope of this chapter allows. Suffice it to say that for most medieval Christian theology creation was to be seen as a specific instance of God’s saving love. 8 In this respect both Stein and Hopkins were independently influenced by the work of the British medieval theologian Duns Scotus. Again, the exploration of this relationship is beyond the scope of this chapter but will be addressed in a later work. 9 Whilst Farber and his colleagues discussed the academic merit of Stein’s essay, she had been arrested and transported to the concentration camps. After much discussion following her death the article eventually appeared in the July 1946 edition of The Thomist in an English translation by Rudolf Allers (Stein 2000, xii–xvii). 10 ‘Es ist zugleich Bild, in dem etwas zur Darstellung kommt, und Gebilde als ein Gebildetes und in sich Geschlossenes, zu einer eigenen kleinen Welt gerundetes.’ In this passage Stein once again plays on the ambiguity of the terms Bild and Gebilde as she does in the passage quoted earlier from Endliches und Ewiges Sein. Unfortunately this doesn’t translate well into English but the sense she is trying to convey is the formed and forming aspect of the human soul as it reflects the ‘impression’ received upon it by the Creator Spirit itself. As before this reflects her Augustinian belief in the human soul being made in the ‘image and likeness’ of a triune God that continues to act in and through the human person. 11 ‘Aber der Gekreuzigte verlangt auch vom Künstler mehr als ein solches Bild. Er fordert von ihm wie von jedem Menschen die Nachfolge: dass er sich selbst zum Bild des Kreuztragenden und Gekreuzigten gestalte und gestalten lasse’. 12 From the Kölner Selig- und Heiligsprechungsprozess der Dienerin Gottes Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce – Edith Stein (Kloster der Karmelitinnen 1962, 92) in Herbstrith (1992, 180).

Bibliography Chenu, M-D. 2013 [1957]. Nature, Man and Society in the Twelfth Century. Translated by J. Taylor and L. Little. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Cook, C.C.H., and N.H. White. 2018. ‘Resilience and the Role of Spirituality’. In The Oxford Textbook of Public Mental Health, edited by D. Bhugra, K. Bhui, S. Wong, and S. Gilman, 513–20. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Herbstrith, W. 1992. Edith Stein: The Untold Story of the Philosopher and Mystic Who Lost Her Life in the Death Camps of Auschwitz. Translated by B. Bonowitz. San Francisco: Ignatius. Hillman, J. 1975. Re-Visioning Psychology. New York: Harper.

166  Peter Tyler ———. 1983. Inter Views: Conversations with Laura Pozzo on Psychotherapy, Biography, Love, Soul, the Gods, Animals, Dreams, Imagination, Work, Cities and the State of Culture. Dallas, TX: Spring Publications. Hopkins, G.M. 1985 [1953]. Poems and Prose. Edited by W.H. Gardner. London: Penguin. Kloster der Karmelitinnen. 1962. Kölner Selig- und Heiligsprechungsprozess der Dienerin Gottes Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce – Edith Stein: Professe und Chorschwester des Ordens der Allerseligsten Jungrau Maria vom Berge Karmel. Cologne: Kloster der Karmelitinnen “Maria vom Frieden”. Stein, E. 1931 [1962]. ‘Lebensgestaltung im Geist der heiligen Elisabeth’. In The Benediktinischen Monatschrift 13, Nos 9/10. Published in Verborgenes Leben: Hagiographische Essays, Meditationen, Geistliche Texte. Freiburg: Herder. ———. 1950. Kreuzeswissenschaft: Studie Über Joannes a Cruce. Edited by L. ­Gelber. Freiburg: Herder. ———. 1962. Welt und Person: Beitrag zum christlichen Wahrheitsstrebe. Edited by L. Gelber. Freiburg: Herder. ———. 1986 [1949]. Endliches und Ewiges Sein: Versuch eines Aufsteigs zum Sinn des Seins. Edited by L. Gelber. Freiburg: Herder. ———. 2000. Knowledge and Faith. Translated by W. Redmond. Washington, DC: Institute of Carmelite Studies. ———. 2003. Wege der Gotteserkenntnis: Studie zu Dionysius Areopagita und Übersetzung seiner Werke. Edited by B. Beckmann and V. Ranff. Freiburg: Herde. ———. 2015. Selbstbildnis in Briefen II (1933 – 42). Edited by H.-B. Gerl-Falkovitz. Freibury: Herder. Tyler, P.M. 2016. The Pursuit of the Soul: Psychoanalysis, Soul-making and the Christian Tradition. Edinburgh: T&T Clark. Wittgenstein, L. 1958. Philosophical Investigations. Edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and R. Rhees. Oxford: Blackwell.

13 Resilient unto death Resilience through the lens of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Jennifer Moberly

Introduction It would in most circumstances seem odd to look to a person who died at the age of 39 for wisdom regarding resilience. By most definitions, resilience would seem to imply longevity, or at least an endurance which Dietrich Bonhoeffer cannot be said to have demonstrated in his famously brief life: a German Lutheran pastor born in 1906 who was executed under Hitler’s orders in 1945 for his involvement in a group seeking to assassinate Hitler and wrest control of the government from the Nazis. Admittedly, he is often perceived as having demonstrated an almost heroic ability to endure adversity without being overcome, which would make it possible to look to him as a model of a certain kind of resilience. In this light, it would be possible to read his life story in terms of resilience, and identify the protective and promotive factors he was able to utilise, the strong social support he enjoyed from within his family as well as through his close friends and co-conspirators, and above all the support he found within the resources of practising and living his faith. In such an account, one example of a protective factor in his personal make-up might be his habit of carefully considering possible eventualities before determining a course of action (Bethge 1970, 503).1 Similarly, he famously showed an unwillingness to get into trouble regarding the Hitler salute; if he were to find himself on the wrong side of the Gestapo, he was determined that it should be for something worthwhile.2 Although such an approach would be possible (and indeed, some of these features will become apparent in the following), I will be taking a different approach. I do this because such a way of exploring this topic would necessarily demand a significant degree of speculation. On a number of points which might interest the reader today, Bonhoeffer was silent, and almost necessarily so. For instance, one may wish to know in detail how Bonhoeffer came to be involved in the conspiracy, and what his own temptations and difficulties were as he was arrested, coped with imprisonment, and finally faced his impending death. While there are hints in the literature, there are certainly more silences.3

168  Jennifer Moberly One silence which must be acknowledged at the outset of this essay regards the notion of resilience itself. At the time Bonhoeffer was writing, there were a few words in common usage which might approximate ‘resilience’: Strapazierfähigkeit (the capacity to bear physical stress), Zähigkeit (tenacity, toughness), and Unverwüstlichkeit (indestructibility). None of these terms represent ‘resilience’ closely, and because of that, the cognate Resilienz is now in use. However, the fact that the older words are not terms Bonhoeffer used or concepts he discussed makes it impossible to say with any certainty how he might have understood resilience. Because of these difficulties, I propose instead to work in detail with one particular text in its context as a lens for looking at resilience: Bonhoeffer’s ‘Biblical Study on Temptation’. This was offered by Bonhoeffer in June 1938 during a kind of reunion with former ‘seminarians’ or ‘ordinands’, who by then were working as pastors for the Confessing Church. It will, I trust, become apparent why this text in that context might be a fruitful source for this discussion.4

A biblical study on temptation The study takes as its central biblical passage the line from the Lord’s Prayer, ‘Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’. The study is divided into five sections, which present (1) an introduction to the subject, (2) the temptation Jesus suffered, (3) the temptation Christians suffer because they follow Christ, (4) concrete temptations of Christians, and (5) victory over temptation. I will look at each of these in more detail. 1 Introduction Bonhoeffer’s opening assertion may appear surprising to today’s readers: The natural person and the ethical person cannot understand the prayer [‘lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil’]. The natural person seeks to prove their strength through adventure, battle, and in the encounter with an enemy. That is life. . . . Only life which has risked death is a life won. That is the wisdom of the natural person. The ethical person also recognises that their wisdom could only be true and persuasive through testing and proving themselves, and that good can only live from evil, that good without evil would no longer be good. Thus the ethical person challenges evil, and their daily prayer is: lead me into temptation so that I can test the power of goodness in me. (DBW 15:371)5 Although the first type, the ‘natural person’ is recognisable in the form of the adventure-seeking ‘adrenaline junkie’, it would not be expected today to think of such adventures as temptation. The second type, the ‘ethical person’,

Resilient unto death 169 however, is someone hardly, if ever, encountered today, at least in Western society. Thus, it seems to me that, however recognisable these types were for Bonhoeffer’s former students, they are largely unknown today. Moreover, in Western society the word ‘temptation’ is usually used when one would like to indulge in something quite trivial, for instance, a piece of cake though one is trying to lose weight. The thing which is said to be ‘tempting’ is rarely thought to be sinful or evil at all. And an ‘ethical person’ flexing moral muscles in the way Bonhoeffer described could only seem ridiculous. Thus, the opening passage, far from ‘hooking’ the reader, may well give the misleading impression that this biblical study is not relevant today. The rest of the introduction is given to a discussion of why such understandings of temptation are not correct and how Christians should see temptation: a time when human strength alone will not suffice, a time, in short, of being handed over powerlessly to Satan (DBW 15:373). The picture Bonhoeffer paints is of an extreme situation, a time of trial. Although Christians may be minded to think that such times are inevitable and so one should pray for strength to endure than rather than to avoid them, Bonhoeffer is clear that anyone who thinks in this way pretends ‘to know more about temptation than Christ, and wants to be more pious than the one who experienced the most severe temptation’ (DBW 15:375). 2  The temptation of Jesus Bonhoeffer continues this last thought in the next section, that it is precisely because Jesus knows intimately what it is to be tempted that he teaches his disciples to pray that they might be spared. Bonhoeffer claims that, essentially, the Bible only tells two stories of temptation: that of the first humans in the Garden of Eden and that of Jesus. Furthermore, he says that all human temptation stands either under the banner of the temptation of Adam, or the temptation of Christ; humans are tempted either ‘in Adam’ or ‘in Christ’ (DBW 15:376).6 The narrative from the Garden of Eden demonstrates three things regarding temptation: first, that temptation comes to those who are innocent; secondly, that it is in the nature of the tempter to deny being created by God; and thirdly, that through the temptation of the first humans, all humans are subject to death and damnation (DBW 15:376f). Thus, says Bonhoeffer, if tempted ‘in Adam’, one cannot withstand. The temptation of Jesus as seen in Matthew 4 is much graver than that of Adam and Eve, first because Jesus carried within himself the ‘whole burden of the flesh’ which stood under the ‘curse of damnation’ (DBW 15:378). Secondly, in Bonhoeffer’s understanding, the temptations in the wilderness affect every aspect of Jesus’ being: his physical needs (‘turn this stone into bread’); his faith and trust (the challenge to prove his Sonship through the miracle of being saved by God: ‘throw yourself down’ from the high tower); and finally, his spiritual identity as God’s Son (‘worship me’), which Bonhoeffer sees as testing Jesus in every way (DBW 15:379–81). Bonhoeffer

170  Jennifer Moberly interprets this passage as showing that Jesus does not withstand the temptation through heroic strength, but through the ‘saving, sustaining and carrying Word of God, which keeps him secure and fights for him and wins’ (DBW 15:381f). 3  Being tempted in Christ Bonhoeffer then considers what it means for Christians to be tempted ‘in Christ’ rather than ‘in Adam’: as members of the body of Christ, his followers participate in his temptation and in his victory over temptation (DBW 15:382f). As a kind of excursus, Bonhoeffer considers here the question of who the tempter might be: the devil, sinful human desires, or God. Although this is a philosophical or doctrinal question which does not as such arise out of this biblical passage, he seeks to answer it through a consideration of various passages from scripture, and in the end comes to the conclusion that at various times, temptation of various sorts may come to the believer through any of these means. Yet whatever the source of temptation may be in any given case, there is one crucial response: ‘The faithful must learn to understand all their temptations as the temptation of Jesus Christ within them; thus they will participate in the victory’ (DBW 15:390). 4  The concrete temptation of Christians Seeing the temptations faced by Christians in this way, Bonhoeffer categorises them in the same terms as Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness: temptations of the flesh (which are experienced as the desire for pleasures or fear of suffering), spiritual temptations (which include desiring worldly security and giving way to desperation), and the ultimate or complete temptation (in which Satan reveals himself without disguise), which very few undergo (DBW 15: 392–404). 5  The temptation and the victory are Jesus’ The final section is the shortest, and simply underscores the point that if Christians are tempted ‘in Christ’, they may also trust that they will experience Jesus’ victory over temptation. This is assured through Christ’s selfsacrifice, by following his example, and through the fact that Christ intercedes on behalf of his followers (DBW 15:404-f). On the face of it, this look at the nature of temptation may appear to be an unpromising text for exploring resilience. Some of the claims seem more driven by his own philosophical interests and theological commitments than by anything within the text(s). Moreover, while some of his claims would seem to be anodyne (for instance, that if Christians are tempted ‘in Christ’ they will also partake in his victory), others would certainly be contentious (e.g., that the Bible essentially only tells two stories of temptation, or the

Resilient unto death 171 interpretation of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness). The power of this work, I suggest, arises not simply out of the text, but out of how it addressed the specific context of his former students. Therefore, I turn now to explore that context.

Context of ‘Biblical Study of Temptation’ Training and Freizeit From 1935 Bonhoeffer had headed up one of the training centres for the Confessing Church, first in Zingst, then Finkenwalde, and then based in two different sites which were designated ‘collective pastorates’, but which look remarkably like ‘context-based training’ in today’s terms.7 It was from that latter situation that Bonhoeffer invited all of his former students, who would have numbered at least 113 at this time, to come to a Freizeit in Zingst (House 2015, 43). Freizeit means time of leisure; in the translation of Bethge’s biography it is called a ‘holiday’. One might think of it in terms of a retreat, because it was clearly intended to give the young pastors some time away, some spiritual refreshment, and some input, perhaps like New Wine or Spring Harvest or even a clergy conference. At all events, they were invited to go for the inside of a week to Zingst, and some 45 attended. Many of them were in ministry locally (the northeast of Germany), but some travelled from as far away as the Rheinland or eastern East Prussia, which is in Poland today (Schlingensiepen 2010a, 228).8 It is perhaps significant that previous gatherings of former students had been called ‘refresher conferences’ (Bethge 1970, 428), which would seem to place the emphasis on teaching. But the change in terminology is almost certainly due to changes in legislation, which would have made it illegal for Bonhoeffer to hold a ‘conference’.9 However ‘spiritual’ these reunions were, it would nevertheless be wrong to assume that these gatherings were apolitical. Bonhoeffer held such a conference for former students two years earlier, in April 1936, a time when there were numerous changes affecting the young pastors: legislation which made many of their activities illegal, as well as some perplexing responses within the Confessing Church. For instance, the church leaders left it open for regional councils to decide whether and in how far they would advise cooperation with the local Landeskirchen.10 For Bonhoeffer, this represented a grave omission, and he believed his former students should have more guidance from their leaders (Bethge 1970, 430). Bethge writes: In view of the many pressing questions, Bonhoeffer thought it advisable to give the students a report and a survey so that recent developments might be assessed in the light of theology and the internal affairs of the Church. Who was still in the Church with them and what were the

172  Jennifer Moberly relevant criteria? What was the significance of the separation from those who had previously been good friends? (Bethge 1970, 428f)11 Bethge has more to say about that earlier ‘study conference’ than the Freizeit in Zingst in 1938, perhaps because it had provoked much outcry and discussion.12 However, it does seem reasonable to judge that again in 1938 Bonhoeffer was intending to help his former students understand their current situation from a theological perspective. So it is important to say more about what was happening at that time. The Confessing Church in 1938 On 20 April 1938 Dr Friedrich Werner, head of the national Church Committee, decreed that all serving pastors of the Protestant Church must swear allegiance to Adolf Hitler or be fired. That oath contained the statement, ‘I swear that I will be faithful and obedient to Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the German Reich and people’ (Bethge 1970, 504). Since many pastors of the Confessing Church still held posts in the state church, this posed difficult questions. For many, including Bonhoeffer, swearing such an oath was to be seen as a breach of ordination vows (Schlingensiepen 2010a, 229).13 The advice given by the leaders of the Confessing Church was that it was admissible for them to swear this oath, but that it was up to each pastor to decide for himself. In the event, the majority of pastors in the Confessing Church did swear the oath, only to learn at a later date that Werner’s directive was not considered binding by the state or the Nazi party, and they need not have done so (Schlingensiepen 2010a, 229–30).14 For Bonhoeffer and his former students this was hardly an issue, since they were ‘illegal’ anyway, and would not be called upon to make this oath.15 Of more immediate concern to these young pastors was the offer of ‘legalisation’: the concerted effort of the Landeskirchen to get the young pastors back into the national church, to be ‘legalised’. If they chose this route, Bonhoeffer’s former students would have to undergo another theological examination, and even be ordained again, but there were threats of dire consequences if they refused, as well as promises of perks if they came under the authority of the national church. Of course, if they did choose to be ‘legalised’, it was assumed they would also then be required to offer the oath of allegiance to Hitler. To understand why the offer of legalisation might be attractive, it is important to know what their situation was. Bethge writes about the first group of ordinands as they were finishing their training: The ordinands went back to their home churches where they were soon ordained thus becoming, however, what were then known as ‘illegals’. Hardly any of them could expect to be given an ordinary living with a

Resilient unto death 173 house and garden. . . . Wherever possible the uncommitted or German Christian consistories debarred from a normally endowed living anyone who had been trained or ordained under the Councils of Brethren.16 These particular ordinands could, if the occasion arose, hope for an appointment in their province from one of the independent patrons who had the right to confer a living. They might also, perhaps, be accepted as an assistant preacher by an unintimidated superintendent, in which case their ministry would not be officially confirmed and would hold no prospects of preferment. Again, newly-formed confessional emergency congregations in the towns might, when the situation permitted of an appointment, summon the young theologian, and assist him in his struggle to gain entry to the church and church buildings. Other ordinands, in association with the provincial Councils of Brethren, travelled about seeking to form emergency congregations in private homes – an operation that grew increasingly dangerous. (Bethge 1970, 407f) By June 1938, pastors in the Confessing Church were being suppressed by a variety of means: bans from public speaking, bans of worshipping in ‘secular’ premises (such as the private homes Bethge mentioned), interrogations and imprisonment, whereby at least 804 church members had been imprisoned by end of 1937 (Bethge 1970, 483). However, the Confessing Church had three differing sources of struggle. Internally, they had to contend with the ‘German Christians’ who were attempting to convert the Protestant Church to Nazi ideology from within.17 Externally, there were attempts by the government to control the church via the imposition of national church structures under Nazi leadership,18 as well as attempts to suppress the Confessing Church through legislation. Yet, beyond these attacks, the Confessing Church also struggled to be united in its efforts. Like many of the Landeskirchen (including the area around ­Berlin), the Confessing Church included ministers and laypeople from both the Lutheran and Reformed churches, who did not agree on a number of important theological issues, for instance, regarding the nature of the sacraments. Moreover, Confessing Church congregations in various parts of the country faced very different circumstances, depending on how badly the ‘German Christians’ had infiltrated the Landeskirche locally. In such a situation, then, it is hardly surprising that the leaders of the Confessing Church were not united in how the church should respond to the suggestion of swearing the oath to Hitler or to the offer of legalisation. Accordingly, there were three different factions in the Confessing Church: the ‘Dahlemites’ (including Bonhoeffer, who were the most radical in their opposition to Hitler’s regime); ‘neutrals’ (the church in Essen and others, who frequently tried to broker compromise to keep the Confessing Church together); and the members where the church was least affected by the German Christians, the ‘intact’ churches (especially Bavaria, with Bishop

174  Jennifer Moberly Meiser), who still held legal posts in the national church and were least inclined to offer resistance (Schlingensiepen 2010a, 230). Returning to the more specific question of the Freizeit with his former students, although we do not have Bonhoeffer’s own statement about his intention, I see no reason to doubt Bethge’s account that Bonhoeffer wished to strengthen the resolve of the young illegal pastors facing the ‘temptation’ of being ‘legalised’ by the national church (Bethge 1970, 498).19 At the time of the Freizeit, the implications of being ‘legalised’ might have appeared simple: gaining a regular stipend, house and job, though at the expense of making the oath of allegiance to Hitler. (Later, during the war, the difference was even greater: whether the young man would be sent to serve on the front as a soldier, or whether he might request to serve as a chaplain.) But for Bonhoeffer the implications were yet more significant: whether they would remain faithful, or fall away from Christ. At first glance, Bonhoeffer’s study of temptation may seem to speak only obliquely into the situation of the young pastors. And yet, it seems likely that much of what he said in the fourth section would have resonated strongly with their experience of ‘bitter poverty’ and the temptation to ‘grumble against God’ (DBW 15:395). More direct, however, is his treatment of spiritual temptation in the form of the desire for security, or ingratitude, disobedience or hopelessness (DBW 15:402f). Surely the ‘temptation’ they were facing was based precisely in such a desire for security, which made the idea of being ‘legalised’ attractive as it provided not just an income and housing, but it would also make imprisonment or other privations far less likely. Thus, Bonhoeffer’s discussion of the temptation of avoiding suffering and the temptation of seeking worldly security would surely have had a very specific meaning for those illegal pastors. Identifying the possibility of being legalised as a temptation implies that it was something to be resisted, whether the pastors were to imagine that they were being tempted through their own sinful desires, through Satan, or through God’s leading them through a time of testing. The clear import of Bonhoeffer’s words was that they were to resist that temptation, and hold firmly to the true Christian faith, untainted by Nazi ideology or German Christian heresies.

Temptation and resilience This is the resilience which was central in Bonhoeffer’s own life and in his theology and teaching: not well-being or longevity as an end in itself, but theological and spiritual resilience which would have the capacity to remain faithful, even to the point of death. This was not just important for Bonhoeffer himself;20 as their teacher and mentor he sought to enable his students to develop this same resilience. This resonates strongly with some of the analyses of resilience highlighted in the editors’ introduction to this volume, namely the importance of sturdy role

Resilient unto death 175 models and strong social support. From the time when his first group of students left training, Bonhoeffer also hoped to strengthen and encourage them by sending circular letters. For instance, one circular letter gave a sort of annual report on 1936. Here Bonhoeffer wrote, Every one of us knows the demands, the inner resistance, the lethargy which always attempt to prevent us from pursuing what we have recognised as salutary. But there time and exhortation are still given to us. If one [of us] yields, that weakens, visibly or invisibly, all in the community of prayer. Let us not despise God’s gift. (DBW 14:260) In another circular letter sent 24 June 1937, Bonhoeffer emphasised remembering the ‘brethren’ from their training course, including those who had left Confessing Church, especially when praying the Lord’s Prayer: Through these [petitions] we learn to forget ourselves and our personal circumstances and to consider them as of little importance. Also, how shall we remain firm so long as we are so important to ourselves? And we ourselves are kept nowhere safer than in the cause of our church, which is what is at stake. (DBW 14:291f)21 Here we see not only Bonhoeffer’s attempts to strengthen the resolve of his former students to remain faithful but also the way he encouraged them to provide strong social support for one another. As the situation in Germany developed, one could argue that the legalisation of these young pastors would have been an obvious way for them to be resilient in these difficult times. It would have made it much more likely for them to have survived the war, and therefore they would have been more likely to have had longer ministries in the church. Yet the resilience Bonhoeffer sought for himself and for them was not the kind which could be measured in years of life or even of ministry. If resilience means overcoming adversity, or achieving a positive outcome, as the editors’ introduction suggests, then in Bonhoeffer’s example an eternal perspective is required. Martyrdom, while not sought, is to be preferred to earthly survival at the cost of disowning Christ. Overcoming adversity and achieving a positive outcome may only be realised, recognised, or vindicated at the eschaton, when there is a new heaven and a new earth. In the case of the young pastors, Bonhoeffer’s teaching on temptation certainly had some effect on their determination to remain faithful, and to be resilient in the face of temptation. The former students agreed to pray for and visit colleagues who had defected, and they were part of a new initiative, forming a theological working group to explore matters of church and state (DBW 15:48f, 73).

176  Jennifer Moberly Moreover, Bonhoeffer provided a sturdy role model not only for these former students but also for his closest friend, Eberhard Bethge. In his penultimate surviving letter to Bethge he wrote a birthday message based on the Bible reading for that day: We must immerse ourselves time and again, very calmly and at great length, in the life, teaching, acting, suffering and death of Jesus to perceive what God promises and what He fulfils. It is certain that we may always live in the closeness and the presence of God, and that this life is for us a completely new life; that there is no longer anything which is impossible for us because there is nothing impossible for God; that no earthly power can touch us without God’s will, and that danger and need only drive us closer to God; it is certain that we have nothing to claim and yet may request everything; it is certain that in suffering our joy is hidden, and in dying our life is hidden; it is certain that we stand in all of that in a communion which carries us. To all of that God in Jesus has said Yes and Amen. This Yes and Amen is the firm ground on which we stand. Time and again in this turbulent time we lose sight of why it is basically worth living. We have imagined that because this or that person was alive it made sense for us to live also. In truth, however, this is how it is: if the earth was honoured to carry the human Jesus Christ, if a person like Jesus lived, then and only then does it make sense for us humans to live. If Jesus had not lived, then our lives would be meaningless, despite all the other people whom we know, honour and love. Perhaps the meaning and task of our calling escapes us now sometimes. . . . I sense how inadequate these words are to achieve what they should: namely, to make you firm and joyful and certain even in your loneliness. Indeed, this lonely birthday truly need not be a lost day for you, if it becomes for you an occasion for clarifying once again the foundation on which you would like to continue living. It has often been a great help to me to think in the evening about all those, of whose intercessions I am certain, from the children to the grown-ups. I believe that I have to thank the intercessions of acquaintances and strangers for much of the protection in my life. (DBW 8:574f) Again in this example Bonhoeffer attempted to enable his friend to remain faithful, and the effects could be seen in Bethge’s life-long Christian commitment and work as a theologian. In the ‘Biblical Study on Temptation’, read in the light of its context, and in other evidence from Bonhoeffer’s writings to his former students and to Eberhard Bethge, we have clear evidence of his attempts to enable them to show resilience as followers of Christ. He was a sturdy role model for them though his unwavering commitment to Christ, despite the many adversities

Resilient unto death 177 he faced. And he encouraged them to offer one another the social support which would promote that resilience in them.

Notes 1 Eberhard Bethge’s biography (1970) remains the most comprehensive and authoritative available. Although some have suggested that it can seem at times to be a work of hagiography, and despite the appearance in recent years of accounts which were able to draw on material not available to Bethge, as Bonhoeffer’s closest friend and colleague and often as an eyewitness, he is the best source we have. Furthermore, as someone who lived through the era, he understood Bonhoeffer’s context better than any of the more recent biographers, who have not always exhibited a sure-footed grasp of theology in German universities, life in Nazi Germany, or even the conventions for behaviour in Bonhoeffer’s societal and familial milieu. Of the more recent offerings, Ferdinand Schlingensiepen’s (2010a) is a valuable contribution which has also been published in English (Schlingensiepen 2010b). 2 The incident of the Hitler salute was on 17 June 1940, when Bonhoeffer and Bethge were in Memel, enjoying a coffee sitting outside in the sunshine at a café. A public announcement of France’s surrender provoked spontaneous singing of ‘Deutschland, Deutschland über alles’ and Nazi songs, as well as people standing to salute and shout ‘Heil Hitler’. Bethge reports, ‘We had stood up, too. Bonhoeffer raised his arm in the regulation Hitler salute, while I stood there dazed. “Raise your arm! Are you crazy?” he whispered, and later: “We shall have to run risks for very different things now, but not for that salute!” ’ (Bethge 1970, 585). Bonhoeffer’s weighing up of what is worth suffering for is also evidenced earlier in a letter to his brother Karl-Friedrich of 29 November 1937, where he writes: ‘We cannot sustain the cause of the church without sacrifice. Of course, all of you were significantly more involved during the war [WW1]. Why shouldn’t we also do the same for the Church? And why should anyone want to dissuade us? Certainly none of us is excited about going to prison. But if that happens, then it will surely – hopefully, at any rate – be a joy, because the cause is worth it’ (DBW 14:303, translation of Bonhoeffer my own throughout). All quotations from Bonhoeffer will appear with the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Werke (DBW) volume number and pagination. The Werke have been translated into English as Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, and the German pagination I provide is given in the English editions in the side margins, so it should be possible for readers to explore these citations further. 3 Some hints are surely to be found in poems written in Tegel prison, such as ‘Who Am I?’ and ‘Stations on the Road to Freedom’ (DBW 8:513, 570). Also, Bonhoeffer’s final two letters to Bethge which have survived are remarkable for their personal character (DBW 8:572–74, 574–77). Nonetheless, even to name reasons for Bonhoeffer’s silences, requires conjecture. It is easy to imagine, for instance, that leaving a written record of his decision-making process regarding involvement in the conspiracy would be a highly risky undertaking. Thus, his silence on this issue is hardly surprising. Regarding the other silences mentioned, I could only infer from my reading of his letters and of first-hand accounts of those who knew him, that Bonhoeffer was a reserved man who did not discuss his emotions or inner states readily with others. 4 Unfortunately, not many other interpreters have engaged in depth with the ‘Biblical Study on Temptation’; therefore I will be drawing on Bethge regarding the text itself. However, given the complex reception history of Bonhoeffer’s work, there may be unexpected benefits of this, as his interpreters have often differed,

178  Jennifer Moberly sometimes even radically, in how they see his work and life. For an excellent account, see Haynes (2004). 5 In this text, the ‘natural person’ is almost certainly a Pauline expression referring to someone who is not a Christian. 6 This is an instance where Bonhoeffer’s earliest theology evidenced in his PhD thesis, Sanctorum Communio, persists throughout his work, the notion that humans are either ‘in Adam’ or ‘in Christ’ (DBW 1:71, his note 1. See also DBW 2:69, 99, and 135–48). For a discussion of this pairing, see Plant 2004,74. 7 The most notable difference, however, is that Bonhoeffer’s students had all completed a university degree in theology, the equivalent of an MA, before coming for six months of training in pastoral theology and skills not covered in their university course. 8 See also DBW 15:44–46, which gives a copy of the invitation which went out to the former students. 9 See DBW 15:35, note 5: The ‘Himmler-Erlass’ of 29 August 1937 made it illegal for the Confessing Church to run courses, conferences, or any other gatherings. 10 The Landeskirchen were the provincial bodies of the state church’s governance in Germany. Prior to Hitler’s moves to create a national church, these were relatively autonomous bodies, though each was required to adhere to any legislation which governed ecclesial matters. Confusingly, the ‘state church’, though Protestant, was not denominationally determined: in different regions, the Landeskirche might be Lutheran, or Reformed, or in some cases, such as the area around Berlin, a kind of coalition of Lutheran and Reformed. In such instances, the governance structures were held in common, but the denominations were not in full communion with one another. This form of coalition was also present in the Confessing Church. Bethge gives a good overview of the changes Hitler and his regime were undertaking (1970, 220–29). A useful introduction to the more general political landscape is offered by Moses (De Gruchy 1999, chapter 1). (It may be of interest to note that the variation of denominational affiliation remains present within the Evangelische Kirche today.) 11 This was the occasion for which Bonhoeffer produced his paper ‘On the Nature of the Church Community’, which became famous (or infamous) following its publication because of its claim that in Nazi Germany, the Confessing Church was the true church, and there was no possibility of salvation for those who knowingly separated themselves from it. It was a particular affront to his fellow Protestants that he went so far as to use the Latin phrase which had been used by the Catholic Church against Luther at the time of the Reformation: extra ecclesiam nulla salus (there is no salvation outside the church). See DBW 14:655–80 for the text of that paper. The following pages also include one reaction to it, and Bonhoeffer’s response to that. 12 See note 11. 13 The Ecclesial Yearbook for that time includes teaching about the oath, namely that this represented more than the recognition that the New Testament teaches that Christians have a duty to submit to authority; the oath signified “a deep inner bond with the Third Reich . . . and with the man who created this community and embodies it’ (Schlingensiepen 2010a, 229, citing Beckmann 1976, 282ff, my translation). It is possible that the German word for the oath of allegiance, Treueeid, which literally means oath of faithfulness, would have seemed problematic. Additionally, the ordination vows of the Lutheran Church make reference to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, the scriptures, and the proclamation of the gospel. Each of these things could be said to be in conflict with the interpretation of the Oath of Allegiance to Hitler. See also Bonhoeffer’s letter of protest to the leaders of the Confessing Church in Old Prussia, DBW 15:50–57, where he

Resilient unto death 179 spoke of the ‘guilt’ the church incurred by giving this advice. He also attached an extract from A.G.C. Vilmar’s Theologische Moral addressing the theological issues of oaths (DBW 15:61–2, 65). 14 See also Bethge (1970, 505): the percentage of pastors in the Confessing Church who took the oath ranged from 60–89% in the various regions. 15 Bonhoeffer’s appointment and his work were for the Confessing Church, rather than the national church. 16 These were the regional governing bodies in the Confessing Church who organised the illegal training and ordination these pastors had received. 17 The ‘German Christians’ were a group who tried to combine Nazi ideology with Christian faith. Unsurprisingly, they were neo-Marcionites, rejecting the Old Testament, and many made grotesque claims that Jesus was actually of Aryan race. For a full account of them and their heresies, see Scholder 1977, chapter 3 and 533–34, and 1985, 198. 18 It should be noted that some within the church who were not part of the ‘German Christians’ supported this nationalisation in the hopes it would lend the Protestant churches greater cohesion and influence. 19 See also DBW 15:371, note 1, and DBW 15:23f, where Bonhoeffer wrote in a circular letter from late January 1938 to the pastors about the ‘temptation’ to leave the Confessing Church and be legalised: ‘In recent weeks letters and personal communications have reached me which make clear that our church, and in Pomerania especially our young theologians, have entered a time of heavy testing. Because this concerns not the difficulty of an individual, but rather the same temptation threatens many, I hope, dear Brother, you will allow me to offer a collective response’. 20 See Bonhoeffer’s final surviving letter to Bethge (presumed to date from late August 1944), where he writes movingly of his desire that his friends and family should not be saddened on his account; he was full of gratitude for God’s kindness towards him, and the ‘forgiving love of the Crucified One’ (DBW 8:576). 21 By the end of 1936, three former students had left the Confessing Church to take up ministry in the national church, DBW 14:263. See also Bethge (1970, 498).

Bibliography Beckmann, J. 1976. Kirchliches Jahrbuch 1933–1945. 2nd ed. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus Gerd Mohn. Bethge, Eberhard. 1970. Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Theologian, Christian, Contemporary. Edited by Eric Mosbacher et al. London: Collins. Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. 1986. Sanctorum Communion (DBW 1). Edited by Joachim von Soosten. Munich: Kaiser. ———. 1988. Akt und Sein (DBW 2). Edited by Hans-Richard Reuter. Munich: Kaiser. ———. 1996. Illegale Theologenausbildung: Finkenwalde 1935–1937 (DBW 14). Edited by Otto Dudzus et al. Munich: Gütersloher. ———. 1998. Illegale Theologenausbildung: Sammelvikariate 1937–1940 (DBW 15). Edited by Dirk Schulz. Gütersloh: Christian Kaiser/Gütersloher. Haynes, Stephen. 2004. The Bonhoeffer Phenomenon: Portraits of a Protestant Saint. Minneapolis: Fortress. House, Paul R. 2015. Bonhoeffer’s Seminary Vision: A Case for Costly Discipleship and Life Together. Wheaton, IL: Crossway.

180  Jennifer Moberly Moses, John A. 1999. ‘Bonhoeffer’s Germany: The Political Context’. In The Cambridge Companion to Dietrich Bonhoeffer, edited by John W. de Gruchy, 3–21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Plant, Stephen. 2004. Bonhoeffer. London; New York: Continuum. Schlingensiepen, Ferdinand. 2010a. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1906–1945: Eine Biographie. Munich: Deutscher Taschenbuchverlag. Schlingensiepen, Ferdinand. 2010b. Dietrich Bonhoeffer 1906-1945: Martyr, Thinker, Man of Resistance. Translated by Isabel Best. London: Continuum/ T&T Clark, 2010. Scholder, Klaus. 1977. Die Kirchen und das dritte Reich Band 1: Vorgeschichte und Zeit der Illusionen 1918–1934. Frankfurt am Main: Propyläen. ———. 1985. Die Kirchen und das dritte Reich: Band 2: Das Jahr der Ernüchterung 1934. Barmen: Siedler. ———. 1987–1988. Die Kirchen und das dritte Reich (3 Vols., published in English as The Churches and the Third Reich). London: SCM.

14 ‘A simple and warm common humanity’ Self-transcendence and restless resilience in Jürgen Moltmann’s theology Adam J. Powell In 1945, after nearly a year as a prisoner in British POW camps, and three years before he would ultimately be released back to his German homeland, Jürgen Moltmann was handed a Bible by an army chaplain (Moltmann 2007, 30). Although he immediately began reading small portions of the Bible at night, Moltmann initially did so with little enthusiasm. Yet one passage resonated with his predicament and stirred up the heavy dregs of optimism that had settled dormant in his spirit during and after the Second World War. Psalm 39 was ‘an echo of [his] own soul’ (ibid.), with its claim that ‘everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure’ and its poignant plea: ‘Lord, listen to my cry for help; do not be deaf to my weeping. I dwell with you as a foreigner, a stranger, as all my ancestors were’ (39:5, 12).1 For the reluctant German soldier, suffering from survivor’s guilt exacerbated by national shame and estrangement from his home – a true foreigner with images of fleeting life still flashing in his mind – this scripture represented a psychological pivot. He read gratefully when the psalmist declared, ‘My hope is in you’ (39:7), and would go on to write extensively on the subject of Christian hope – most notably in his Theology of Hope (1967). What is more, and as will be shown in this chapter, Moltmann’s theology not only reflects his affinity for psalms of lament and the hope they ignited in the 1940s but also his unique experiences of war-time trauma and the resilience he summoned after recognising the inherent sociality of our world. Indeed, in so much as Psalm 39 (and others, like Psalm 9) represents a confident collective proclamation – rather than wishful invocation – it presages the assertions and conclusions of a growing body of scholarly literature addressing the value of religious faith and community for psychological resilience. Indeed, from clinical studies of ‘religious coping’ – a term referring to the use of conceptual, behavioural, and social resources made available by one’s religion to confront distressing circumstances (Currier, Smith, and Kuhlman 2017; Gerber, Boals, and Schuettler 2011; Peres et al. 2007) – to broader existential arguments about the enduring mental significance of religious practice (Asma 2018), religion’s capacity to abet resilience – to help individuals ‘adapt well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats

182  Adam J. Powell or significant sources of stress’2 – is receiving increased attention. Marek Kopacz and colleagues, for example, surveyed nearly 500 combat veterans in the United States and found that involvement in a religious organisation – regardless of doctrine, race, gender, age, or ethnicity – strongly predicted decreased risk for suicidal ideation (2016). Similarly, Monica Gerber and her colleagues analysed over 1,000 cases of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), ultimately finding that positive religious coping predicted stronger resilience following trauma ‘beyond emotion-focused and avoidant coping, gender, and race’ (2011, 303). They concluded that this correlation between religion and resilience ‘should receive more attention in research [on trauma]’ and ‘may exist because religious constructs tend to be vital in defining meaning and significance . . . across social classes and racial groups’ (ibid.). However, we should not only look to new clinical studies to investigate this correlation but also to both the religious systems themselves as well as to their histories. For many influential voices in the history of Christian theology, particularly Moltmann’s, the potential psychological benefits embedded in doctrinal and ecclesiastical constructs result not from vapid philosophical speculation but from concrete instances of acute suffering countered by redemptive hope. In other words, before clinicians and mental health researchers can help ‘individuals develop depression-reducing thoughts and behaviours informed by their own religious beliefs, practices, and resources’ (Pearce et al. 2015, 57), those religious systems must be informed by a meaningful resonance achieved between experience and revelation – between humanity’s countless cries for help and the restorative responses found in the scriptures, traditions, and social lives of those religious communities. When, for Christians of any ilk, mental and emotional fortitude is found in religious faith, it is no happy coincidence wherein their tradition’s ‘beliefs, practices, and resources’ luckily speak to their immediate circumstances, fears, and expectations. Instead, those theological and spiritual resources are efficacious, are pregnant with redemptive power, because they reflect the created order and reflect the Creator God. Thus, for a theologian like Moltmann, suffering and the recognition of divine order in human relationality preceded – inspired – theological reflection and expression. Desperate experience provided both the need for, and the realisation of, theologically structured hope. Now, those experiences and the resulting social theology may, in turn, inform our understanding of individual suffering, social solidarity, and the possibility of a sort of restless resilience wherein the promise of a better future intimates limitless potential for the present.3

Suffering alone: Moltmann’s social encounter In Theology of Hope, Moltmann argues that ‘the truth of doctrinal statements is found in the fact that they can be shown to agree with the existing

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 183 reality which we all experience’ (1967, 18). Although he follows this by claiming that hope, in contrast, does ‘not result from experiences’ but is (borrowing from Kantian epistemology) ‘the condition for the possibility of new experiences’ (ibid.), there can be little doubt that his own individual experiences of loss, grief, and blossoming hope during the Second World War shaped these later theological assertions. In fact, one chapter of his autobiography, A Broad Place, begins by noting the lasting impact of his time as a soldier and prisoner of war: War stories are not tales of adventure. They are stories about destruction and death. That is why anyone who was involved does not like to talk about it. I had no desire for these experiences, but they put their stamp on my life, and so I shall say something about them. (2007, 19) Following this preamble, Moltmann describes, poignantly, his time as a reluctant German soldier – encountering the harrowing randomness of death, enduring deep shame as well as nightmarish flashbacks, and ultimately receiving welcomed grace from those he met in and around the British POW camps to which he was assigned. As we will see, this intermingling of present suffering and past hauntings in the light of final mercy did not remain relegated to unexpressed private events but eventually informed his theological discussions of creation, the crucifixion, and redemption. Even still, before such notions were organised into sophisticated intellectual works, they were born of distress and despair in the camps that Moltmann would later call his ‘first locus theologicus’ (2000, 4). His traumatic suffering actually seems to have begun prior to his imprisonment, shortly after military conscription in 1943. Assigned to an antiaircraft battery on the outer Alster near Hamburg, Moltmann was on duty in July of that year when the nine-day ‘Operation Gomorrah’ of the British Royal Air Force decimated Hamburg with explosives (Moltmann 2007, 16). The air raid ultimately killed more than 40,000 Germans, most of them civilians, but on the penultimate night it took the life of Moltmann’s friend and fellow soldier, Gerhard Schopper. Schopper was standing next to Moltmann on the wooden platform of the battery when a bomb exploded: ‘The mass of splinters destroyed the firing platform and tore [him] apart. . . . He hadn’t got down quickly enough’ (ibid., 17). As Moltmann stood up, he saw that the shrapnel had decapitated Schopper. More bombs fell, but Moltmann survived with few injuries, his companions watched him arise from the rubble ‘as if he were a miracle’ (ibid.). Witnessing death’s indiscriminate cruelty and war’s ugly rage, Moltmann immediately ‘cried out to God for the first time’, feeling ‘the guilt of survival and searching for the meaning of continued life’ (2007, 17). Then, a year and a half later, in December of 1944, he once again ‘had the painful experience of losing a companion’ when he and Günther Schwiebert ran

184  Adam J. Powell towards an empty bunker to avoid grenades lobbed their way (ibid., 23). Moltmann reached the safety of the bunker, but Schwiebert was still nearing the entrance when shrapnel from the grenades entered the back of his head. He died in Moltmann’s arms. In tandem, these two episodes combined with the more mundane struggles against disease, hunger, and lice to torment Moltmann up to, and beyond, his surrender to British soldiers in February 1945. His acute survivor’s guilt from Hamburg was recapitulated when Schwiebert died. This guilt transformed into ‘darkness’ and ‘despair’ once inside the first POW camp, as torturous memories of death made sleep nearly impossible – ‘when the faces of the dead appeared and looked at [him] with their quenched eyes’ (ibid., 26). Showing signs of PTSD and with boils spreading across his skin, Moltmann ‘wanted to give up’. He was left, as he states it, ‘exposed without any defence to what [he] had experienced and suffered . . . mental and spiritual torment’ (2007, 26). Early in his military service Moltmann was partly sustained by the thought of his girlfriend, Ingeborg – a relationship that promised continuity with his life before the war and offered hope in the form of a future reunion (ibid., 15). In addition, he frequently read from Goethe and derived both pleasure as well as encouragement from that national icon. Once inside the prison gates, however, ‘Goethe’s poems . . . had nothing more to say’, and ‘every patriotic feeling for Germany – “holy Fatherland” – collapsed and died’ (ibid., 26, 29). Yet hope did emerge. Although it no longer came from either Ingeborg (with whom he would not have a future after the war) or Goethe, it was derived from both relationships and texts. In fact, working at a camp on the coast of Scotland, wrestling with guilt and an uncertain future (Germany was no longer recognised as a sovereign state, and Moltmann was no longer proud to be a German), Moltmann experienced basic kindness and benevolence that marked a turning point, psychologically and spiritually. The local Scottish families were friendly and hospitable, at times offering to buy the prisoners food or supplies and never expressing malice or blame. For Moltmann, this extension of ‘a simple and warm common humanity’ restored his life and his dignity (2007, 28–29). Indeed, he found that he could laugh again, despite the ‘profound shame’ that lingered, and this ‘friendly encounter’ with those Scottish families became one of the two experiences that raised him ‘to a new hope in life’ (ibid., 29). Whilst friendship and solidarity figure largely in his theology, as is discussed further, they do so not simply as a result of seeing his own humanity in the faces of those Scots but as a consequence of another encounter – that between Moltmann and scripture. As mentioned previously, Psalm 39 spoke powerfully to his guilt and displacement, but he also read the Gospel of Mark with considerable earnestness: I . . . came to the story of the passion; when I heard Jesus’ death cry, “My God, why have you forsaken me?” I felt growing within me the

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 185 conviction: this is someone who understands you completely, who is with you in your cry to God and has felt the same forsakenness you are living in now. . . . The divine brother in need, the companion on the way . . . the fellow-sufferer who carries you, with your suffering. I summoned up the courage to live again, and I was slowly but surely seized by a great hope. (2007, 30) Thus, the crucifixion of Christ became a spotlight illuminating the connection between loneliness and hope. The true torment, the fundamental pain of Moltmann’s experiences, came from suffering in isolation. Accordingly, the salve of the Christian message was not the eradication of such suffering but the recognition that Christ redeemed imperfect experience through suffering in solidarity and overcoming death (ibid.). Although Moltmann is careful to note that this was not a sudden epiphany but a gradual realisation, his encounter with scripture – like his warm social encounters in Scotland – underscored the significance of looking outward in one’s search for resilience. The warmth of human fellowship was matched by, perhaps reflected, and paradoxically so, the cold lonely death of Christ on the Cross. In both, Moltmann found hope through companionship and commonality. It is worth noting that Moltmann is in good company on his path from the horrors of the Second World War to the discovery of hope in the social reality of the human experience. Others, such as the psychiatrist Viktor Frankl, the literary critic Lydia Ginzburg, and the sociologist Hans Mol, turned their first-hand experiences during the war into robust theories of meaning-making and hope. Frankl, for example, survived Auschwitz and used the language of self-transcendence to describe his conclusion that ‘the true meaning of life is to be discovered in the world rather than within man or his own psyche . . . and is directed to something, or someone, other than oneself’ (2004, 115). Similarly, as Mol endured horrendous privations as a prisoner of the Gestapo he began formulating what would later become his theory of religious identity: ‘The more I saw people dying, the more I wanted it to be more than a meaningless event . . . I began to take note of those who saw themselves in a larger context . . . part of an all-encompassing purpose, sometimes expressed in Christian language’ (1987, 69). ‘It was the larger context’, Mol decided, ‘which cushioned the shock of the unexpected and stopped emotional drainage’ (ibid.). In other words, it was by finding hope, meaning, and purpose in something larger than oneself that one was able to remain resilient in the face of death and despair. For Moltmann, Christian theology provided this ‘larger context’, and, as Alexis Smith rightly asserts, ‘finding the language to describe the revelation he had experienced’ whereby he might ‘connect his personal narrative to a larger narrative of faith’ became ‘his lifelong quest’ (Smith 2014, 216).

186  Adam J. Powell

A relational God and a social ontology of hope Although it is beyond the scope of the present work to give a full outline of the large narrative Moltmann has successfully drafted over the course of several decades as a prolific theologian, it is important that we investigate how his outward turn – his early discovery of hope and resilience in social solidarity – manifests in his theological thought. Indeed, taking the sociality of humanity as his a priori (Moltmann 1985, 223), his works arguably articulate a social ontology of hope as much as they do a systematic theology of hope. As one might expect, this heavy reliance on the social – permeating both his theological anthropology in this way as well as his understanding of Christology and the Trinity – has invited and received ample criticism.4 Such criticism most often takes aim at a perceived flirtation with tri-theism in his social conception of the triune God (briefly addressed later) or at his emphasis on Christ’s suffering in solidarity on the Cross. However, even his notion of hope as something made possible in the light of an eschatological future, and demonstrated in Christ’s overcoming of that suffering through resurrection, has come under fire. Stephen Williams, for instance, expresses genuine confusion over Moltmann’s assertion that ‘hope . . . brings us into contradiction with the existing present’ (Moltmann 2007, 103), arguing that such a ‘this-worldly hope’ is ‘the problem with Moltmann’, for it is somehow both eschatologically orientated and generative of present action (Williams 1996, 158–59). Here, we do not wish to undertake a defence of Moltmann, but more modestly suggest that some such criticisms persist only by cleaving Moltmann’s thoughts from his experiences and by ignoring his commitment to the intrinsic sociality of existence. Whilst his theological works may or may not comprise a unified system, they do understand both the created order and the divine order as essentially relational. It is only by recognising his expression of this conviction that we may begin to understand his eagerness for hope to initiate social action here and now or for the three persons of the Trinity to inspire psychological resilience in the face of pain and toil. Creation of God: a social image Pain and toil, in fact, are central to Moltmann’s understanding of the link between humans as the imago Dei and their post-fall separation from their Creator. He asserts that, as imago Dei, ‘human beings correspond first of all to the relationships of God to themselves and to the whole of creation’ (Moltmann 1985, 77). Furthermore, he claims, ‘from the very outset human beings are social beings [and] can only relate to themselves if, and to the extent in which, other people relate to them’ (ibid., 223). In other words, ‘the isolated individual and the solitary subject are deficient modes of being human because they fall short of the likeness to God’ (ibid.). This dissatisfaction with viewing the sovereign individual as the apogee of creation,

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 187 and as ‘solitary subject’, is, as we will see, partly informed by Moltmann’s interest in the philosophy of Helmuth Plessner. Just as significant, however, is Moltmann’s commitment to critiquing and correcting the problems he perceives in the theology of Karl Barth. Barth, Moltmann contends, sees the image of God primarily in terms of intrinsic lordship, with not only the individual ‘belonging to himself, controlling himself and disposing over himself’ but also the soul ruling ‘over its body [as] an expression of the rule of God’ (1985, 254). The potential problem with such an understanding is that the social relationships represented by ‘image and likeness’ are essentially hierarchical and domineering. That which is lost in the Fall and restored through Christ is, first and foremost, individual self-control rather than relationality or social bondedness. Moltmann counters this by drawing a bold line between Genesis 1 and 3. If the image of God is one characterised by, and observable in, the social nature of human beings, Adam and Eve’s original sin is less a manifest lack of selfcontrol (with all that that implies about individualism and discrete power) and more a rupture of social bonds. This, in turn, means that the pain and toil promised as punishment are quite clearly set against, indeed proclaimed as the opposite of, unity and solidarity. This is a noteworthy theological manoeuvre, particularly when viewed in the light of Moltmann’s personal experiences. As a POW, he was moved by an identification with the crucified Christ precisely because Moltmann felt he had found a ‘companion’ and a ‘fellow-sufferer’ (Moltmann 2007, 30). His own pain was alleviated by solidarity, both in terms of the Christ-event and in terms of a promised renewal of the social order in the future. Thus, to define ‘image and likeness’ as sociality or relationality and, a fortiori, to suggest that the Fall is separation and suffering, is actually to develop a consistent social theology: sin is isolation thus pain; redemption is reunion thus hope. This formula, implying as it does that humanity’s hope lies in the promise of restored social bonds, offers a particular perspective on resilience wherein the motivating force in the present is the acknowledgement that God’s Old Testament promises combine with Christ’s New Testament acts to create a world in which there is always more to come. For Moltmann, these ‘conditions of possibility’ may cause productive unrest; we see our circumstances as ever-changing on the path of ‘wayfaring hope’ and adopt a corresponding orientation to life characterised by ethical activity and personal adaptability (1967, 23). In a sense, this is the trajectory of God’s creation – from the Fall to the eschaton, suffused with a social awareness that reflects the nature of the Creator. Of course, this theological anthropology (and its implications for psychological resilience) is not only consistent with Moltmann’s early encounter with the theology of the Cross but also with his conceptualisation of the Trinity. As theologian Joy Ann McDougall puts it, Moltmann’s interpretation of Genesis 1:26 is distinctive because it does not ‘fix the likeness to God in the individual’s possession of a certain capacity [for dominion over

188  Adam J. Powell self and others]’ but, instead, ‘defines the image in terms of relationships that correspond to the Trinitarian life’ (2005, 115). In his own words, one must see in the Trinity both the ‘psychological and the social’, ‘combining both ways dialectically: from threeness to unity and from unity to threeness’ for this has ‘significant consequences . . . for the imago trinitatis’ (ibid., xii). God of creation: a social Trinity One consequence is to pose a challenge to Western individualism and, as Moltmann sees it, its roots in Augustinian theology. McDougall offers a clear summary of Moltmann’s concerns: ‘Just as the monarchy of the Father prevails over the Trinitarian community of persons in Augustine’s doctrine of God, so, too, Moltmann argues, the monarchical unity of the individual rational soul dominates over its internal relationality in [Augustine’s] model of the imago dei’ (2005, 105). Moltmann’s own social model of the Trinity is outlined most fully in The Trinity and the Kingdom, where he further argues that Augustine’s (thus, the West’s) disregard for the social in favour of the intellect’s self-reflexivity, as opposed to the more social understandings of the Trinity in Eastern Christianity, ultimately leads to the ‘irreconcilable’ 20th-century political philosophies of ‘personalism’ in nations influenced by the former and ‘socialism’ in those influenced by the latter (1991, 200). For our purposes, however, it is more important to note the aspects of Moltmann’s social trinitarianism that McDougall refers to as an objection against ‘modern theism’s . . . ideal of freedom as self-sufficiency and absolute power over others’ (2005, 107). In addition to influencing political flavours, however subtly, the church’s doctrine of the Trinity directly affects interpersonal relations. For example, Moltmann seems to believe that Augustine and Aquinas represent a ‘turn inward’ – positing a God whose singular essence resonates with the individual soul and whose three persons present a tiered order of authority – leading to ‘the soul’s retreat from its network of interpersonal relations and social responsibilities in the world’ (ibid, 106). Instead, Moltmann leans heavily on the term perichoresis to describe the way in which the three ‘persons exist so intimately with each other, for each other, and in each other that they themselves constitute a unique, incomparable, and complete unity’ (1984, 166). As Stephen Rhodes and Dominic Robinson observe, this understanding of the divine persons allows Moltmann to highlight the role of friendship and empathy in creation, rather than God’s ‘Lordship over creation’ (Rhodes 1994, 65; Robinson 2011, 135). In response, Robinson argues that Moltmann only emphasises the relational aspect of the three persons of the Trinity as part of a ‘quest for a relational model of “imago Dei” ’ and ‘in order to present a narrative expressing the true intimacy of the relationship between God and his image on earth’, as opposed to one ‘in which human beings are slaves to a dominant Lord of history’ (2011, 137). This, in Robinson’s view, takes theology ‘in a dangerous direction’ (ibid.). However, it is

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 189 possible – and consistent with Moltmann’s own formative encounters with hope and humanity – that he wishes to emphasise the relationality of the Trinity, not so much as a necessary harmonising step on a brazen quest to find sociality in human nature, but because he recognises that the power of the kerygma lies in its proclamation that redemption is found on the path of empathy and reciprocity rather than individual rationality (Moltmann 1967, 166). That God is three – and restored communion with his creation through the lonely suffering of the Son – seems to be engaged by Moltmann as corroborating evidence of how proper social order reflects divine order, not as a theological end to be achieved by retroactively reading perichoresis into Genesis. When the restorative glow of social solidarity prevailed over the darkness of his own personal despair, he suddenly had the light by which to see this Biblical account of salvation history as a story of divine relations punctuated and perturbed by moments of sinful isolation.

Restless resilience: hope, health, and self It was also in the light of his personal experience and subsequent theological grappling that Moltmann constructed a distinctive theory of the self. Whether we discuss this in terms of a theological anthropology or a social ontology of hope, it is important to consider the indissoluble link Moltmann sees between our createdness, our sociality, and our restless resilience in the present. In his description of Moltmann’s anthropology, Clarke Chapman points out that Moltmann was struck by the fact that humanity is ‘both creature and image of God’ (2000, 74). As such, Chapman notes, ‘It is precisely in our web of relationships that we have the vocation to represent God in and for God’s creation’ (ibid.). This is where Moltmann relocates his discussion of the imago Dei, the Trinity, and the crucifixion from the level of God’s collective creation to the level of individual needs and actions. For example, he not only insists on the affliction of Christ on the Cross, asserting that dogged claims of impassibility paint a messianic portrait that bears almost no resemblance to those in need of salvation, but remains adamant that such affliction identifies Christ as ‘the brother in suffering and the companion on the road to the land of freedom’ (2007, 30). In this way, Moltmann reveals how Christ’s death says as much about our lonely and imperfect present as it does about our path towards something better. In Smith’s words, ‘Because there is meaning in the suffering of the Cross, human beings can also find meaning and hope in their times of loneliness and abandonment’ (2014, 205). In fact, that tension between having been created as social beings and finding ourselves in need of salvation through solidarity is in keeping with Moltmann’s theory of the self as well as his notion of hope as a sort of discontentment with the world as it is. Much as he took his cues for Theology of Hope from Ernst Bloch’s The Principle of Hope – locating collective and individual hope in the Old Testament promises of God to his

190  Adam J. Powell people – Moltmann shaped his view of the individual around philosopher Helmuth Plessner’s notion of the person as an ‘eccentric’ being (Moltmann 1967, 213). In the same vein as his contemporary, the sociologist Karl Mannheim, Plessner argues that the self is always both subject and object; we both are bodies and have bodies (1975). We act and are acted upon, experiencing life as agents but also recognising external limitations on those experiences. For Moltmann, this parallels, and affords insight into, the paradoxes and bifurcations central to the Christian story. As subjects, humans are the imago trinitatis, acting in the world as social beings representative of divine order. As objects, humans are the ontological ‘other’ created by God, suffering in isolation and in need of redemption. Likewise, Moltmann sees in Plesnner’s structure of the self a reflection of the dialectic between the Garden and the Fall, between death and resurrection. Present suffering and alienation from divine relationality is never a final outcome, but a chance or condition for reconnection. In other words, humanity’s status as ‘never wholly an object’ (Moltmann 1985, 48) and, thus, never ‘fixed or tied down’ (Moltmann 1974, 2) mirrors one of the primary motifs of Christian theology: hope resides where our present reality is at odds with the promise of a redemptive future. In Moltmann’s words, ‘hope for an alternative future brings us into contradiction with the existing present . . . that between us and the existing reality there is no harmony . . . is the unquenchable spark of hope for the fullness of life’ (2007, 103). Just as Christ’s pain restored solidarity with God, so his conquest of death may stimulate a productive disquiet with the status quo: [T]he hope of resurrection must bring about a new understanding of the world. This world is not the heaven of self-realisation, as it was said to be in Idealism. This world is not the hell of self-estrangement, as it is said to be in romanticist and existentialist writing. The world is not yet finished. . . . It is therefore the world of possibilities, the world in which we can serve the future, promised truth and righteousness and peace. (Moltmann 1967, 338) In this ‘world of possibilities’, Moltmann is quick to add that he is not only calling for a collective political theology which looks for ways to ‘serve the future’ but also for a reappraisal of the individual’s orientation to this world. Recall that, for Moltmann, ‘the isolated individual is a deficient mode of being human’ (1985, 223). Thus, he continues the previous discussion of the ‘hope of resurrection’ by addressing what Chapman calls Moltmann’s anthropology of ‘self-transcendence’ (Chapman 2000, 70): This is an age of diaspora, of sowing in hope, of self-surrender and sacrifice, for it is an age which stands within the horizon of a new future. Thus self-expenditure in this world, day-to-day love in hope, becomes

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 191 possible and becomes human within that horizon of expectation which transcends this world. In a sense, then, Moltmann sees Christian hope as engendering both a transcendence of the present and a transcendence of the person. Again, this is an outgrowth of his appropriation of Plessner, which recognises the individual as fundamentally caught in the friction between self and situation. As Ante Jeroncic expresses it, ‘Moltmann is able to articulate a vision of the transformative self . . . marked by the dialectic of fragility and resiliency, determination and freedom, brokenness and renewal, sin and grace’ (2014, 248, 252). In addition to preventing human beings from ‘tying themselves down’ to any particular way of being, this tension between subject and object reminds the individual not to ‘turn in on him or herself’ (Moltmann 2003, 41). In fact, Richard Bauckham, a leading expert on Moltmann’s theology, goes so far as to describe the theologian’s entire understanding of the Christian experience as one distinguished by a ‘turning outward’ to the world (1995, 220). As Jeroncic notes, however, the modern world is a situation of selffragmentation rather than self-transcendence (2014, 247). Luckily, Moltmann believes, as God’s image and in the light of his promises ‘[humanity] is not brought into harmony and agreement with the given situation, but is drawn into the conflict between hope and experience’ (1967, 18). If, as was certainly true of the events shaping Moltmann during and immediately after the Second World War, much modern experience entails isolation and loneliness in suffering, then the hope that contradicts experience must be one comprised of solidarity and fellowship. Indeed, Moltmann claims that there are two forms of hopelessness: (1) presumption of instant/easy selfrealisation, and (2) despair over the current state (ibid., 23–24). In contrast, hope considers ‘the possibilities of reality’ and exposes both the impatient individualism of presumption and the illusory stagnancy of despair as fallacious modes of coping with the present. Aware that those possibilities include eventual redemption and restored relationality, human beings may begin to engage in a temporal social ethics – a restless resilience in which present embodied circumstances are controverted by hopeful actions alongside, often on behalf of, others. Here, Moltmann ventures into the domain with which we are chiefly concerned – viz., discussions of health and psychological coping. His distrust of individualism, and concomitant faith in the everyday utility of self-transcendence, place him firmly within ongoing debates regarding selfrealisation and resilience. Smith, for example, sees in Moltmann’s life and thought an echo of psychiatrist (and fellow WWII survivor) Boris Cyrulnik’s succinct reflection on the potential for selfhood: ‘The paradox of the human condition is that we cannot become ourselves without the influence of others’ (Cyrulnik 2006; Smith 2014, 192). This certainly brings to mind Moltmann’s own contention that ‘human beings . . . only develop their

192  Adam J. Powell personalities in fellowship with other people’ (1985, 223). Yet such a claim differs strikingly from other theological perspectives on hope and resilience. Clemens Sedmak, for instance, seems to argue that resilience comes from within, from the internalisation of Christian hope rather than its externalisation in the social loves, obligations, and collective becoming of creation (2017). As we have shown, however, Moltmann blames Augustine’s emphasis on self-control and interior spiritual reflection for misleading the Western Church down a path of hyper-individualism and political atomism. It is not surprising that his own emphasis on hope as a provocation to live socially and to reject present experience in favour of better possibilities decries Sedmak’s variety of Christian hope as ever so much spiritualising. As McDougall astutely indicates, Moltmann’s view underscores how creation, redemption, and eschatological glory all entail real embodiment or the material outpouring of God (2005, 117). By avoiding the temptation to relegate hope solely to the spiritual person or to a spiritual practice, Moltmann extends its sustaining power to those in need of literal physical or mental intervention. Much as he labelled humanist presumption an impatient form of hopelessness – as it fetishizes immediate fulfilment of individual potential – in discussing health and resilience Moltmann flags the world’s ‘cult’ of bodily perfection. He once more calls for balance between the person as both subject and object, claiming that modern understandings of wellbeing consist of a ‘detachment’ of illness from the body (2012, 91). The field of medicine creates diagnoses that objectify the ailment, allowing the individual to transform from being unwell to having an isolated sickness. The problem in Moltmann’s view is that this sacrifices subjectivity and propagates an impossible promise of wholeness. The ‘order of the body’ is dissociated from the ‘order of the person’, and ‘illness’ becomes any disturbance in bodily function (ibid., 92, 93). This notion of absolute physical and mental well-being is not only an impossible ideal, but it also stigmatises and fragments portions of society whilst inducing generalised anxiety – particularly as it conflicts so fundamentally with the unfinished quality of Christian hope: If only the person in a condition of complete and all-round well-being counts as healthy, then all human beings are more or less ill, since they are not living in paradise. . . . The ideal of all-round well-being is a utopia, and not even a particularly humane utopia. . . . This can lead to the sick being pushed out of public life, and to illnesses being viewed as catastrophes, a view which robs the person of self-confidence and selfesteem . . . the healthy then turn away from the infirm and the disabled, the old and people unable to work, [and] they condemn these people to social death. (Moltmann 2012, 93)

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 193 By social death, Moltmann seems, in part, to have in mind a ‘crisis about the meaning and purpose of life’ provoked by the realisation that one can both ‘no longer put one’s trust in one’s own health’ and ‘no longer base one’s selfesteem on what one has achieved’ (ibid.). The possibility of such a crisis is a function of the collective faith in ‘a utopia of a life without suffering, happiness without pain, and a community without conflicts’ (Moltmann 1985, 272). On the contrary, Moltmann prefers to speak of well-being not as ‘the absence of malfunctions’ but as ‘the strength to live with them’ (ibid., 273).5 Suffering, pain, and conflict are inevitable. Yet hope is an available rousing agent that exposes one’s existence as imperfect, replete with malfunctions, and laden with potential for, and in response to, change. The ability to adapt to change, then, is ‘the strength to be human’ (Moltmann 2012, 93). This capacity for resilience results from faith in a non-utopian narrative rooted in Christian assurances of relationality and renewal.

Conclusion In the light of those assurances for the future and the socially palliative love of the Cross, the present becomes a period in which ‘human life is affirmed and justified’ as individuals cope with undesirable circumstances – such as the depression, shame, and harrowing memories faced by Moltmann after the war – by looking for relationship and betterment beyond themselves. The Scottish families living near his POW camp extended kindness to Moltmann, and his hope was awakened. When he was able to situate his own experiences in the promises and persecutions of scripture, that hope was fully enlivened. These two sources – human relationships and the narrative vistas of the Gospel – not only reflected his most salient existential moments but also subsequently informed his social theology. Indeed, Moltmann insists that ‘Christian congregations can offer human warmth [and serve as] a kind of Noah’s ark for individuals in their social estrangement’ (Moltmann 1967, 319–20). Likewise, the isolated individual, cut off from social affairs, does not find hope solely by constructing a web of human relationships (a daunting and distressing notion), but by participating in a self-sacrificial ‘calling’ which sets his or her daily existence in the context of a divinely-instituted ‘horizon of expectation’ and finds in human imperfection a reason for actively anticipating improvement (ibid., 333–34). In other words, restless resilience comes by seeing oneself alongside one’s fellow sufferers – fellow social creatures – on a participatory and ever-changing path towards the coming of the ‘promised kingdom of God’ (ibid.). This, of course, brings us back to the correlation found by Kopacz et al. (2016) between participation in a religious organisation and decreased suicidal thoughts – for participation is much more than mere membership, allowing the values, messages, and eschatological expectations of religious community to contextualise and to mollify the unwanted vicissitudes of life.

194  Adam J. Powell In our suffering, we find solidarity with God and humanity; in our solidarity with God and humanity, we find hope. In this way, Moltmann convincingly synthesises his personal suffering with his theology to advance a vision of resilience as membership in a ‘warm common humanity’ that gives pride of place both to the perichoretic connections we retain as imago trinitatis as well as to the open-endedness of our individual futures. Ultimately, it is the story of God’s unfolding and redemptive power that fuels our confident disquiet with the present. Created by a social God, we, too, are social. Embedded in an emerging promise, our plights are impermanent.

Notes 1 Biblical references taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, ed. International Bible Society (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984). 2 Here we quote and adopt the definition of ‘resilience’ offered by the American Psychological Association (Comas-Diaz, Luthar, and Maddi 2018). 3 Note that Moltmann’s theological exploration of themes such as hope and social life have begun to take his thoughts beyond the discipline of theology proper, into areas of ethics and mental health (e.g., Bonzo 2009; Harvie 2013; Ledgerwood 2010). Even more importantly, scholars like Alexis Smith draw direct connections between the ‘language and vision expressed in’ Moltmann’s primary theological works and the concept of psychological resilience (2014, 195). 4 Both Smith and Joy Ann McDougall provide helpful discussions of the controversies surrounding Moltmann’s social trinitarianism and insistence on the suffering (thus, passibility) of Christ (Smith 2014, 207–8; McDougall 2005, 103–15; See also, Kärkkäinen 2007, 2011; Williams 1996). 5 Here Moltmann is paraphrasing Dietrich Rössler (1977). In addition to this quote from God in Creation, Moltmann offers a slightly different translation of Rössler’s statement in Ethics of Hope (2012, 93).

Bibliography Asma, S. 2018. Why We Need Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bauckham, R. 1995. The Theology of Jürgen Moltmann. London: T&T Clark. Bloch, E. 1995 [1938]. The Principle of Hope. 1–3 Vols. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Bonzo, J. 2009. Indwelling the Forsaken Other: The Trinitarian Ethics of Jürgen Moltmann. Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications. Chapman, G.C. 2000. ‘On Being Human: Moltmann’s Anthropology of Hope’. The Asbury Theological Journal 55 (1): 69–84. Comas-Diaz, L., S. Luthar, and S. Maddi. 2018. Roadmap to Resilience. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. Accessed August 3, 2018. http:// apa.org/helpcenter/road-resilience.aspx. Currier, J., P. Smith, and S. Kuhlman. 2017. ‘Assessing the Unique Role of Religious Coping in Suicidal Behaviour among U.S. Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans’. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 9 (1): 118–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/ re10000055. Cyrulnik, B. 2006. Les Nourritures Affectives. Paris: Odile Jacob.

‘A simple and warm common humanity’ 195 Frankl, V. 2004 [1946]. Man’s Search for Meaning. London: Rider. Gerber, M., A. Boals, and D. Schuettler. 2011. ‘The Unique Contribution of Positive and Negative Religious Coping to Posttraumatic Growth and PTSD’. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 3 (4): 298–307. Harvie, T. 2013. Jürgen Moltmann’s Ethics of Hope: Eschatalogical Possibilities for Moral Action. Aldershot: Ashgate. The Holy Bible. 1984. New International Version. Edited by International Bible Society. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Jeroncic, A. 2014. ‘ “Weak” Self-Integration: Jürgen Moltmann’s Anthropology and the Postmodern Self’. Heythrop Journal 55 (2): 244–55. Kärkkäinen, V. 2007. The Trinity: Global Perspectives. Louisville: Westminster-John Knox Press. ———. 2011. ‘The Trinitarian Doctrines of Jürgen Moltmann and Wolfhard Pannenberg in the Context of Contemporary Discussion’. In The Cambridge Companion to the Trinity, edited by P. Phan, 223–42. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kopacz, M., J. Currier, K. Drescher, and W. Pigeon. 2016. ‘Suicidal Behaviour and Spiritual Functioning in a Sample of Veterans Diagnosed with PTSD’. Journal of Injury and Violence Research 8 (1): 6–14. Ledgerwood, E. 2010. ‘The Desert Shall Bloom: A Dialogue Between Experiences of Supporting Trauma Survivors and Moltmann and Sölle’s Theologies of Suffering and Hope’. PhD diss. Murdoch University. Mannheim, K. 1936. Ideology and Utopia. London: Routledge. McDougall, J. 2005. Pilgrimage of Love: Moltmann on the Trinity and Christian Life. New York: Oxford University Press. Mol, H. 1987. How God Hoodwinked Hitler. Sutherland: Albatross Books. Moltmann, J. 1967. Theology of Hope. London: SCM Press. ———. 1974. Man: Christian Anthropology in the Conflicts of the Present. Philadelphia: Fortress Press. ———. 1984. ‘The Unity of the Triune God’. St. Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 28 (3): 157–71. ———. 1985. God in Creation: A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God. San Francisco: HarperCollins. ———. 1991. The Trinity and the Kingdom. San Francisco: HarperCollins. ———. 2000. Experiences in Theology: Ways and Forms of Christian Theology. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ———. 2003. Science and Wisdom. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. ———. 2007. A Broad Place: An Autobiography. London: SCM Press. ———. 2012. Ethics of Hope. Minneapolis: Fortress Press. Pearce, M., H. Koenig, C. Robins, B. Nelson, S. Shaw, and H. Cohen. 2015. ‘Religiously Integrated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy: A New Method of Treatment for Major Depression in Patients with Chronic Medical Illness’. Psychotherapy 52 (1): 56–66. Peres, J., A. Moreira-Almeida, A.G. Nasello, and H. Koenig. 2007. ‘Spirituality and Resilience in Trauma Victims’. Journal of Religion and Health 46 (3): 343–50. Plessner, H. 1975 [1928]. Die Stufen des Organischen und der Mensch. Einleitung in die philosophische Anthropologie. Berlin: De Gruyter. Rhodes, S. 1994. ‘Jürgen Moltmann: The Comfort and Challenge of Open Friendship’. Asbury Theological Journal 49 (1): 63–69.

196  Adam J. Powell Robinson, D. 2011. Understanding the ‘Imago Dei’: The Thought of Barth, von Balthasar, and Moltmann. Farnham: Ashgate. Rössler, D. 1977. der Arzt zwischen Technik und Humanität: Religiöse und ethische Aspekte der Krise in Gesundheitswesen. Munich: Piper. Sedmak, C. 2017. The Capacity to be Displaced: Resilience, Mission, and Inner Strength. Leiden: Brill. Smith, A. 2014. ‘Towards a Narrative of Hope and Resilience: A Contemporary Paradigm for Christian Pastoral Ministry in the Face of Mortality’. PhD diss. University of Chester. Williams, S. 1996. ‘The Problem with Moltmann’. European Journal of Theology 5 (2): 157–67.

Section 3

Practical visions of resilience

15 Clinical applications of resilience Joanna Collicutt

Resilience is the capacity to bounce back having received a knock. It means being flexible and emotionally grounded. It means having good resources at one’s disposal in the way of knowledge, and practical and emotional support systems. . . . Personal authenticity, the ability to sit lightly, a disciplined rule of life, and readiness to forgive will all help us to develop resilience. (Collicutt 2015, 237)

As noted throughout this volume, the nature of resilience is much debated both across and within a range of academic disciplines, yet most people have an intuitive sense of what it means. The broad-brush description quoted above, drawn from my book on Christian formation, which crosses the boundary between psychology and practical theology, is fairly representative. In this chapter I consider the status of the concept more critically from both psychological and New Testament perspectives, before exploring its application to pastoral and clinical practice with people facing the challenge of life events, injury, and chronic health conditions.

Resilience in psychology The concept of resilience began its life in developmental psychopathology, referring to positive outcomes in individuals whose early life circumstances posed a risk to their health and well-being (Rutter 1987). It was always a broad concept but has broadened further over the years to include individual differences in response to adversity in adulthood as well as childhood; causal processes as well as descriptive outcomes; and even the ultimate motivation to adapt and survive (Richardson 2002). The dangers here are then inconsistency of usage, lack of clarity (Bonanno 2012), and circularity of argument where positive outcomes in the context of risk are both described as resilience (a summary statement) and explained by resilience (a hypothetical construct).1 Furthermore, the relationship between resilience and similar psychological qualities such as hardiness (Wallace and Bergman 2007), flourishing

200  Joanna Collicutt (Fredrickson and Losada 2005), coping (Campbell-Sills, Cohan, and Stein 2006), and adversarial growth (Bensimon 2012) continues to be explored and articulated, and a full consensus has not yet been achieved. One question that is repeatedly returned to is whether resilience refers to a resumption of previous levels of function following a stressful event or an advance beyond previous levels, a distinction described by Nimmi Hutnik as that between ‘bouncing back’ and ‘springing forward’ (Hutnik 2017). As the use of the term ‘resilience’ is so variable across psychologists, it has been suggested that more specific terminology is required. Stephen Lepore and Tracey Revenson identify three distinct concepts – ‘recovery’,2 ‘resistance’, and ‘reconfiguration’ – that come under the umbrella of resilience (Lepore and Revenson 2006, 24). The first refers to bounce-back following stress; the second refers to imperturbability in the face of stress; the third refers to accommodation to stress (leaving open the question of whether this accommodation involves growth or diminishment). This proves to be a helpful taxonomy, and I shall return to it throughout this chapter. Finally, resilience needs to be understood in its culture and context (see for example Zraly and Nyirazinyoye 2010). Context in the human lifespan is particularly important; after all the roots of the concept lie in developmental psychology. The Berlin Aging Study has yielded a framework for understanding lifespan development as the management of biological resources: in the early years of an individual’s life these increase, and the dominant pattern is that of growth; in mid-life this shifts to maintenance (with an emphasis on bounce-back after stress); in later life the focus is on managing decline through compensation and or reduced expectations (Staudinger, Marsiske, and Baltes 1995; Baltes 1997). This connects well with the experience of older people who say, ‘Once you get something – you’ve got it’, referring to later life as a period in which injuries morph from acute events followed by recovery to chronic conditions with which one has to live. Resilience at 80 is thus likely to look different from resilience at 30.

Resilience and the New Testament Resilience as weight-bearing In early usage resilience referred to the capacity to bear heavy weights without breaking, thus emphasising efficiency and productivity. This appears to be behind the increasing popularity of the term in management discourse, including discourse on the training and deployment of Christian ministers, where burn-out is a perceived danger.3 However, the Bible seems to take a largely negative view of weight-bearing. It is associated with idolatry in Isaiah (Is. 46:1–4). In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus links it with social and religious oppression (Matt. 23:4), particularly with regard to the interpretation of the Law’s demands by the scribes and Pharisees (their ‘yoke’); in contrast he describes his own yoke as one that

Clinical applications of resilience 201 unburdens and liberates people (Matt. 11:28–30). The redeemed community that is the church lives out this easy yoke as each member shares in bearing the burdens of others (Gal. 6:2). It is this pattern of mutual service that distinguishes it, rather than its capacity to bear heavy loads. Resilience as resistance The term ‘resilience’ does not appear in English Bibles. In the New Revised Standard Version the nearest words are ‘endurance’ and ‘perseverance’, which respectively render the verbs hupomenō4 and kartereō. Hupomenō seems to refer to stability in the face of stress – so something like Lepore and Revenson’s ‘resistance’, a quality developed in the postbiblical Benedictine virtue of stabilitas. This does not necessarily imply rigidity, as it may involve a degree of elasticity and flexibility in order to be able to bend with the wind. Paul asserts that it is a quality that is produced through having to cope with stress and privation, conceiving it as an outcome of life stress that expresses strength of character. It is well summed up in his reflection on his developed ability to remain stable through the changing fortunes of life, where he crucially presents stress not as a cause of strengthening in itself but as providing the occasion for divine strengthening (see also 2 Cor. 12:9): I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Phil. 4:11b–13) Kartereō overlaps semantically with hupomenō but has a more active and dynamic flavour of sticking with a task over a period of time. Again, the quality of perseverance need not imply rigid action patterns that are unresponsive to context – perseverance tends to consist of periods of activity alternating with refractory periods of re-grouping and resourcing – but it does imply an unrelenting focus on the goal. On the whole, the New Testament sees suffering, adversity, and stress as bad in themselves but paradoxically as potentially good for the believer (e.g., Matt. 6:13). It holds this tension by framing such things as ‘trials’ (peirasmoi) which cleanse and strengthen the individual or community, while taking care not to attribute these to God, who permits rather than inflicts them (James 1:13).5 A favourite image is that of the refining fire which both tests the worth of metal and purifies it (e.g. 1 Peter 1:7). Here we have not so much a psychology but a theodicy. The first Christians, being largely drawn from the slave class in the Roman Empire, underwent much in the way of hardship and privation, and there were also

202  Joanna Collicutt sporadic persecutions. The concepts of endurance and perseverance were thus naturally foregrounded among the Christian virtues and were also granted a salvic status (2 Tim. 2:10), presented as instruments of a benevolent, purposeful, and powerful deity rather than the random cruelties of a meaningless life (Rom. 8:28, 35–37; 1 Cor. 10:13). In this context, there may seem to be little in the way of virtue in undergoing a beating one is going to get anyway but, having framed it as characterforming, one can decide to receive it with a certain attitude of dignified, uncomplaining submission (usually communicated by the verb hupopherō). One thus takes back a degree of control in a situation in which one is otherwise powerless. (There is a precise parallel here with the rationale for turning the other cheek and going the extra mile in Matt. 5:39–41.). Furthermore this habit of voluntary submission is both a sign and a building block of endurance. The NIV translation of 1 Peter 2:19 communicates this particularly clearly: For it is commendable if a man bears up (hupopherō) under the pain of unjust suffering because he is conscious of God . . . if you suffer for doing good and you endure it (hupomenō), this is commendable before God. Resilience as reconfiguration What about resilience as reconfiguration? People can survive stress by accommodating to it in maladaptive reconfigurations that are expressed as psychological, spiritual, or physical deformities. The clearest example of this in the New Testament is the woman who was unable to stand up straight because she had been ‘bound by Satan’ for 18 years (Luke 13:11–17). This is a form of resilience that results in diminishment. But reconfiguration can also lead to growth. This is not through simple strengthening or cleansing but instead involves a complex process of reorganisation. Resilience as positive reconfiguration is at the heart of the New Testament, evident in Jesus’ foundational parable of the mustard seed (Matt. 13:31–32 and parallels). The word that fits it best is metamorphoomai – to be transformed. Paul uses this word when he draws a distinction between negative and positive reconfiguration: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect (Rom. 12:2). So, the New Testament identifies two types of positive response to stress. The first is strengthening and refinement through steadfast resistance, referred to in terms of endurance and perseverance. The second is the development of

Clinical applications of resilience 203 greater sophistication and adaptability that can occur when deconstruction leads to reconfiguration, referred to in terms of transformation. This latter is well summed up in the breaking of the bread in the feeding of the 5,000 (Matt. 14:17–20 and parallels). Resilience as recovery Finally, the New Testament does have a concept that bears a rough relation to Lepore and Revenson’s recovery aspect of resilience. This is ‘restoration’ (apokatastasis), which refers to return to a former desired social, political, or health status, usually as the result of action by an external agent – an assisted bounce-back, as when Jesus restored a man’s withered hand (Matt. 5:13). The focus is on recovery as outcome rather than on details of the process. Table 15.1 summarises the relationships between these concepts.

A clinical case study: ‘beyond restoration to transformation’ This distinction between different forms of resilience is important not only in theological terms but also in its implications for clinical practice. My career as a clinical psychologist has largely been devoted to rehabilitation services. Rehabilitation – another word with the ‘re’ prefix – is in some ways a misleading term because it seems to refer to return: you become ill or suffer an injury, the acute medical or surgical services patch you up, and then you go through a period of rehabilitation that will return you to your previous level of fitness (assisted bounce-back). Table 15.1  Types of Resilience Type of resilience

New Testament counterpart

Description

Growth?

Resistance

Endurance Perseverance

Yes: growth through intensification and refinement

Reconfiguration (negative)

Binding or imprisonment

Reconfiguration (positive)

Transformation

Recovery

Restoration

Stability in the face of stress Doggedness in the face of obstacles Accommodating to stress by distortion or diminishment Accommodating to stress by reorganisation into a more sophisticated and adaptive form Return to an earlier desired state

No: survival at a cost Yes: growth through change

No: status ante

204  Joanna Collicutt Yet the reality is that rehabilitation is generally much less about the bounce-back that, according to the Berlin Ageing Study, is typical of mid-life development, and more about learning to live well with continuing limitations as in later life. This uncoupling of chronological age from developmental norms is particularly clear and distressing in the rehabilitation of young survivors of severe acquired brain injury who are often to be seen mobilising using a walking frame, sticks, or hand rails; wearing spectacles and hearing aids; and using notebooks to support their memory failures. My PhD research explored the emotional impact of such devastating changes, and some years later I reflected on the findings in a sermon on healing: I interviewed 100 survivors of injury to the brain or spinal cord. One of the phrases that came up repeatedly in the interviews was this: ‘I want to go home’. More often than not this phrase was accompanied by tears. Now, I had been quite familiar with patients in our unit saying they wanted to go home: indeed two jokers with a military background claimed secretly to be digging an escape tunnel under one of the plinths in the physiotherapy gym. We were supposed to be a patient-centred service so we responded to this sort of thing by writing rehabilitation objectives like ‘for Mr X to be discharged to his house, suitably altered to allow wheelchair access, with aids and equipment in place, and a full care package’. That’s what we thought our patients meant when they said ‘I want to go home’. So we were puzzled that they often seemed underwhelmed or even angry when we talked them through their treatment plans. Until I did my research, and really unpacked what my participants were communicating by ‘I want to go home’ we just hadn’t grasped that this had little to do with physical location, but was instead an existential statement. The patients understood their rehabilitation to be about recovery. The clinical team understood it to be about achieving the least negative reconfiguration possible and coming to terms with it. The mismatch between the aims and expectations of the clinical team and the hopes of the affected individuals were rarely made explicit, but instead spilled out in conflicts, clashes, and noncompliance with treatment programmes. Clinicians were frustrated that their patients were stuck in a nostalgic fantasy and could not ‘accept’ reality; patients felt that clinicians could not see who they really were (the pre-injury person) and thus did not acknowledge the depth of their losses. This is quite well expressed in one participant’s remark: ‘I get really irritated when, for instance, people say “well done” for putting on my socks – I’ve been doing it for 47 years’.

Clinical applications of resilience 205 Some commentators have described this dynamic as one of mutual hate (Gans 1983), but more fundamentally there was a sense of chronic disappointment, and on the surface dramatic flips between brittle optimism and tragic despair. There was clearly something amiss, but it was only when I began a programme of intensive biblical studies that I began to see that the problem was with our conception of hope. In my study of the Exilic literature6 of the Hebrew Bible I was astonished to find themes that closely paralleled the concerns of these patients.7 I encountered the ancient story of a people who had been displaced, and whose lives had essentially been deconstructed. They had lost the resources provided by their political and spiritual leaders, and their sense of location and identity had been obliterated with the destruction of the Temple and walls of Jerusalem. Their meaning-making system had been violated and their cultural memory interrupted. Again and again in these scriptures ‘Why?’ questions were raised, selfblame was entertained as an explanation, and concern for the future was voiced. Above all there was a strong sense of nostalgia, a longing to return home and to happier times when the nation was intact and flourishing. These sentiments centred on the idea that present suffering was a punishment for past sins, an experience of unmitigated misery, with a good outcome being conceived exclusively in terms of restoration of past glories. The problem for these people was that when return to their homeland finally happened, and rebuilding of Temple and city walls was achieved, everything was on a smaller scale, and the political autonomy of the community was severely limited (the equivalent of returning to an adapted home with a care package). Disappointment and disillusionment dominated: But many of the priests and Levites and heads of families, old people who had seen the first house on its foundations, wept with a loud voice when they saw this house. (Ezra 13:12) Full restoration had not been possible, and thoughts and desires turned towards a future saviour who would ‘restore Israel’ (Acts 1:6). Yet alongside this dominant nostalgic narrative were voices that framed suffering not as a time-limited punishment that ended in restoration (Is. 40:2), but as a potential means of transformation; of achieving greater intimacy with the divine, a deepened appreciation of life meaning, and an expanded notion of hope (Job 19:25–27; Is. 53:11). This understanding, as already discussed, is one that is carried forward much more vigorously in the New Testament, but it seemed to be conspicuously absent from the clinical setting described earlier in this section. So I crafted a conceptual paper that aimed to bring the categories that had so helpfully been elucidated by the study of this biblical literature

206  Joanna Collicutt together with the issues facing my patients. Its aim was to offer a vision for an approach to rehabilitation that adopted a third way between longing for recovery and accepting negative reconfiguration, and instead focused on positive reconfiguration. The paper ended with the words ‘a different kind of hope’ (McGrath 2004, 772). Along the way it engaged with Victor Frankl’s existential logotherapy, in which loss is seen not simply as something to be accepted on the one hand or fought against on the other, but as the context for a form of self-actualization: The actualization can be creative (behavioural), experiential or, in cases of extreme disability and helplessness, attitudinal. [Frankl] argues that suffering can enable a degree of actualization that would not otherwise be attained. Examples would be the making of ‘good endings’ to relationships or dying a ‘good death’. (McGrath 2004, 771) The paper was entitled ‘Beyond restoration to transformation: Positive outcomes in the rehabilitation of acquired brain injury’. Thus it used biblical terms to address a clinical issue. Surprisingly, in view of the heavy biblical content, it was accepted for publication in a mainstream rehabilitation journal. It marked the beginning of an incorporation of the concept of posttraumatic growth into neuro-rehabilitation theory and practice that has since steadily gained ground (see, for example, Kuenemund et al. 2016).

What is resilience for? The case study in the previous section is an example of interdisciplinary dialogue in which concepts from one field offer some purchase on a pressing problem in another field. The risk is that in the process the concepts become cut loose from the original context in which they were embedded and forfeit a large part of their original meaning. This is especially the case when that context is a faith tradition; for example, in this respect there are problematic aspects to the use of mindfulness and yoga in health care contexts (Kamradt 2017; Lomas 2017). It is therefore advisable to return to examine the New Testament context of resilience-like concepts more carefully. Here the focus is not primarily on the well-being of the individual but on the advance of the kingdom of God.8 There is no question of return to a former state (Heb. 1:15–16) because the present order is passing away to be replaced by a new heaven and earth (Rev. 21:1–2). The strengthening and transformation of believers that happens in response to suffering shows itself in the exhibition of moral virtue, usually presented in terms of a harvest (Matt. 3:8; Mark 4:3–8 and parallels; Phil. 1:11), itself a highly time-dependent concept. The whole process of undergoing suffering to a good end is a mark of being part of the new covenant community and, for Paul, of being ‘in Christ’ (Gal. 6:17; see also

Clinical applications of resilience 207 2 Tim. 2:11–12). Psychological and physical well-being may be by-products of this, but this is not the concern of the New Testament writers. Martyrdom, which literally means ‘to bear witness’, points to Christ. It is thus both visionary and prophetic. Before he died Stephen saw the heavens open to reveal the risen and ascended Christ, and he communicated this greater perspective to others (Acts 7:56). The believer’s attitude to death and suffering is a sign of what we might call resilience. It shows the body to be resilient to the loss of individual members, but it also points to a broader cosmic context within which suffering is to be interpreted – that of resurrection (Col. 3:1). Resurrection can be conceived as the ultimate bounceback, and is presented in this way in the ‘Philippians hymn’ (Phil. 2:6–11) with its pattern of the descent-to-exaltation of Christ pivoting – or indeed bouncing – on the ‘therefore’ of verse 9 (Collicutt 2018). This broader context shows itself psychologically as hope. While much of the New Testament teaching shares the contemporary Graeco-Roman idea that suffering is character-forming, it goes beyond it in offering an explanation based on the historic Christ-event that infuses the whole process with hope (elpis): [W]e also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. (Rom. 5:3–6) The placing of resilience in a broader context is not limited to Christianity. All faith traditions address the issue of the ultimate ends of resilience and are predicated on the idea that ‘something more’ is needed to make sense of it. The nature of this ‘something more’ is understood as involving ‘the numinous’ or holy (Otto 1958). This can be translated into the more familiar contemporary notion of spirituality via the concept of ‘the transcendent’ (Huguelet and Koenig 2009, 1), a linguistic move that in its turn enables a meeting between psychology and faith in the idea of self-transcendence. I have argued elsewhere (e.g., Collicutt 2011) that spirituality can be conceived as meaning-making through practising transcendence. Transcendence can itself be understood as something directional: transcending self-absorption by going beyond egocentric concerns and forming genuine relationships with others that give life a broader purpose; transcending mundane states of consciousness by entering into altered states of consciousness that may support epiphanic insights into meaning; and transcending the immediate situation by rising above it and engaging with a ‘higher’ or ‘ultimate’ perspective. Not all spirituality is religious, but in its religious forms this process of

208  Joanna Collicutt meaning-making through transcendence engages with things that are understood to be holy or sacred (Pargament 1997).

Implications for promoting resilience in clinical practice A Christian approach to resilience can bring insights to clinical practice that are common to most faith traditions, but it also offers its own quite distinctive if not unique perspective. Centred as it is on the traumatic violent death of its founder, the Christian tradition has specific wisdom to offer in articulating fitting responses to different adverse circumstances. As an instance of faith traditions and spiritualities more broadly it can exemplify those aspects of religion that can inform, enhance, and enrich existing clinical practice. Christian insights on negotiating adversity The careful and important distinction made by the New Testament between dealing with bad stuff that just inexplicably happens (Luke 13:1–4), and the intentional discipline of self-sacrificial action and martyrdom (Matt. 16:24– 25 and parallels), can speak into psychotherapeutic approaches to adversity. It makes clear first that suffering should generally be avoided; secondly, that if it can’t be avoided it can be engaged with in ways that lead to growth; and thirdly, that at times it is to be chosen in the interests of a greater good. With regard to the first point, there has been a longstanding tradition in psychological therapies that individuals need to face the reality of their traumas and losses and ‘work through them’ if they are successfully to adapt to them. This has more recently been challenged by researchers such as Shelley Taylor and George Bonanno, who have respectively shown that illusions amounting to denial can be psychologically advantageous, and that people can function well after the loss of intimates without engaging in massive amounts of emotional processing, lament, and grieving behaviours (see for example Taylor et al. 2003; Bonanno 2004). The received wisdom of pathological denial has therefore been subverted, and doing whatever gets you through threat and loss has been normalised. It does not have to hurt to do you good. Being wounded is not an automatic qualification to be a psychological or spiritual healer; quite the reverse (Allain-Chapman 2012). The New Testament and contemporary psychology are thus in agreement here: it is normal to be asked to be spared suffering and pathological to seek it out or inflict it on self or other for its own sake. Secondly, where unavoidable suffering is actively engaged with it can, under certain circumstances, be strengthening or transformative, resulting in a deepened spirituality and the emergence of wisdom (Wink and Dillon 2002; Linley 2003). While such suffering is not sought out, clinicians who embrace an underlying perspective of hope (a distinctive feature of Christianity) are in a position to recognise and validate posttraumatic growth

Clinical applications of resilience 209 rather than simply to dismiss reports of suffering-related benefits as fantasy or pathological denial (see Maercker and Zoellner 2004 for a full discussion of the complexities of this). Permission to hear and receive patients’ positive stories without judging them or experiencing guilt at ‘collusion with denial’ has been one of the liberating benefits of the turn to posttraumatic growth in health care (see, for example, Collicutt 2008). Finally, a path of suffering may be chosen intentionally. Disciplining the ego, transcending self-interest for a greater good to self or others, may involve accepting suffering. Here personal loss or hurt is the necessary price paid for maintaining or growing authenticity and meaning in life (Baumeister and Vohs 2007), a sentiment expressed in Jesus’ famous saying, ‘For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ (Mark 8:36 King James Version (KJV)). The wise individual is able to see the difference between these three paths and act accordingly. Guiding people through different approaches to adversity is a large part of the work of counsellors and spiritual directors. In this they may draw on resources from both psychology and the Christian faith, confident that they are largely consonant with each other. Religion as coping Religion and spirituality appear to be associated with more functional responses to trauma and adversity (Shaw, Joseph, and Linley 2005; Askay and Magyar-Russell 2009; Thombre, Sherman, and Simonton 2010). A popular way of making sense of this is to look at religion from an etic perspective as a coping strategy. Kenneth Pargament is the researcher most closely associated with this approach; as already noted, he defines religion as a ‘search for significance in ways related to the sacred’ (Pargament 1997, 32). Life events and crises can pose a threat not only to physical survival but also to meaning systems and the sense of personal and wider significance that is nested in them (Park and Folkman 1997). Almost by definition they force an awareness of a much bigger context within which life is located. This awareness can be disconcerting and in some cases traumatic. Religion is one way of dealing with this and, Pargament argues, it by nature comes to life in critical situations (op. cit., 196). It offers coping resources beyond the personal that include accessible social support (from both the faith community and divine or other supernatural figures such as angels); self-regulatory practices; narratives within which the individual’s story can be embedded; theodicies; rules for life; and rituals which integrate affect, action, and cognition. It can thus provide a psychologically compelling road map at times of disorientation. All of this can support religious forms of coping. Pargament draws a distinction between religious coping that conserves significance (incorporating elements of resistance and return) and religious

210  Joanna Collicutt coping that transforms significance (similar to reconfiguration or posttraumatic growth). He associates conservation with religious practices that bring people back to their original values and identities. Transformative coping on the other hand is seen in rites of passage that assist participants in liminal situations as they negotiate changed identity (e.g., as an adult, a spouse, a parent, a new member of a faith community) (Pargament 1996). But transformative coping may also be seen in private individual struggles to make sense of adversity and challenge. In such cases what can look like dysfunctional coping (for example, entertaining the belief that one has been abandoned by God) may be simply a stage on the way to a more positive outcome (Ano and Vasconcelles 2005, 476). This is an insight that came late in the psychological literature but which has been present in faith traditions for centuries; it is, for example, characteristic of the psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Brueggemann 2002). In treating religion as a form of coping, Pargament has succeeded in moving it into the sphere of clinical psychology. His model both conforms to and builds on Lazarus and Folkman’s classic model of stress and coping that has been so influential in mental and physical health care (Lazarus and Folkman 1984; Stanton, Revenson, and Tennen 2007). This offers a rationale for incorporating generic religious forms into existing therapies both as adjuncts to more conventional approaches and, where applicable, to connect with the cultural identity of patients (Coyle and Lochner 2011). In practice this might mean including a focus on wisdom in the form of verbal proverbs and principles or engagement with a real or imagined mentor (Staudinger and Baltes 2006); the embrace of narrative as a therapeutic genre (Crossley 2000); exploring the use of symbols to expresses and represent psychic processes (Thompson and Neimeyer 2014); acknowledging the need to attach to something or someone ‘greater’ that can emerge as a response to challenge (Janoff-Bulman 1992); exploring key religious themes such as journeying through lostness en route to meaning, the paradox of finding strength in weakness and gain through loss, or naming and inhabiting ambiguous twilight zones (Collicutt 2017). The importance of ritual and the sacred Rather than incorporating wisdom from faith traditions into conventional therapeutic approaches there are also a largely untapped resilience resources located within faith communities themselves. The importance of faith communities as offering social support and networks that can ameliorate loneliness and its consequent health impact is increasingly being acknowledged (see, for example, Rote, Hill, and Ellison 2013). However, the importance of community rituals in processing grief and trauma is less understood. People often congregate at sacred buildings following mass trauma; engaging in rituals such as lighting candles, placing flowers, writing down thoughts, formal lament, and storytelling is also common. This is clearly an

Clinical applications of resilience 211 embodied outworking of multiple processes, probably including remembering, attachment, and identity maintenance (Tedseschi and Callhoun 1995, 85; Cole 2004). In a wide-ranging review Stevan Hobfoll and colleagues note the failure of more clinical and ‘de-briefing’ approaches following mass trauma and instead argue for a community-focused response and identify a sense of safety, calming, a sense of self – and community efficacy, connectedness, and hope as the essential elements (Hobfoll et al. 2007). Religious centres are well placed to offer this. Following mass trauma or loss, faith communities could work more collaboratively and in a more psychologically informed way with secular agencies, which in their turn could be better informed about the nature of ritual, to the benefit of the whole community. Faith communities can also be more vigilant to issues of threat and loss as part of their everyday practice. They could develop resources that would help them to respond well to crisis and thus be more resilient. For example, I have been involved in the preparation of resources to support Christian congregations in talking about death and mortality (www.deathlife.org.uk), including the design of worship sessions for all ages (Collicutt et al. 2019). At a more personal and lower key level, there is evidence that people may intuitively craft meaning at key points in their life by perceiving or investing a sense of the sacred in a life event. This may involve formal religion, or some more idiosyncratic spiritual practices. Mahoney and colleagues describe this process as psychological ‘sanctification’ (Mahoney et al. 2003) which is focused on objects and relationships. The sanctification of relationships means that people may deepen a sense of the divine or a spiritual realm through participating in them. There is here a connection with the idea of transcendence; individuals are able to see beyond the ordinariness of family life and greater meaning is thus achieved. Meaning-making is a key factor in concepts of both coping and resilience, and clinicians might benefit from attending to the posited process of sanctification that may be a part of this for at least some people. The relationship of sanctification with resilience is a potentially fertile field for further exploration by clinicians and faith practitioners alike.

Conclusion In this chapter the concept of resilience has been the subject of critical interrogation and analysis aimed first at highlighting ways in which it may be used inappropriately or meaninglessly, and secondly to draw out and delineate the complex psychological processes to which it refers. A clinical case example has illustrated both the strengths and limits of translating resiliencelike notions based in biblical anthropology(ies) and soteriology(ies) into the language of therapy. This sort of translation is not a hopeless undertaking because both the biblical and clinical domains are inhabited by beings with a common humanity. But it needs to be done with caution, not only

212  Joanna Collicutt because of surface differences in local cultural context but because of more fundamental differences in cosmic world view within which these different cultures are rooted. If done well it offers the possibility of bringing together insights from ancient wisdom, contemporary faith experience, and clinical science in a dialectical integration that can enrich and benefit all interested parties.

Notes 1 This distinction and the problems associated with blurring it were first articulated in the field of psychology by MacCorquodale and Meehl (1948). 2 This use of the term ‘recovery’ is different from the politically controversial ‘Recovery model’ of mental health that has influenced public policy in some countries (Field and Reed 2016). 3 See, for example, selection criterion D5 of Church of England’s selection criteria for training for ordained ministry: ‘Candidates should display stamina, robustness and resilience. Evidence for this may be drawn from a candidate’s capacity to show signs of the kind of stamina, robustness and resilience which would be expected if he/she were to cope with the demands and pressures of the ministry for which he/she has been sponsored’ (Archbishops’ Council 2014, 7). 4 Or, less commonly, paramenō. 5 For a fuller discussion, see Collicutt (2019, 160–82). 6 These are texts dating from the time of the Babylonian invasion of Judah and the captivity of the population in 586 BC and the succeeding years in exile. They include Lamentations, some of the Psalms, parts of Isaiah, parts of Ezekiel and, many would argue, the works of the ‘Deuteronomic history’. 7 Works that drew out these connections for me included Sigmund Mowinckel’s ‘He that cometh’ and John Barton’s ‘Oracles of God’. 8 This distinction is mirrored in the empirical distinction between religious wellbeing and religious maturity (King 2001).

Bibliography Allain-Chapman, Justine. 2012. Resilient Pastors: The Role of Adversity in Healing and Growth. London: SPCK. Ano, Gene, and Erin Vasconcelles. 2005. ‘Religious Coping and Psychological Adaptation to Stress: A Meta-Analysis’. Journal of Clinical Psychology 61 (4): 1–20. Archbishops’ Council. 2014. Criteria for Selection for the Ordained Ministry in the Church of England. London: Ministry Division of the Archbishops’ Council. www.churchofengland.org/sites/default/files/2017-10/selection_criteria_for_ ordained_ministry.pdf. Askay, Shelley, and Gina Magyar-Russell. 2009. ‘Post-Traumatic Growth and Spirituality in Burn Recovery’. International Review of Psychiatry 21 (6): 570–79. Baltes, Paul. 1997. ‘On the Incomplete Architecture of Human Ontogeny: Selection, Optimization, and Compensation as Foundation of Developmental Theory’. American Psychologist 52 (4): 366–80. Barton, John. 1986. Oracles of God: Perceptions of Ancient Prophecy in Israel After the Exile. London: Darton, Longman & Todd. Baumeister, Roy, and Kathleen Vohs. 2007. ‘Self-Regulation, Ego Depletion, and Motivation’. Social & Personality Psychology Compass 1: 115–28.

Clinical applications of resilience 213 Bensimon, Moshe. 2012. ‘Elaboration on the Association Between Trauma, PTSD and Posttraumatic Growth: The Role of Trait Resilience’. Personality & Individual Differences 52 (7): 782–87. Bonanno, George. 2004. ‘Loss, Trauma and Human Resilience: Have We UnderEstimated the Human Capacity to Thrive After Extremely Adverse Events?’ American Psychologist 59 (1): 20–28. ———. 2012. ‘Uses and Abuses of the Resilience Construct: Loss, Trauma, and Health-Related Adversities’. Social Science & Medicine 74: 753–56. Brueggemann, Walter. 2002. Spirituality of the Psalms. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress. Campbell-Sills, Laura, Sharon Cohan, and Murray Stein. 2006. ‘Relationship of Resilience to Personality, Coping, and Psychiatric Symptoms in Young Adults’. Behaviour Research & Therapy 44 (4): 585–99. Cole, Jennifer. 2004. ‘Painful Memories: Ritual and the Transformation of Community Trauma’. Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry 28 (1): 87–105. Collicutt, Joanna. 2008. ‘Recovery from Brain Injury and Positive Rehabilitation Practice’. In Trauma, Recovery and Growth: Positive Psychological Perspectives on Posttraumatic Stress, edited by Stephen Joseph and P. Alex Linley, 259–74. New York: Wiley. ———. 2011. ‘Posttraumatic Growth and Spirituality After Brain Injury’. Brain Impairment 12 (2): 80–92. ———. 2015. The Psychology of Christian Character Formation. London: SCM. ———. 2017. Thinking of You: A Resource for the Spiritual Care of People with Dementia. Oxford: BRF. ———. 2018. ‘The Christ Hymn’. Visual Commentary on Scripture. https://thevcs. org/TheChristHymn. ———. 2019. When You Pray. 2nd ed. Oxford: BRF. Collicutt, Joanna, Lucy Moore, Martyn Payne, and Victoria Slater. 2019. Seriously Messy: Making Space for Families to Talk Together About Death and Life. Oxford: BRF. Coyle, Adrian, and Jenny Lochner. 2011. ‘Religion, Spirituality, and Therapeutic Practice’. The Psychologist 24 (4): 264–66. Crossley, Michele. 2000. Introducing Narrative Psychology: Self, Trauma and the Construction of Meaning. Buckingham: Open University Press. Field, B.I., and Reed, K. 2016. ‘The Rise and Fall of the Mental Health Recovery Model’. The International Journal of Psychosocial Rehabilitation 20 (2): 86–95. Fredrickson, Barbara, and Marcial Losada. 2005. ‘Positive Affect and the Complex Dynamics of Human Flourishing’. American Psychologist 60 (7): 678–86. Gans, Jerome. 1983. ‘Hate in the Rehabilitation Setting’. Archives of Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation 64: 176–79. Hobfoll, Stevan, Patricia Watson, Carl Bell et al. 2007. ‘Five Essential Elements of Immediate and Mid – Term Mass Trauma Intervention: Empirical Evidence’. Psychiatry 70 (4): 283–315. Huguelet, Philippe, and Harold Koenig. 2009. Religion and Spirituality in Psychiatry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hutnik, Nimmi. 2017. Becoming Resilient: Cognitive Behaviour Therapy to Transform your Life. London: Harper Element. Janoff-Bulman, Ronnie. 1992. Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma. New York: The Free Press.

214  Joanna Collicutt Kamradt, Jocelyn. 2017. ‘Integrating Yoga into Psychotherapy: The Ethics of Moving from the Mind to the Mat’. Complementary Therapies in Clinical Practice 27: 27–30. King, Laura. 2001. ‘The Hard Road to the Good Life: The Happy, Mature Person’. Journal of Humanistic Psychology 41 (1): 51–72. Kuenemund, Anna, Sarah Zwick, Winfried Rief, and Cornelia Exner. 2016. ‘(Re-) defining the Self – Enhanced Posttraumatic Growth and Event Centrality in Stroke Survivors: A Mixed-Method Approach and Control Comparison Study’. Journal of Health Psychology 21 (5): 679–89. Lazarus, Richard, and Susan Folkman. 1984. Stress, Appraisal, and Coping. New York: Springer. Lepore, Stephen, and Tracey Revenson. 2006. ‘Relationships Between Posttraumatic Growth and Resilience: Recovery, Resistance, and Reconfiguration’. In Handbook of Posttraumatic Growth: Research and Practice, edited by Robert Calhoun and Lawrence Tedeschi, 24–46. New York: Lawrence Erlbaum. Linley, P. Alex. 2003. ‘Positive Adaptation to Trauma: Wisdom as Both Process and Outcome’. Journal of Traumatic Stress 16 (6): 601–10. Lomas, Thomas. 2017. ‘Recontextualising Mindfulness: Theravada Buddhist Perspectives on the Ethical and Spiritual Dimensions of Awareness’. Psychology of Religion and Spirituality 9 (2): 209–19. MacCorquodale, Kenneth, and Paul Meehl. 1948. ‘On a Distinction Between Hypothetical Constructs and Intervening Variables’. Psychological Review 55: 95–107. Maercker, Andreas, and Tanja Zoellner. 2004. ‘The Janus Face of Self-Perceived Growth: Toward a Two-Component Model of Posttraumatic Growth’. Psychological Inquiry 15 (1): 41–48. Mahoney, Annette, Kenneth Pargament, Aaron Murray-Swank, and Nichole Murray-Swank. 2003. ‘Religion and the Sanctification of Family Relationships’. Review of Religious Research 44 (3): 220–36. McGrath, Joanna. 2004. ‘Beyond Restoration to Transformation: Positive Outcomes in the Rehabilitation of Acquired Brain Injury’. Clinical Rehabilitation 18: 767–75. Mowinckel, Sigmund. 1956. He that Cometh. Translated by G.W. Anderson. Oxford: Blackwell. Otto, Rudolf. 1958. The Idea of the Holy. Translated by J.W. Harvey. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pargament, Kenneth. 1996. ‘Religious Methods of Coping: Resources for the Conservation and Transformation of Significance’. In Religion and the Clinical Practice of Psychology, edited by Edward Shfranske, 215–34. Washington, DC: APA. ———. 1997. The Psychology of Religion and Coping. New York: Guilford Press. Park, Crystal, and Susan Folkman. 1997. ‘Meaning in the Context of Stress and Coping’. Review of Clinical Psychology 1 (2): 115–44. Richardson, Glenn. 2002. ‘The Metatheory of Resilience and Resiliency’. Journal of Clinical Psychology 58 (3): 307–21. Rote, Sunshine, Terence Hill, and Christopher Ellison. 2013. ‘Religious Attendance and Loneliness in Later Life’. The Gerontologist 53 (1): 39–50. Rutter, Michael. 1987. ‘Psychosocial Resilience and Protective Mechanisms’. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 57 (3): 316–31. Shaw, Annick, Stephen Joseph, and P. Alex Linley. 2005. ‘Religion, Spirituality, and Posttraumatic Growth: A Systematic Review’. Mental Health, Religion & Culture 8 (1): 1–11.

Clinical applications of resilience 215 Stanton, Annette, Tracey Revenson, and Howard Tennen. 2007. ‘Health Psychology: Psychological Adjustment to Chronic Disease’. Annual Review of Psychology 58: 565–92. Staudinger, Ursula, and Paul Baltes. 2006. ‘Interactive Minds: A Facilitative Setting for Wisdom-Related Performance?’ Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 71 (4): 746–62. Staudinger, Usula, Michael Marsiske, and Paul Baltes. 1995. ‘Resilience and Reserve Capacity in Later Adulthood: Potentials and Limits of Development across the Life Span’. In Developmental Psychopathology: Vol. 2. Risk, Disorder, and Adaptation, edited by Dante Cicchetti and Donald Cohen, 801–47. New York: Wiley. Taylor, Shelley, Jennifer Lerner, David Sherman, Rebecca Sage, and Nina McDowell. 2003. ‘Are Self-Enhancing Cognitions Associated with Healthy or Unhealthy Biological Profiles?’ Journal of Personality & Social Psychology 85 (4): 605–15. Tedeschi, Richard, and Laurence Calhoun. 1995. Trauma and Transformation: Growing in the Aftermath of Suffering. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Thombre, Avinash, Allen Sherman, and Stephanie Simonton. 2010. ‘Religious Coping and Posttraumatic Growth Among Family Caregivers of Cancer Patients in India’. Journal of Psychosocial Ontology 28 (2): 173–88. Thompson, Barbara, and Robert Neimeyer, eds. 2014. Grief and the Expressive Arts: Practices for Creating Meaning. New York: Routledge. Wallace, K.A., and C.S. Bergman. 2007. ‘Hardiness as a Dispositional Resource: Methods of Conceptualizing the Construct’. In Oxford Handbook of Methods in Positive Psychology, edited by Anthony Ong and Manfred van Dulman, 323–36. New York: Oxford University Press. Wink, Paul, and Michele Dillon. 2002. ‘Spiritual Development Across the Adult Life Course: Findings from a Longitudinal Study’. Journal of Adult Development 9 (1): 79–94. Zraly, Maggie, and Laetitia Nyirazinyoye. 2010. ‘Don’t Let the Suffering Make You Fade Away: An Ethnographic Study of Resilience Among Survivors of GenocideRape in Southern Rwanda’. Social Science & Medicine 70: 1656–64.

16 Pastoral reflections on resilience Page Brooks

For many Christian ministers a growing pastoral concern could be captured in the question: ‘How do we, as God’s church and community, support resilience and enhance care in our world?’ God created the world and said, ‘It is good’ (Gen. 1:31), yet we live in a world where traumatic events make it hard to be resilient. This essay proposes that God has given a unique calling and empowerment to the church to work towards the resilience and restoration of the world. I examine the influence of postmodernity on society and assess the question of why resilience is so hard in a postmodern world amidst the collapse of metanarratives.1 I also examine the themes of shalom and flourishing to show their connection with resilience practices. Further, I explain how God gives his promises as tools of resilience to individuals and communities of faith. Lastly, I show how churches and ministers can help rebuild individuals with resilience skills in a trauma-filled and resiliencestarved world.

Resilience and the postmodern world Why is resilience so hard, especially if God has promised to be with us and strengthen us through the trials of life? Part of the answer lies in assumptions implicit within current Western society given the influence of postmodernity and the other trends it has produced.2 Additionally, technology has increased the amount of visualisation of trauma that people experience. I define trauma as any experience that produces an intense emotional reaction, such as fear, stress, or pain, and often results in long-term physical, mental, and spiritual consequences. Postmodernity has allowed a confluence of various factors that make resilience from such trauma harder in contemporary society. Modernity taught that the world can be ordered, studied, understood, and even manipulated for the benefit of humanity. Modernity stressed the use of the mind and cognition over other sources to know how to interact with reality. René Descartes’ maxim, ‘I think therefore I am’, exhibited the central motif of modernity: One can know of his or her own existence because he or she is a thinking, rational being.

Pastoral reflections on resilience 217 Postmodernity brought about the collapse of the confidence in any overriding or ultimate story of humanity. Jean-Francois Lyotard (1993) defined postmodernity simply as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’. What did he mean? He explained that all human experience is so varied and disparate that no one can know or understand any theory that would explain everything. Everything ultimately becomes subjective based upon the culture, language, ethnicity, and other particularities of the person. Postmodernism was a response to the confidence in human achievement and technology that characterised the cultural ethos at the end of the 19th century. Even though World War I was regarded as the ‘war to end all wars’, World War II was fought a short 15 years later. Thus, while the end of World War II displayed the fall of modernity at a societal level, its philosophical demise began decades and even centuries before. One of the greatest traumas in human history came at the end of World War II. All of the confidence in human achievement through science and technology came crashing down as the atomic bomb detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The same science and technology that was supposed to help humanity drive to further achievement was used to obliterate two cities with hundreds of thousands dead and injured. No longer, it seemed, could contemporary society have confidence in human reason. Postmodernity started becoming apparent in various forms. People turned to many things other than reason to provide guidance in life: emotions, feelings, experience, new age religion, drugs, science, nature, etc. No longer did ultimate truth exist, nor could it be known. If one cannot know truth, then how can one even know God?3 Everything was and is considered suspect. All authority should be challenged, and any person or entity that exerted authority should be overthrown. Language always carried oppression because people in authority used language to advance their cause. Language itself broke down because if there is no ultimate grounding for meaning, words lose all ability to communicate the intentions of the author.4 Ultimately, metanarratives also collapsed. Metanarratives provide the meaning that people long for and need to make sense of reality. Religion, for example, provides a metanarrative, as it has over much of human history. With God being declared dead (to borrow Nietzsche’s phrase), no religious metanarrative can exist. If God is dead, how can pastors or clinicians use religion to provide hope and resilience to individuals?

Pastoral care in a trauma-filled world A recent trend in community work of various kinds, including pastoral and church work, is to be trauma-informed.5 Being trauma-informed means that a ministry or organisation understands and takes into account trauma’s effects on individuals, group, and entities in society. This trauma training then informs how these individuals interact with the people to whom they

218  Page Brooks minister. It informs how they view and interact with trauma-impacted individuals and how the trauma then affects those providing care.6 Part of being trauma-informed also involves understanding why trauma affects so many individuals today. Do we simply live in a more trauma-filled world? Has humanity become so much more evil that it is harder for individuals to become resilient? I believe that postmodernity, combined with advances in technology, create a ‘perfect storm’ that allows more individuals to be impacted by trauma in more places around the world. When such traumatic events occur, spiritual questions may arise. People may question where God is in the middle of such tragedies. Various mediums broadcast traumatic scenes literally around the world within seconds of the event for individuals to see. After such events as Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the tsunami in 2010, people around the world not only heard about but saw the devastation. Many television preachers were teaching that the events were part of God’s judgment on these cultures and locations. I personally had people in my church ask me if God truly hated the city of New Orleans or if he was condemning Muslims with the tsunami. Even today, as our church ministers in the city of New Orleans, we can trace many emotional issues with which families struggle back to the events of Hurricane Katrina. The trauma experienced by individuals spills over into the families. The trauma of collections of families then can be seen affecting various neighbourhoods, especially in the more economically challenged areas of the city. The collapse of the metanarrative causes individuals to have less tools and resources within their worldview with which to process the trauma and build resilience. Nietzsche made the observation in ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’ that God is dead because humans no longer have a need for a higher deity. But the ramifications of ‘killing God’ are that there is no ultimate author, so to speak, that guides the story of human history. It would also be true that there is no longer an Author that guides the story of individuals. For example, for many individuals, when they pray a hope rises within them that a power greater than themselves is working on details and outcomes that are beyond their ability to control. Individuals can gain hope that situations will turn out differently because of the work of that higher power. Yet hope that arises through prayer is cut off when no higher power, deity, or God is believed to exist. Additionally, the collapse of the Christian metanarrative is evidenced in a belief that humans are no more special than other animals and that we are merely products of the physical cosmos. Whatever may happen in life really doesn’t matter because humans will eventually go back to the dust of the earth from which they came. Harsh situations may occur in a person’s life, but that is just the natural flow of the cosmos of which the individual is just another animal. Yet with God once again providing narrative in a worldview, individuals can see themselves as having a higher purpose, and having a hope of some type of eternity after the trials of this terrestrial existence.

Pastoral reflections on resilience 219 Within Western society religion becomes but one of many competing metanarratives that may be used, though it is more likely in a postmodern worldview that a religious metanarrative will be ignored. All of this can create a ‘perfect storm’ in an individual’s life in which they are constantly bombarded by trauma yet often left with few resources for resilience. Because of these considerations, pastors and clinicians need to have their own season of being ‘trauma-informed’. What does it means to be traumainformed? First, there is a recognition that trauma does indeed exist because of the conditions and events of this world. Second, it means recognising that these traumatic conditions and events affect human behaviour; humans respond in various ways because of the traumatic events that have occurred throughout their life. Third, there is a recognition that not all populations of people are equipped or resourced to handle trauma in the same ways. The reasons for this may be varied, but it may revolve around under-resourced communities that have no access to mental health care, dysfunction passed down through successive generations, or simply a lack of training. Fourth, and perhaps the greatest step of being trauma-informed, is a commitment of the church or organisation to provide training to pastors and staff with techniques that can be used to help people from traumatic backgrounds. For example, a counselling staff may introduce counselling techniques that specifically address trauma. A church children’s program may train its workers on how to teach from a trauma-informed perspective. A pastor may conduct a special worship service of lament after a traumatic event in a local community or after a national tragedy. Our world is not necessarily more traumatic than in previous generations. In fact, the world has gone the longest period (since World War II) with no major wars or conflicts in recent human history. Instead, I believe that individuals have less resources with which to be resilient.

How resilience leads to shalom and flourishing Pastors and clinicians can help build resilience among individuals in a postmodern word by helping rebuild a Christian worldview in people that focuses upon the restoration of shalom and flourishing in everyday life. A worldview that sees God as the Author of the metanarrative (at both societal and individual levels) allows the individual to see how God is working in everyday life to form his or her story. This story revolves around God’s purpose to bring shalom and flourishing to the lives of individuals despite the trauma of the world. In his book Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be, Cornelius Plantinga (2010) provides an in-depth theological reflection on the biblical theme of shalom. Shalom, the Hebrew word often translated as ‘peace’ or ‘welfare’, has a wide variety of usage in the Old Testament. Plantinga begins by exploring how shalom was taken away in the Garden by the first sin of Adam and Eve. For Adam and Eve, shalom was present in that they had everything they

220  Page Brooks needed, were at peace with each other, and ultimately at peace with God. When shalom was taken away by sin, peace was broken in the relationships. Working with the theme of shalom can provide pastors and clinicians a significant aspect of the metanarrative by which to help individuals build resilience in a pastoral and clinical setting. Shalom is more than simply having the absence of war or violence. In a biblical sense, the term shalom is filled with implications for God’s relationship with humanity. Shalom means that we have wholeness or completeness as well. In the Old Testament, shalom is the result of submission to God and the prospering that comes because of that relationship (Porter 2008, 682). In the New Testament, shalom is communicated through the word peace (eirene), ultimately through the image of the death of Jesus Christ bringing peace to believers (Geddert 1992, 604). The connection between shalom or peace and resilience can be seen in the ability of resilience to help us return to a state of shalom. God did not originally intend for this world to be filled with trauma. Trauma entered the world because sin entered the world. Resilience can enable individuals to return to a state of shalom on a spiritual and emotional level, even if physical circumstances are quite difficult. Pastors and churches can be conduits of shalom for individuals and communities through their ministries. For example, when a church decides to be a trauma-informed church, they help individuals and their community live in shalom in very practical ways. Resilience gives us touches of shalom as we make our way through traumatic events and relationships. God, in Jesus Christ, helps restore individuals to a place of shalom. But not only does God want individuals to be in a status of shalom, he also wants individuals to flourish. The Sermon on the Mount was Jesus’ practical teaching on living a life of shalom in the here and now, as well as the eschaton. Jonathan Pennington, in his book The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing (2017), explains how the central theme of the Sermon is to live a life of flourishing, based upon shalom. He notes two key words coming from the Sermon on the Mount, macarios and teleios. The words are normally translated as ‘blessed’ and ‘perfect’ throughout the Sermon. Pennington explains that both terms carry a larger vision in mind: flourishing in shalom by living through the ‘in-breaking’ kingdom of God. The word ‘blessed’ is used in the Beatitudes and the word ‘whole’ is used in other parts of the Sermon. Together, these words show that God calls believers to live in a state of flourishing through living according to the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. The ‘in-breaking’ of the Kingdom of God brings flourishing in the lives of believers. Pennington rightly explains that believers do not enter a state of flourishing, but rather because they are believers, they are already in a state of flourishing even as they enter various situations given in the Beatitudes. But how do we live out this flourishing in the middle of the trauma and pain of life?7

Pastoral reflections on resilience 221 When Jesus was preaching the Sermon, he was most likely preaching to those who were in the lower, agrarian class of the Galilee region. Through the Sermon, he was teaching them that in their lower state, they still could experience the peace and flourishing of God. How was this possible? It was and is possible because Jesus teaches that peace and flourishing are not connected to the circumstances surrounding the individual or community, but rather because of their relationship to the coming Kingdom of God. We receive the peace and flourishing of God in the middle of trying circumstances when we choose the way of Jesus (Matt. 7:13–14) and follow the new kingdom ethic of the Sermon on the Mount. We normally read the Beatitudes as ‘the attitudes we should be’ or that once we reach a certain point of ‘blessedness’, then the blessings will follow. If we follow the ideas that Pennington and others8 give, the Sermon on the Mount is key to understanding resilience for believers. Believers do not simply enter a blessed state simply because they go through certain circumstances. Believers already live in flourishing and wholeness as they encounter various circumstances in life. They receive mercy not simply because they need it. They actually already have it. They already live in a life of divine comfort even before they enter mourning. They already have all the benefits of blessing from the kingdom of heaven before they enter a state of poverty of spirit. This is the new state of the in-breaking kingdom of God on earth for believers. Believers are given the tools to live the resilient, flourishing life because of the in-breaking kingdom of God. The metanarrative that God provides places individuals in relationship as his covenant children. They are not alone in the world but rather are part of God’s plan that gives purpose to these individuals. Because they are his covenant children, he is working in them and through them despite the sufferings of the world – sufferings from which they are not exempt. His promises are made true to them because of their covenant status. For example, God promises to work all circumstances for their good (Rom. 8:28). Jesus provides love and comfort for believers regardless of what they may go through (Rom. 8:35). Prayer provides spiritual and emotional hope to individuals as they go through difficult circumstances because God hears prayer (Matt. 7:7–12). God provides forgiveness and reconciliation of relationships through Jesus Christ (Col. 3:13). Believers live in the tension of God’s kingdom which is already here on earth while awaiting the fulfilment of God’s kingdom in the future. In this tension, they will still experience various trials, struggles, and hurts. Shalom can be attained even through difficult present circumstances while at the same time awaiting a future hope. The metanarrative of God includes the hope that one day he will restore all things to a state of shalom. Until then, God, through Jesus, gives believers all the spiritual blessings of heaven to experience a flourishing life on earth. The metanarrative and promises of God become tools of resilience for the individual to experience shalom and flourishing until God comes again even amidst suffering.

222  Page Brooks The task of pastors and clinicians is to help believers and others experience and live into the reality the state of flourishing and wholeness that God can bring in their lives. Pastors and clinicians help create environments where flourishing for resilience can happen. They also coach and disciple people on how to maximise the state of flourishing in their lives.

The church as a source of flourishing for resilience The world in which we live has created a situation where, in addition to personally experienced trauma, trauma is also delivered in various forms through social media every day. The postmodern predicament of society and the collapse of the metanarrative leaves the contemporary sojourner with few tools to live the flourishing life. God has given the church as the community of God to be a source of flourishing, wholeness, and ultimately resilience. The church can be the source of resilience by implementing many practical methods. Community as resilience Studies have shown that community is an important factor in resilience.9 While the world is more connected now than ever, individuals sometimes have a hard time finding community. The postmodern, technologically driven world of today promotes a false feeling of community. Social media gives individuals a sense that they are connected to others, but the communication done via social media is shallow at best. Real connections that derive from real relationships where people are in literal, physical, proximity to each other help promote resilience.10 Community in a local church should reflect shalom in all its interactions. Shalom is reflected now as both a present and future reality. Just as part of the concept of shalom reflects the eschaton to come, our present relationships should also reflect shalom. Religious communities can help foster resilience by promoting values of community throughout their ministries that are centred around the concepts of shalom. A ministry does not simply need to have small groups or Sunday school in order to foster community. Community can be promoted throughout every aspect of church ministry. The first aspect of community is authenticity. One of the positive contributions of postmodernity on society is that people do not want to feel like they are being misled, used, or manipulated. Authenticity promotes a feeling of ‘being real’ with one another. Many churches suffer from a sense of performing a show or a ritualistic liturgy every Sunday. In promoting a culture of authenticity, churches allow people to connect at a relational level beyond superficial layers. Being authentic may mean allowing people to ‘be real’ with their struggles and problems. Individuals may need to feel permission to share their struggles and traumatic events. Proper settings need to be created for such

Pastoral reflections on resilience 223 sharing to take place. But authenticity needs to be modelled from the pulpit, church leadership, and even from greeters so that down to small groups and individual conversations, authenticity is exercised. An important skill to teach a church and ministry is listening. Listening is important in building a culture that supports resilience because people need space to tell their stories. In our hectic, busy world, people have lost the art of slowing down to listen. The Old Testament is filled with stories of people who listen, such as the friends of Job. While they might not have offered the best advice, they did at least listen to Job as he talked about his anguish. Often times, listening also will lead us into lament. As we lament, we empathise with a person given their struggles and trauma. I learned the lesson of listening early in my ministry. I was pastoring my first church and had a counselling appointment where my wife was present. My wife is a counsellor and therapist, and so her expertise is valuable in pastoral ministry. The parishioner came to my office and told us of his problems. He spent about fifteen minutes explaining his problems. I then interrupted quickly and proceeded to offer solution after solution to his problems. We concluded with prayer and I sent him on his way. After he walked out the door, I turned to my wife who stared at me and said, ‘While you may have given him solutions, you really did not help him that much. You need to learn to listen. The majority of counselling is simply being a good listener!’ I quickly learned my lesson early on in my pastoral ministry. Many churches, likewise, need to learn the same skill. We need to slow down and learn to listen, and even lament, when necessary. Ultimately, creating community that helps support resilience is about creating space. It is a space where people can be real and authentic about their trauma, issues, problems, and burdens. It is a space where listening and care take place. A congregation does not have to be trained in counselling or even trauma care to provide such a space. Instead it is supernaturally created when the Spirit of God is present among his people and koinonia happens as people fellowship with one another. Preaching as resilience Sermons11 can be a powerful tool for pastors and churches when creating a culture of resilience. Whether they are in the form of a full-length sermon, a shorter homily on a lectionary passage, or a devotional, pastors can use the riches of the Word to communicate resilience. One of the reasons sermons can be powerful is not only the inherent spiritual power of the Word, but also because sermons are tools that aid in shaping metanarratives and worldviews. Parishioners come to church to hear the Word preached and, naturally, they are curious to what the preacher has to say. The preacher can encourage, challenge, or convict through words. Ultimately, from a resilience perspective, the preacher needs to communicate how the metanarrative that God offers is an invitation for the individual to

224  Page Brooks connect and shape their personal narrative with God’s metanarrative. When the metanarrative is shaped, then the individual worldview of the person is changed. When the worldview is changed, the person will be equipped to address challenges and trauma in life that require resilience. The sermon is the one time a week that the pastor can communicate directly to the congregation to apply the Gospel. In the words of one of my former preaching professors, the sermon is also the one time a week that a preacher can do ‘group counselling’. With the ‘group counselling’ idea, the pastor can view the sermon or homily as an opportunity to preach resilience skills. The sermon becomes the primary method to help the congregation rebuild the lost metanarrative of God’s story in their lives. Themes of shalom and flourishing should permeate sermons to show listeners how the metanarrative of God is reestablished through the Gospel. The listeners are taught how, through the traumas of life, God provides strength, hope, and coping mechanisms that are based upon shalom and flourishing. The Bible is replete with stories that can be used to teach resilience in a variety of situations: Joseph in Egypt overcame situations that were meant for evil but that God meant for good (Gen. 51); the book of Job and how we handle grief and evil; the book of Psalms has a plethora of chapters on joy, victory, defeat, depression, sadness, grief, sin, and anger; the book of Lamentations provides reflections on grief; the book of Ecclesiastes provides meditations on the seasons of life; the book of John teaches how Jesus has victory over evil by Jesus being the light in the darkness; Peter’s sermon in Acts 2 teaches how the death of Jesus was seen as a dark event but God worked it in his plan for good; Philippians 2 teaches about having the mind of Christ for living; and Revelation teaches that in the end, God wins over the forces of evil. As can be observed, the metanarrative of the Bible is that God is overcoming trauma, which is caused by evil and sin, as he restores and reconciles creation to shalom. Using the themes of shalom and flourishing, pastors can relate almost any passage of scripture to resilience. For example, Philippians 3:16 teaches that Paul views the sufferings of the present world as a way of knowing the sufferings of Christ as he looks towards the future resurrection. Paul gladly views as ‘dung’ or ‘refuse’ any worldly achievements when comparing the knowledge of Christ gained through the sufferings. Because Christ overcame suffering through the resurrection, Paul was assured that his suffering was not in vain. God, through the metanarrative of the Gospel, is seeking to restore humanity to a place of peace in the midst of a traumafilled life. Liturgy as resilience Liturgy in a worshiping community may be a way of inculcating resilience to individuals and groups. While liturgy may vary among denominations

Pastoral reflections on resilience 225 and religious backgrounds, liturgy can have a variety of meanings. While the Latin root word originally meant ‘the work of the people’, the word has now come to mean simply the flow of a worship service. The worship may be structured with the rubrics of a formal liturgy, or it may be something that has developed over time simply because of tradition in a local church. One can say that each individual also has their own liturgy in their personal prayer life because of habits of prayer and devotion. Whether the liturgy is high church from a Roman Catholic tradition or low church from a Pentecostal tradition, liturgy can be a tool of resilience when used appropriately.12 The following observations can be applied to a structured church liturgy or an informal, individual routine. Liturgy in a church service and in the life of the individual can help promote resilience in several ways. First, the simple routine of having the regular portions of the worship together can provide comfort for those who have experienced trauma in their life. For example, when I deployed as a chaplain to Iraq, there were many situations that caused trauma for me. The other chaplain I served with was an Episcopal priest, and he invited me to participate with him in the services. The regular prayers, scripture readings, and order of service provided a regular comfort for me that I did not find in my usually hectic and the trauma-filled days. I believe it was the regularity and the structure of the liturgy that helped me to manage the very stressful events and heavy counselling that occurred during deployment. Second, the liturgy can provide for regular portions of worship that are scripted when a person, especially one who has experienced trauma, sometimes does not know what to speak or say before their Creator. The prayers can be said and prayed in a way that the individual makes them his or her own. Whether it is the written prayers, scheduled scripture readings, or the other parts of worship, such things can provide a source of speech and activity when the traumatised person may not know what to say or do. Third, liturgy is able to bring people together to worship as a community. When songs and prayers are done corporately, rather than individually, an individual can have a sense of togetherness. The community formed around worship provides for resilience as the person is regularly reminded that they are not alone. They have a worshiping community around them that offers prayer, worship, and scripture reading each week. Fourth, liturgical images may also provide tools of resilience. Just as liturgical prayers may offer a form of audible ‘grounding’ for a person, so images may also provide a grounding technique for a person. For example, during my deployment I had a picture of Jesus on the cross right next to my bed. Every evening as I would lay down to rest, the image provided a grounding for me despite what I had seen during the day. Liturgical images in a worship service may be a stained glass, a crucifix, the preparation of the Lord’s Supper, a prayer altar, or other objects. When coupled with the prayers or worship of the church community, images can provide powerful moments of spiritual grounding for people.

226  Page Brooks Liturgy in the life of an individual can also help one become resilient. Liturgical resources offer a structure of prayer and silence that can be helpful and formative in the spiritual life of an individual. Again, often times a person may not know what to pray or how to pray. Liturgy can offer resources to the individual for content of those prayers. Liturgical structure also provides a regularity of prayer during the day. The daily offices (morning, noon, and evening) offer a daily routine for a person to pause, pray, be silent, and refocus one’s day. Even if a formal liturgy is not used, the rhythm of a daily practice of prayer and devotionals offers the same type of benefits. Let me also offer other suggestions about the use of liturgy. Whatever tradition your church may come from, liturgy should always be done with authenticity and with Spirit empowerment. I have been in high church and low church forms of worship. Both can promote a sense of boredom and routine in that people simply go through the motions. To promote resilience, every aspect of worship should be done with life and authenticity. It is only when those elements are present at that our worship, even the regularity of it, can promote resilience.

Creating a culture of resilience The culture of a community of believers is shaped by the underlying Godgiven vision and values. A church may provide opportunities of resilience, even above and beyond the aforementioned ways. Building a culture of resilience will help fill in the gaps. For example, the help a person might need may go beyond simply hearing a sermon or saying liturgical prayers. The person might simply need a safe space in which to be honest and talk. Creating a culture of resilience helps to make a safe space and environment for people. Churches can promote values that create safe, helping spaces. For example, the value that the church is a ‘place of no shame’ will help people be more honest with their emotions and struggles. In our church, we have created a space where we do not shun people for asking for help. Whatever they may be struggling with, we encourage people to be honest about their situations instead of shaming them for even bringing up the subject. Flowing from the value of no shame is that a church needs to be a safe space to find help. The church needs to be a place where people may simply ask about finding help, and then also be directed to practical resources such as counselling centres, trauma care, or support groups. Again, no one is shamed for asking. In fact, the courage to ask for help is celebrated as a virtue as well. Many organisations today are becoming trauma-informed, and churches should as well. The organisations that are pursuing such training are normally hospitals, schools, nursing homes, and other places where one sees trauma. However, churches should be places where being trauma-informed helps provide care and discipleship to people from all backgrounds. Being trauma-informed does not necessarily mean that all the staff must be ready to operate in an emergency environment or carry various certifications.

Pastoral reflections on resilience 227 Rather, being trauma-informed helps staff and church members interact with those from traumatic backgrounds with empathy and a caring spirit. Above all, churches should have a value for creating and integrating opportunities for building resilience. The value must be shown in their mission, staffing, programs, and Bible studies. For example, retreat weekends can offer an opportunity to study resilience skills along with biblical concepts for living. The topic of resilience need not be studied alone. Rather resilience skills are becoming a necessity at almost every level of church ministry and programming. God has uniquely gifted the church, its ministers, people, and ministries to be a source of resilience for people living in the world today, indeed, a postmodern world. God originally intended for the world to be in a state of peace and flourishing, not trauma. The church can help return individuals and communities to such a state of flourishing and prosperity by being thoroughly equipped for the task.

Notes 1 In the past many metanarratives were provided by religious sources, such as what could be considered the divine metanarrative within the Christian tradition. 2 See (Grenz 1996). 3 See Habermas (2002). Habermas explains the concept of legitimation. If one cannot know God, who is the universal knower, then it is impossible to know truth from falsehood. Ultimately, knowledge collapses under its own weight. 4 For an excellent treatment of postmodernity, see Erickson (2001). 5 See Benner and Garcia (2019) and Knight (2019). 6 For instance, as an example of how understanding trauma affects how one might care for adopted children, see Cross and Purvis (2007). 7 See the helpful discussion in Pennington (2017, 41ff). 8 Scot McKnight also suggests similar ideas in his work Sermon on the Mount (2013). 9 See Fernando and Hebert (2011) and Roysircar (2008). 10 See Root (2017) and Yust (2014). 11 The terms ‘sermons’ and ‘homilies’ are used interchangeably in this essay. 12 See (Blevins 2019). Blevins provides insights into how and why liturgical worship meets many ‘felt needs’ of millennials and provides a mystical connection in worship to God. His ideas can provide useful connections for pastors concerning worship.

Bibliography Benner, Gregory J., and Joshua J. Garcia. 2019. ‘Comprehensive TraumaInformed Care for the Whole Community: The Whole Child Initiative Model’. Educational Considerations 44 (2): 1–12. Blevins, Winfield. 2019. Ever Ancient, Ever New: The Allure of Liturgy for a New Generation. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Cross, David, and Karen Purvis. 2007. The Connected Child. New York: McGraw-Hill. Eisenbeis, Walter. 1966. ‘The Meaning of the Root ‫ שלם‬in the Old Testament’. PhD diss., University of Chicago.

228  Page Brooks Erickson, Millard. 2001. Truth or Consequences: The Promise and Peril of Postmodernity. Downers Grove: IVP Academic. Fee, Gordon D. 1987. The First Epistle to the Corinthians. The New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Feinberg, Charles L. 2009. ‘Peace’. In Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, edited by Walter A. Elwell. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Fernando, Delini, and Barbara B. Hebert. 2011. ‘Resilience and Recovery: Lessons from the Asian Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina’. Journal of Multicultural Counseling and Development 39 (1) (January): 2–13. Foerster, Werner. 1964. ‘εἰρήνη in the NT’. In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. Vol. 2., edited by Gerhard Kittel. Translated by G.W. Bromiley. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Geddert, T.J. 1992. ‘Peace’. In Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, edited by Joel B. Green, Scot McKnight, and I. Howard Marshall. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Grenz, Stanley J. 1996. A Primer on Postmodernism. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Habermas, Jürgen. 2002. Religion and Rationality: Essays on Reason, God, and Modernity. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Knight, Carolyn. 2019. ‘Trauma Informed Practice and Care: Implications for Field Implementation’. Clinical Social Work Journal 47 (1): 79–89. Lyotard, Jean-Francois. 1993. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Translated by Geoff Bennington and Brian Massumi. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. McKnight, Scot. 2013. Sermon on the Mount. Story of God Commentary. Vol. 21. Grand Rapids: Zondervan. Pennington, Jonathan. 2017. The Sermon on the Mount and Human Flourishing. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic. Plantinga, Cornelius. 2010. Not the Way It’s Supposed to Be: A Breviary of Sin. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans. Porter, Stanley. 2008. ‘Peace’. In New Testament Dictionary of Biblical Theology, edited by T. Alexander and Brian Rosner. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press. Root, Andrew. 2017. ‘The Happiness Effect: How Social Media Is Driving a Generation to Appear Perfect at Any Cost’. Christianity Today 61 (2 March): 57–59. Roysircar, Gargi. 2008. Building Community Resilience in Mississippi: Self-care for Disaster Response Workers and Care-givers. Keene, NH: Antioch University, New England Multi-cultural Center for Research and Practice. von Rad, Gerhard. 2001. Old Testament Theology. Vol. 1. Translated by D.M.G. Stalker. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press. Yust, Karen-Marie. 2014. ‘Digital Power: Exploring the Effects of Social Media on Children’s Spirituality’. International Journal of Children’s Spirituality 19 (2) (May): 133–43.

17 Concluding reflections Transforming resilience Christopher C.H. Cook and Nathan H. White

As we draw this book to a conclusion, we might reasonably ask, what new visions of resilience have we glimpsed? Ultimately, it is up the reader to judge whether or not the ambitions that we set out in the Introduction have been achieved. We hope that you will judge that they have, at least in part, but we do not wish to presume this. We find ourselves wondering, what ‘added value’, or new insights, have the biblical and theological explorations offered by contributors to this volume brought to our understanding of the nature of resilience? Returning to the three components of resilience identified by Windle (as outlined in the Introduction), we think that our contributors have brought some genuinely new perspectives, and it may be helpful to begin by reflecting on these in turn. We shall then return to the nature of resilience itself. Can we imagine a transformed, and transforming, vision of the nature of resilience?

Risk and adversity Christian scripture and theology are intimately concerned with experiences of risk and adversity. The narrative texts within scripture offer countless examples of this, but so also do the Psalms and the Pauline epistles. In the present volume, Noel Forlini Burt explores the risks and adversities associated with wilderness experiences, as exemplified in Deuteronomy. Rebecca Poe Hays explores the emotional landscape of disorientation presented by the Psalmist. Jonathan D. Bentall and David Janzen each consider a postwar context of the psychological sequelae of trauma and exile. Andrew Byers explores the adversity of the world as construed by the Johannine literature of the New Testament; a world of evil powers and malevolent forces which are hostile to Jesus and his followers. Steven J. Kraftchick finds similar hostility of the world towards followers of Jesus as exemplified in the life and writings of Paul of Tarsus. Katherine M. Hockey considers the low socioeconomic status, intimidation, and maltreatment experienced by the implied readership of the first epistle of Peter. These very different biblical perspectives all resonate with contemporary concerns and each demonstrates its

230  Christopher C.H. Cook and Nathan H. White own distinctive, creative, and informative way of conceiving and interpreting the nature of adversity. Taking a more biographical focus, no less than three contributors consider examples contextualised by the persecution and suffering imposed by the Nazis in Germany during the Second World War. Peter Tyler addresses the trials and writings of Edith Stein, a Carmelite nun of Jewish descent, interred in appalling conditions and eventually murdered by the Nazis; Jennifer Moberly considers the dissidence and execution of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor; and Adam J. Powell addresses the combat and prisoner-of-war experiences of Jürgen Moltmann, later to become a distinguished systematic theologian. The similarities and contrasts between these accounts remind us that a single historical context can bring diverse and enriching theological perspectives, as well as varied and creative vocational forms of resilience in the lives of those caught up in them. Bringing respective clinical and pastoral perspectives, Joanna Collicutt considers a case study of rehabilitation following brain injury, and Page Brooks addresses the diverse challenges of pastoral care in a world impoverished of metanarratives. Clinicians and clergy often have very contrasting stories to tell of resilience in the lives of the people for whom they care. At risk of stating the obvious, it is not the same thing to care for someone recovering from traumatic brain injury in the health service as it is to preach to a Christian congregation – with all its troubles and cares – on a Sunday morning. Yet both scenarios are concerned, in their own different ways, with the processes of meaning-making and storytelling that facilitate resilience and human flourishing. We probably did not need this book in order to observe that risk and adversity take diverse forms. However, the varied and contrasting pictures painted here do show that the Christian tradition offers particular ways of construing and contextualising them. Narrative, now recognised as a valuable clinical tool (Cook et al. 2016; Greenhalgh and Hurwitz 1998), features prominently and so does metanarrative. Where resilience research has acknowledged the importance of spirituality and religion as coping resources (e.g., Southwick and Charney 2018, 110–35) it has not always clearly identified the ways in which these particular aids to constructing a meaningful story of adversity are especially helpful and significant. Whilst it is true that narrative is now being appreciated anew in a variety of disciplinary and professional contexts, the import of the vast scope of chronology encompassed within theological narrative is not often appreciated. It incorporates believers into a story that began millennia before they were born, and that stretches forward – literally – to the end of time and beyond (see, for example, Kraftchick in this volume). Few, if any, non-religious narratives are able to do this. Landscape is also deeply important. In Deuteronomy, the wilderness is literal in the narrative, but the metaphor has become more deeply and widely significant for Christian spirituality (Louth 1997). In the Psalms, the

Concluding reflections 231 landscape is one of an emotional wilderness, and in the Johannine and Pauline literature it is a spiritually hostile one. In 1 Peter, the landscape is one of social deprivation and powerlessness. The (literal) post-war landscape of Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Nazi Germany similarly has great relevance to contemporary concerns about war, terror, forced migration, and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Utilising these religious resources, Christians are enabled to orientate themselves to suffering, and to locate themselves within a spiritual tradition that is rich in examples of how to find meaning and faith through that suffering. Amidst the stories that are told and the landscapes that are portrayed, it becomes clear that risk and adversity are ever present in this world, and that the challenges that we face (except perhaps the loss of metanarratives in postmodernity) are not new. As Kraftchick writes, ‘afflictions are not the exception, but the norm’. Moreover, even if we are fortunate enough to avoid many of these challenges, we must still sometimes choose to endure them – as Paul, Stein, and Bonhoeffer did – if we are to remain faithful. The risks over which we have to make painful inner choices – as in possible apostasy or loss of integrity or faith – are potentially greater than those that are imposed by the outer world. As Collicutt makes clear, ‘suffering should generally be avoided’, and if it cannot be then it should be ‘engaged with in ways that lead to growth’, but sometimes ‘it is to be chosen in the interests of a greater good’.

Coping resources Our contributors offer us a similar surplus of riches when it comes to the resources that have enabled Jews and Christians to cope with risk and adversity. Unsurprisingly, God features prominently on this list! Forlini Burt proposes three hallmarks of resilience – ‘the courage to engage God honestly, the choice to fold wilderness experiences into larger narratives, and the capacity to share those experiences with others’, none of which, she believes, can happen without God. Bentall sees resilient adaptation as coming about through ‘repentance and trust in YHWH’, the potential resilience of God’s people depending not upon their own internal resources, but rather upon ‘their posture towards and reliance upon YHWH’. Byers recognises the importance of honesty (with God), a sense of belonging to God’s family, the presence of the Holy Spirit, and the example of Jesus. Kraftchick and Hockey both talk about the importance of hoping in the promises of God and maintaining faith in God. Similarly, Carl L. Beckwith concludes that Christians ‘find resilience amidst the difficulties of life by trusting the certain promises of God given to them in Word and sacrament’. Craig Steven Titus distinguishes between everyday, acquired resilience and transcendent resilience, which is the gracious gift of God. Obviously, we would not wish to quarrel with any of these theologically rich accounts of resilience. However, we wonder whether the contributors

232  Christopher C.H. Cook and Nathan H. White to our present volume have grappled sufficiently with the obvious contradiction that some atheists are very resilient and some Christians are not. We find scope for further explorations of this question in Tyler’s work on the Carmelites who, though faithful Christians, take very seriously their experiences of the absence of God. Interestingly, Ken Pargament’s research seems to suggest that spiritual struggles may be associated with more psychopathology, but also that avoidance of such struggles can exacerbate potential problems (Dworsky et al. 2016; McConnell et al. 2006). As Collicutt suggests in this volume, it may sometimes be important to see such struggles as a necessary staging post on the route to a good outcome. Kraftchick and Titus both emphasise the importance of virtue as a coping resource. Of course, virtue is not to be pursued in some instrumentalised fashion simply for the sake of acquiring resilience. Virtue rather furnishes a way of life that often proves to be resilient, but, even if it did not, should be pursued ‘for God’s sake’. For Paul (Kraftchick) resilience is more a ‘manner of life’ than a ‘capacity to be summoned when life presents challenges’; it is concerned with a holiness of life that sees all things ‘as from and for God’. There is a challenge here which we do not think the present volume has fully explored. If adversity is amongst the things that are ‘from and for God’, then is God the author of adversity? Paul Moser (2013, 3) talks about the ‘severity’ of God, and the ‘rigorous difficulty, discomfort, anxiety, stress or insecurity’ that this will present for human life. Severity, in this sense, does not entail evil, but Moser finds sense in the severity of God, insofar as it is encouraging of living life well. This approach is not unproblematic, but Moser emphasises the offer of grace and salvation that come along with this severity, and the implications for living life in cooperation with God. Drawing on the scientific literature, Collicutt draws attention to the empirical research evidence that suggests that spirituality and religion provide effective coping resources in the face of trauma and adversity. These include social support, ways of life, rituals and narratives which assist in integration, meaning–making, and orientation. Based upon the work of Pargament, Collicutt distinguishes between religious coping that is conservative (offering resistance and restoration) and that which is transformative (posttraumatic reconfiguration and growth). Collicutt’s account, offered primarily in clinical and psychological terms, provides an interesting comparison and contrast to other chapters that similarly argue in favour of a spiritual/ Christian way of life, but do so from theological (rather than scientific) premises. Taking a pastoral perspective, Brooks draws attention to community, preaching, and liturgy as resilience-conferring resources. Are these the same resources as those affirmed by Collicutt, but simply presented in the language of the church, rather than the language of science? It is significant that while spirituality/religion are identified within the social sciences as being coping resources, they are only one option on offer, alongside others. (See, for example, Southwick and Charney [2018, 15–16] where they are identified as just one of ten coping mechanisms.)

Concluding reflections 233 In a somewhat unique chapter, Carol Harrison utilises early Christian theological resources to draw attention to the value of singing (especially of the Psalms) as a resource for resilience. She sees this as important, however, for similar reasons to those alluded to by other contributors in terms of the broader aims of Christian life. Singing, according to Harrison, ‘is no more and no less than an enactment of what we are created to be and of how we are created to be: unified, harmonious, ordered’. Several authors draw attention to the value of the examples of resilience offered to others as models for imitation – Paul invites his churches to imitate him, Bonhoeffer seeks to provide a role model for his former students. Forlini Burt draws attention to wilderness experiences that may be ‘used to pastor others’. Poe Hays concludes that in the mutual sharing of our stories of adversity we help one another. Role models have previously been identified as important resources for resilience (Southwick and Charney 2018, 158–74), raising the interesting question as to whether these particular (biblical and theological) role models differ from those studied in scientific research? We have suggested that narrative is a part of the way in which we construe risk and adversity, but it is also an important coping resource. Poe Hays suggests that resilience is dependent upon the capacity to tell our stories. However, narrative is not an unproblematic coping resource. What happens if we cannot construct a positive story? Janzen draws attention to the rejection of narrative in severe trauma, and the human capacity to cling to unbelievable narratives rather than to speak the ‘not-stories’ that threaten re-traumatisation.

A positive outcome We have seen a variety of possible positive outcomes to which resilience may lead. Some are this-worldly, and others are placed in eschatological context. For Forlini Burt, the wilderness teaches us about our vulnerability, and thereby enables us to help others in theirs. Collicutt points out that, under certain circumstances at least, suffering can be strengthening or transformative, leading to wisdom and a deeper spirituality. In contrast, Hockey suggests that the positive outcomes that are to be desired, at least for the author of 1 Peter, are ‘salvation, glory and honour’. Similarly, in Moberly’s account of Bonhoeffer, ‘Martyrdom, while not sought, is to be preferred to earthly survival at the cost of disowning Christ. Overcoming adversity and achieving a positive outcome may only be realised, recognised, or vindicated at the eschaton, when there is a new heaven and a new earth’. This tension between present reality and future destiny is perhaps best reconciled within the vision of hope offered by Moltmann. Powell finds in Moltmann ‘the possibility of a sort of restless resilience wherein the promise of a better future intimates limitless potential for the present’. On this basis, resilience may remain ‘restlessly discontent’ with present circumstances, and

234  Christopher C.H. Cook and Nathan H. White find a place of well-being which is not so much an ‘absence of malfunctions’ as ‘the strength to live with them’. Resilience lives in hope of a better future beyond the present world, of resurrection and the kingdom of God, but it is not careless of the realities of the present. Tyler, drawing on the Carmelite spirituality of the life and writings of Edith Stein, finds the most internally paradoxical conclusion in relation to outcomes. A positive outcome may not look very positive at all. Drawing on Stein’s The Science of the Cross, he suggests that ‘public humiliation and crucifixion, might indeed – in fact, must, from a Christian perspective – be the instantiation of something that is completely and ultimately positive’. For Tyler/Stein, and indeed one may propose for most Carmelites, not least John of the Cross and Teresa of Avila, the extremes of adversity become ‘the unique locus for God’s action in the world and in the psyche’. If God’s action in human lives is conceived of as the ultimately positive outcome, adversity and resilience look very different. This is partly about the present moment (encountering God in the midst of adversity) and partly about future hope (encountering God in resurrection). Indeed, one’s viewpoint regarding the final telos of human life may have a significant impact on how one lives in this world. This sort of transforming ‘vision’ may be what Paul had in mind when he exhorted his readers that ‘I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed in us’ (Rom. 8:18 NRSV).

Visions of resilience Resilience is not easy to define, and there is general agreement that a multidisciplinary approach is needed (Southwick et al. 2014), yet this currently seems to give very little place in practice to theology or religious studies. The essays included within this volume show that, at least within the JudeoChristian tradition, there are rich resources, spanning millennia, which throw light upon the various ways in which human beings have sought to cope with risk and adversity in the context of faith. If nothing else, if we ignore this, we are neglecting inspiring examples of resilience from the past, and the wisdom of many centuries, all of which may enhance our understanding of the nature of resilience. However, we would wish to argue that there are more, and better, reasons than this for taking theology seriously in relation to resilience. On the one hand, the last three sections of this concluding chapter suggest that biblical and theological resources affirm, and offer good illustrative examples of, a model of resilience concerned with finding good outcomes through coping effectively amidst adversity. Human beings do not seem to have changed that much over the last three or four thousand years and we continue to struggle with adversity and risk as much as those in the past. We search for meaning, look to one another for support, and hope for something better when faced with crisis, suffering, risk, and uncertainty.

Concluding reflections 235 However, on the other hand, we believe that the biblical and theological perspective highlights some significant points of difference from secular understandings of resilience. Theology insists on setting everything within divine context. Whilst to some this may seem exclusive, to others (indeed, the great majority of the world’s population) it is the only possible way of understanding things. Secular models simply do not give attention to some of the central issues of human existence. Why has God allowed this? How may I respond faithfully? What may I hope for? Yet theology also blurs the boundaries between these issues. The stories that contextualise the nature of adversity are the same stories that providing coping resources, and which guide expectations as to what a good outcome might look like. Theological narrative is not just a coping resource, it is also the medium of encountering adversity, and the story of the outcome that will follow. The difficulty, then, is in knowing how to tell the story. For Christians, but also many other spiritual/religious people, their own narrative is a part of the bigger narrative of God’s dealings with the world. Theology also undermines the unhelpful presumption that a ‘good’ outcome will be the absence or cessation of present suffering. Life is an ongoing encounter with adversities of various kinds, small and great, and an ongoing process of trying to make sense of the ‘severity of God’ (or whatever other name we may give to this mystery). The bits of life in between particular encounters with adversity are as much a part of this challenge (perhaps, in some ways, more of a challenge) than the major crises. The ‘question’ is about life as a whole, not isolated experiences. The ‘answer’ is found in our relationship with the suffering that we encounter in others and – for Christians – our relationship with the mystery of God in the suffering of Christ. On this basis, crucifixion may well be exactly the outcome that the resilient Christian, following the example of Jesus, might expect. As Jesus says repeatedly in the synoptic gospels, his followers should expect to ‘take up their cross’ as they follow him. Of course, this is not comfortable, and there are good reasons for adopting Collicutt’s injunction that we should not seek out suffering for its own sake. However, it is also arguably more realistic than expecting that life will not bring us adversity, and it reminds us that sometimes – for a higher good – we may be called upon to choose adversity over comfort and self-interest. Julian of Norwich, a 14th-century English mystic, had a series of visions in the context of a life-threatening illness. She wrote down her experiences relatively soon after her unexpected recovery and then, after reflecting upon them for many years, wrote a longer account. Amongst the words that she heard in the course of these visions were the words ‘You will not be overcome’. Reflecting on this, she wrote: He did not say: You will not be troubled, you will not be belaboured, you will not be disquieted; but he said: You will not be overcome. God wants us to pay attention to these words, and always to be strong in

236  Christopher C.H. Cook and Nathan H. White faithful trust, in well-being and in woe, for he loves us and delights in us, and so he wishes us to love him and delight in him and trust greatly in him, and all will be well. (Colledge, Walsh, and Leclercq 1977, 315) A Christian theological perspective on resilience transforms our understanding of the nature of adversity, the nature of resilient coping, and the outcomes which we might expect of the faithful person. It offers the hope, but does not avoid struggling with the mystery that promises that ‘all will be well’.

Bibliography Colledge, E., J. Walsh, and J. Leclercq, eds. 1977. Julian of Norwich: Showings. New York: Paulist. Cook, C.C.H., A. Powell, and A. Sims, eds. 2016. Spirituality and Narrative in Psychiatric Practice: Stories of Mind and Soul. London: RCPsych Press. Dworsky, C.K.O., K.I. Pargament, S. Wong, and J.J. Exline. 2016. ‘Suppressing Spiritual Struggles: The Role of Experiential Avoidance in Mental Health’. Journal of Contextual Behavioral Science 5: 258–65. Greenhalgh, T., and B. Hurwitz, eds. 1998. Narrative Based Medicine: Dialogue and Discourse in Clinical Practice. London: BMJ Books. Louth, A. 1997. The Wilderness of God. Nashville: Abingdon. McConnell, K.M., K.I. Pargament, C.G. Ellison, and K.J. Flannelly. 2006. ‘Examining the Links Between Spiritual Struggles and Symptoms of Psychopathology in a National Sample’. Journal of Clinical Psychology 62: 1469–84. Moser, P.K. 2013. The Severity of God: Religion and Philosophy Reconceived. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Southwick, S.M., G.A. Bonanno, A.S. Masten, C. Panter-Brick, and R. Yehuda. 2014. ‘Resilience Definitions, Theory, and Challenges: Interdisciplinary Perspectives’. European Journal of Psychotraumatology 5: 25338. Southwick, S.M., and D.S. Charney, eds. 2018. Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges. Second ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Index

adapt: ability to 1 – 6, 33, 45 – 7, 52 – 4, 70, 74, 81, 99, 103, 124, 132, 153, 162, 181, 187, 193, 199, 203, 208, 231 adversity: flourishing despite 1 – 5, 35 – 6, 46, 153, 157 – 8, 162 – 3, 175, 199; potential responses to 74 – 5, 81 – 2, 91, 99, 103 – 5, 125 – 32; reality of 32, 70 – 3, 76 – 7, 100, 235; and religion 7 – 9, 45, 78 – 80, 86 – 7, 141, 176, 181 – 2, 201, 208 – 10, 229 – 36; see also suffering affliction 19 – 30, 63, 87 – 8, 95, 115 – 16, 143, 189, 231 anthropology: Christian 155 – 6, 162 – 3, 186 – 90, 193, 211; see also identity, Christian Aquinas, Thomas 124 – 35, 156, 188 Athanasius 114 – 23 Augustine of Hippo 114, 118 – 22, 131, 157, 188, 192 Auschwitz 153, 161 – 2, 185; see also camp, concentration

source of flourishing 222; see also community community: context of Scripture 32, 88, 95, 98; creation and benefit of 32, 34, 38, 65, 75, 104 – 5, 191 – 3, 210 – 11, 222, 232; founded upon divine order 182; see also resilience, collective consolation 30 coping xiii, 4, 81, 106, 124 – 35, 181 – 2, 191, 209 – 10, 231 – 2, 235; unhealthy types 79 courage 27, 30 cross xiii, 70, 80, 144, 149 – 50, 155, 187, 193, 225, 234 – 5; science of 160 – 1, 234; source of hope 185, 189; as symbol 159, 162; transfiguration of 80 culture 6, 93, 100, 104, 129, 163, 212, 217 – 18; of resilience 200, 222 – 3, 226 – 7; Western 1, 78, 82, 84, 155

baptism 139 – 50; see also sacrament Barth, Karl xiii, 187 belief: in God 21, 88; in Gospel 193 Bethge, Eberhard 171 – 2, 176 – 7 Bible see Scripture, Holy Bloch, Ernst 189 – 90 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 167 – 76, 231, 233

dependence: on God 22, 28, 30, 45, 53, 87, 107; see also vulnerability Dionysius the Areopagite 156, 159 – 60, 162, 166 discipline 4, 28 – 9, 32, 80, 125, 199, 208 – 9 disorder: posttraumatic stress 14, 59, 132, 182, 184, 231

camp: concentration 129, 161 – 2; prisoner of war 181, 183 – 4, 193 chaplain 81, 174, 225 charity see love church 114, 139 – 49, 159 – 60; attendance at 8; Confessing 168, 171 – 3, 188, 192, 201, 216 – 27;

emotion 4, 19, 28, 32 – 8, 79, 89, 98 – 100, 106, 115 – 17, 124 – 34, 182, 185, 199, 204, 208, 216 – 21, 226, 229, 231 endurance 21, 51, 54, 74, 79 – 81, 84 – 7, 113 – 17, 128, 167, 201 – 3, 207; see also perseverance

238 Index eschatology 77 – 8, 89, 95, 99, 162, 175, 186 – 7, 192 – 3, 220 – 2, 233; see also hope Eucharist see Lord’s Supper evil 50, 61 – 5, 70 – 4, 82, 118, 129, 135, 142 – 5, 159, 168 – 9, 218, 224, 232 example: of biblical characters 91, 224, 229, 234; of Jesus 79, 170, 235; of Paul 85 – 7, 95 expectation 80, 182, 190 – 1, 193, 200, 204, 235; tempering 77 – 8; see also perspective faith xiii, 27, 32, 35 – 8, 80, 85 – 93, 98, 101 – 7, 118 – 20, 126, 131 – 5, 139 – 52, 154, 167 – 9, 181 – 2, 191 – 3, 231, 234; traditions 206 – 10; see also belief faithfulness: of God 29, 87; to God 22, 29, 37, 53, 73 – 4, 76 – 9, 85, 101 – 7, 121, 170, 174 – 6, 232, 235 – 6 flourishing: human xiii, 5 – 9, 46, 77 – 8, 88, 94, 100 – 2, 105, 124 – 35, 199, 205, 216, 219 – 27, 230 Frankl, Viktor 129, 185, 206 Frechette, Christopher G. 14, 56 fortitude 85, 125 – 33, 182; see also perseverance gift 175; of divine presence 27; of Holy Spirit 132 – 5; of resilience 80, 135, 227, 231 glory 53, 79 – 80, 86, 102, 105, 107, 119, 192, 233 – 4 Gospel 70 – 82, 88, 92, 114, 139 – 43, 146 – 51, 184, 193, 200, 224, 235 growth: posttraumatic 125; resilience and 124 – 35, 200 – 10, 231 – 2; spiritual 30 habit: of faith 87; relating to resilience 88 – 92, 121, 128, 167, 225; of sin 75; of submission 202 healing 38, 49, 52 – 3, 125, 130 – 5, 145, 164, 204 health: lack of 79; and relationships 34; and resilience xii, 3 – 9, 80 – 1, 98, 124 – 5, 154, 163, 182, 191 – 3, 199, 203, 206, 209 – 10, 219, 230; and Scripture 35, 38, 86; see also wellbeing Hillman, James 154 – 64 holiness 89 – 94, 96, 101, 103, 126, 131, 159, 232

Holocaust 58 – 9, 67, 155 Holy Spirit 73, 78, 92, 143, 157, 207, 231; fruit of 132 – 34; gives endurance 87 hope: amidst difficulty 2, 25, 29, 37 – 8, 52 – 3, 66, 155 – 7; in God xiii, 49, 63 – 4, 77 – 8, 85 – 93, 102 – 7, 115 – 21, 134, 149 – 50, 181 – 94, 218 – 24; lack of 174, 217; and resilience 7, 125 – 35, 204 – 11, 233 – 5 Hopkins, Gerard Manley 157 – 64 identity: Christian 20, 28 – 9, 39, 71, 73, 75, 89, 93, 98, 100 – 1, 104 – 7, 169; and resilience 46, 58, 185, 205, 210 – 11 image of God 122, 134 – 5, 187 – 9; see also anthropology, Christian; person ‘in Christ’ 76, 101 – 2, 107, 135, 140 – 3, 150, 169 – 70, 186, 206 John of the Cross, St 161, 234 joy xiii, 28, 106, 118 – 20, 176, 224; see also rejoicing Judeo-Christian tradition 2, 5, 7 – 8, 84, 234 Julian of Norwich 235 justice: actions of 126 – 33, 160; God’s 77; lack/perversion of 39, 53, 63 – 4 liturgy 36, 121, 222 – 6, 232; see also ritual Lord’s Supper 139 – 51, 225 love: for God xiii, 27, 106, 117 – 18, 120, 148, 159, 236; of God xii, 19, 32, 63, 82, 87, 89 – 90, 176, 193, 207, 221, 236; grounded in xii; lack of 32, 34, 73, 79, 119, 121; for others 35, 74 – 5, 91 – 3, 125, 127 – 35, 139, 190 – 2 Luther, Martin 139 – 51 Lutheran 167, 173, 230 martyrdom 175, 207 – 8, 233 meaning: and community 40; framework of 20, 27, 39, 85, 88, 105, 129, 131, 134 – 5, 182 – 5, 193, 207 – 9, 211, 217, 231 – 4; lack of 9, 148, 159, 176, 202, 205, 218; and resilience 4, 6, 82, 126, 132, 230 – 1; transforming 21, 28 – 30, 47, 52 – 3, 80, 116, 119, 133, 189, 210 – 11 meaning-making see meaning, framework of

Index  239 metanarrative 28, 37 – 9, 235; loss of 217 – 19, 222 – 4, 231; see also meaning, framework of metaphysics 158, 164, 190 Moltmann, Jürgen 181 – 94, 230, 233 narrative: alternative 163; failure of 66; false 36, 67; of Gospel/God 70, 72, 88, 91 – 3, 104 – 7, 169, 189, 194, 218; use of 27, 36 – 8, 60, 94, 185, 193, 209 – 10, 224, 229 – 35 Nazis 129, 153, 158 – 61, 167, 172 – 4, 230 – 1 ontology see metaphysics outcome: conception of 3 – 8, 65, 74, 85, 98 – 103, 106 – 7, 124, 132, 153, 155, 162, 175, 232 – 6; correct object of resilience 199 – 205, 210; divine assistance needed 53, 91, 190; not guaranteed 27, 218 pain: give voice to 60 – 6; in this world xiii, 27, 29, 36, 46 – 7, 52, 73, 121, 158, 183 – 7, 193, 216; R/S support amidst 7, 28, 79, 190, 202, 220, 231; sharing with others 29 – 30; see also suffering pastor 27 – 30, 147, 167 – 8, 171 – 5, 219 – 24, 230 – 3 pastoral 7, 9, 81 – 2, 128 – 30, 139 – 41, 151, 160, 199, 217 patience 125, 128 – 30, 133, 149; see also endurance; perseverance perseverance 128 – 30, 133, 201 – 3 person: ethical 169; natural 169 perspective: changing 63; communal 91; diverse 62, 85, 135, 154, 157, 199, 229; limited 47, 88; provided by religious resources 2, 5 – 8, 70, 78, 101, 104 – 5, 131, 159 – 64, 172, 187, 192, 208 – 9, 230 – 6; and resilience 90, 158, 219, 223; ultimate/eternal 133, 155, 175, 207 postmodernism 216 – 18, 222 prayer: benefit of 8, 130, 132, 218, 221 – 3; discipline of 114, 175, 225 – 6; of lament 33, 63; petitionary 35, 75, 80, 168; Psalms as 34, 37, 39 preaching 90, 120 – 1, 139 – 40, 143, 146 – 7, 150 – 1, 204, 221 – 3, 226, 232 promises: empty 52, 172, 192; of God 23, 47, 91, 102, 134, 139 – 51, 176,

182, 187 – 91, 193 – 4, 216, 221, 231, 233, 236 Promised Land 19, 23 – 4, 28, 30 protective factors 4 – 6, 81, 129 – 30, 167 Psalms: communal 35; expression through 32, 38; of lament xii, 33, 181; as prayer 35; and resilience 32 – 40; use of xii, 114 – 21, 181, 184, 210, 224, 229 – 31, 233 psychological: health xii, 7, 98, 191, 207; realm xiii, 4, 34, 103, 127, 154, 158, 188, 199; resources 106, 181 – 7, 207 – 11, 232; trauma 46 – 7, 58 – 9, 62, 65 – 6, 129, 132, 202, 229 psychology: field of 2 – 3, 9, 154 – 6, 163 – 4, 199 – 201, 207 – 11; positive 5 psychopathology 3, 5, 7, 199, 232 rejoicing: in suffering 28, 101, 176 relationship: with God 26 – 8, 45, 76, 80, 87 – 94, 102 – 4, 106 – 7, 186 – 9, 235; with others 54, 101, 105, 125, 129, 193, 207, 211, 220 – 2; as source of resilience 32 – 40; see also community resilience xii, 4 – 6, 88, 234 – 6; aided by religion 7, 181; based in God 95; clinical practice 208; collective 8, 21, 181, 207, 211; foreign language approximations 168, 200 – 3; natural 129; new understanding of 206, 229; paradox of xiii, 162, 186, 191; as process 30; ‘restless’ 189 – 91, 233; in Scripture 19 – 20; transcendent 131, 191; types of 75, 124 – 5, 200 – 3 resurrection: implications of 104 – 5, 186, 207, 234; of Jesus 74, 78, 80, 134, 207, 224; of Lazarus 77; tension with cross xiii, 53, 190 risk: acceptance of 77; for Christ and Christian 72, 76 – 7, 168; for clinicians 129 – 30; and resilience 3, 5, 53, 99 – 103, 132, 153, 182, 199, 206, 229 – 34 ritual: importance of 210 – 11 sacrament 132, 141, 143 – 51, 231; see also Lord’s Supper salvation: gift of 135, 139 – 51; grow towards 86, 99 – 104, 107, 131 – 3, 146, 232 – 3; uncertainty about 139 sanctification 89 – 90, 96, 131 – 4, 211; see also holiness

240 Index Scripture, Holy 7 – 8, 19, 32, 39, 114, 116, 119, 140 – 9, 154, 159, 170, 176, 181 – 5, 193, 205, 224 – 5, 229 sermon see preaching singing, spiritual use of 32, 114 – 22, 233 social support see community; resilience, collective spirituality: and resilience 4, 6 – 7, 33 – 4, 103, 154 – 5, 208 – 9, 230 – 4; and transcendence 207 Stein, Edith 153 – 64, 230 – 1, 234 story 18, 21, 29, 32, 36 – 40, 59, 67, 95, 104 – 5, 125, 183 – 4, 189, 194, 218 – 19, 224, 230; see also narrative stress: context of Scripture 70, 85 – 8, 106; coping with xiii, 4, 32, 117, 125 – 34, 147, 161, 181 – 3, 210, 224; negative outcomes of 3; and resilience 124, 168, 200 – 4, 216, 232; see also suffering suffering: explanation of 64 – 6; inevitability of 70, 82, 193, 221, 235; of Jesus 133, 176, 185 – 9, 224; limitation of concept 95; negative effects of 46; purpose of 158, 208 – 9; responses to 36, 45, 47 – 8, 52 – 4, 60, 70, 86 – 7, 116, 207; social 3, 67; solidarity in 194; theme in Bible 19, 50 – 1, 60 – 3, 86, 100 – 7, 202; transfiguration of xii, 79 – 80, 116, 125, 129, 131, 162 – 4, 182, 206 survivor 38, 46, 51, 59 – 61, 65 – 7, 191, 204; guilt of 181, 184; see also victim symbol 34, 48 – 9, 118, 145, 154, 157 – 64, 210 temptation 141, 147, 167 – 71, 174 – 6, 192; see also wilderness, temptation in Teresa Benedicta a Cruce, St see Stein, Edith Teresa of Avila, St 156 – 7, 234 theodicy 60 – 7, 129, 201; see also suffering, responses to

theology: context of 185 – 93; of cross 53, 161; of Gospel 139 – 43; insights from 7 – 9, 94, 129, 135, 154, 159 – 61, 171, 199; and resilience 70, 80 – 1, 158, 181 – 2, 194, 229, 234 – 5; of Scripture 45, 74 – 6 trauma xii – xii, 7, 9, 19 – 23, 28 – 9, 33 – 8, 45 – 54, 58 – 67, 87, 125, 131 – 4, 181 – 3, 208 – 11, 216 – 27, 229 – 33; collective 61 – 2, 67, 222; healing of 28 – 9; in way of belief 67; see also suffering Trinity 157, 190; social understanding of 186 – 9 trust: in God 19, 23 – 7, 45 – 7, 53 – 4, 86 – 8, 102 – 3, 132, 140 – 2, 148 – 50, 169 – 70, 236; misplaced 191 – 3; necessity of 21, 231; as worship 38; see also belief; faith victim 45, 58 – 67; see also voice, of sufferer virtue: acquired 129; Benedictine 201; Christian 113 – 14, 133, 202; and holiness 89 – 93; moral 206; natural 131; and resilience 124 – 35, 226, 232; Stoic 2 voice: divine 64, 77; giving a 26, 32 – 6; of prophet 50; of sufferer 53 – 4, 60 – 7 vulnerability 3, 21, 28 – 30, 33, 52 – 3, 130, 234 war, experience of 22, 35, 59, 67, 140, 174 – 5, 181 – 4, 191, 217, 230 – 1 well-being 1, 5, 8, 27 – 8, 32, 34, 52, 81, 84, 89, 100, 103, 155, 174, 192 – 3, 199, 206 – 7, 234, 236; see also health wilderness: experience of 18 – 30, 145, 151, 229 – 31, 233; temptation in 169 – 71 worldview 58, 77, 218 – 19, 223 – 4; see also perspective