On Tuesday evening, the Center for the Study of Spirituality hosted Catholic feminist theologian Julia Feder to offer a brief presentation about her most recent work, “Incarnating Grace: A Theology of Healing from Sexual Trauma.” Feder is the assistant director of the Center for the Study of Spirituality and associate professor for religious studies and theology at Saint Mary's College.
Feder began her speech by recounting her first experiences with students when she began teaching theology ten years ago. She discovered that students are most interested in questions relating to suffering. “Does God want us to suffer?” Feder asked aloud, “does suffering bring us closer to God?”
She then recited a quote from a bookmark given to her by her mother, “Do not fear suffering for by enduring it you can increase my glory and repair the sins of the world.”
Feder said, “when I think of my mother who held this bookmark as she prayed in a church pew in south Philadelphia and at the same time was being sexually abused in her own home. I know that Christian tradition has terribly failed.”
Feder explained that these traditions have not only failed her mother and other survivors, but it has given them the message that traumatic suffering is a ‘vehicle for God’s saving grace.’ “Violence does not add to God's glory,” Feder said.
“I wrote this book to try to contribute something to the process of saving our often broken ways of talking about God’s grace in the Christian tradition,” Feder said. “The suffering of sexual violence serves no higher purpose or greater human value. This kind of suffering pushes against all ways of making sense of the world as good and orderly.”
More than half of women and almost 1 in 3 men in the United States have experienced sexual violence involving physical contact during their lifetime. “Sexual violence is a salient feature of our common life together,” Feder said. “It is widespread in our schools, churches and our homes.”
Later that night, Feder sat down with associate professor of religious studies and theology Jessica Coblentz. Together, they engaged in conversation about the themes of her book. Coblentz first asked why so many people are hesitant to address this topic in theology and spirituality and why she decided to do it. Feder said, “as I was doing research for this book the common statistics about how frequent sexual violence happens in people's lives changed dramatically.”
Feder began researching this topic 12 years ago, and in the course of writing, the statistic went from 1 in 4 women have experienced sexual violence, to over half of the women in the United States. “That has really struck me being at a women's college that more than half us have experienced sexual violence that involves physical contact," she said.
Coblentz wrapped up her questions by asking Feder how she would like church communities and Catholic institutions to put her theology into practice. Feder replied by saying it begins with transparency and honesty about what our experiences are like.
“Honesty about the pervasive reality of sexual violence and an honesty about the deep wounding that sexual violence creates,” Feder said. “That kind of honesty can happen on an institutional level by, first and foremost, being honest in the ways in which we have supported and normalized perpetration.”
Feder also shared a call to imagination. “I think we can also do some good imagination work. Try to imagine what our communities might look like if we didn't have to tell children as they grow up to be careful and scared all the time about protecting themselves.”
Feder continued, “I want us to imagine what childhood could look like, what adult sexual relationships could look like without that fear and what it could look like for women to be free about their own bodies in a world like that.”
The floor was then opened to students in the audience to offer questions up to Feder. One student asked for her stance in response to the Christian belief of forgiveness and what the victims who can't find it in themselves to forgive should do.
Feder replied that in Christian tradition forgiveness is a gift given to us by God, sometimes we don’t receive that gift. “I also think those feelings about anger and frustration about sexual violence are also God’s gifts to us to indicate that which, shouldn't have ever happened to us,” Feder said. “That anger is an insight, a clarity and a truth about the kind of world that God does want for us, a world in which something like that would never happen.”
Dr. Julia Feder discusses a theology of healing from sexual trauma
Dr.Feder and Dr.Coblentz sit down for a discussion on Dr.Feder's new book 'Incarnating Grace: A Theology of Healing from Sexual Trauma'.
