Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World

Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. By Serene Jones. Louisville, Ky.: Westminster John Knox Press, 2009. 200 pp. $25.00 (paper).

Serene Jones describes the goal of this book as addressing this question: "How do people, whose hearts and minds have been wounded by violence, come to feel and know the redeeming power of God's grace?" (p. viii). Jones engages this question through a series of essays designed to function as "theological poems" that explore the reality of trauma and the challenges trauma poses to the lived experience of grace (p. vii). The essays are divided into three sections: tiiose that explore trauma, those that look at the relationship between the cross and trauma, and those that consider grace.

Jones is quite intentional about the methodology she employs. She sees her book as an opportunity to reach beyond the traditional sources engaged by systematic thinkers and to incorporate experience as well as literary, scientific, and social scientific resources. One chapter imagines a dialogue after Jesus'...