ABSTRACT
The power of a traumatic experience to reframe theological understanding is explored through the case study of a teen’s suicide in this exercise in Practical Theology. The shocking death of a child set a congregation and her minister on a journey of discomfort and discovery that changed the way many understood the Christian tradition’s teaching on sexuality. After discussing how experience has been a silent partner to Scripture and tradition (the primary theological sources), a model of the Pastoral Cycle is proposed which seeks to describe the embodied experience of sense-making in the aftermath of trauma, as lived experience comes into critical-liminal conversation with theological and other sources. A refinement of the proposed model charts a disciplined way forward that enables human experience to influence the development of Christian tradition.
