Claiming and Confronting ‘The Violent Gift’: Biblical Hermeneutics of Trauma for Public Theology in Asia

Abstract

The onslaught of COVID-19, war between Russia and Ukraine, the communal violence in Manipur, and so on, leads us to an important area of concern that the public theology in Asia should listen sensitively and attentively: Trauma. Given the contextual nature of the public theology, one of the normative concerns in attending to the current affairs of the world is the common good of the subalterns. The Church, society and academia are the three public areas of theological investigation wherein the Bible ever remains a fertile ground, and on which the Asian Christianity should continue to nurture and strengthen their prophetic role. Based on the aforementioned outline, this paper attempts to open up a new arena for public theology in Asia by discussing about the biblical hermeneutics of trauma. Reading the sacred texts in the light of trauma theory has broadened the biblical scholarship. The Sitz im Leben of the ancient text should definitely come in contact with the context of the reader. Therefore, a reader-oriented understanding of the biblical materials bears abundant fruits for the networking of public theologies in Asia. “Trauma is suffering that remains”: psychology, literature, media and arts has been re-reading the social plight through these “unclaimed experiences” that occur due to various natural and man-made disasters. Consequently, from early 2000s, the biblical hermeneutics is re-focusing its attention, especially to the pre-exilic, exilic and post-exilic texts of the Old Testament from the perspective of trauma. For this purpose, the biblical hermeneutics stands as a linchpin of trauma studies, public theology and Asian context. “The violent gift” can never remain unwrapped. Hence, we should claim it to confront the same in our circumstance.