How Survivors of Abuse Relate to God: The Authentic Spirituality of the Annihilated Soul 1st Edition

“In this remarkable text, Susan Shooter dives down into the wreck of the church’s murky pastoral practice and theologies of domination in order to retrieve the submerged stories and wisdom of Christian survivors of abuse. Surfacing their stories, she brings them into dialogue with the Book of Job and the medieval mystic, Marguerite Porete and constructs an inspiring account of the ‘authentic spirituality of the annihilated soul’. The result is a text of powerful witness and indictment, yet one which also offers ‘a slither of hope’ in the capacity of survivors to discern God’s timeless and transformative presence in their experience and to offer a largely unrecognised ministry of grace. This is an impressive work that deserves to be widely read. It should inform ministerial training and practice, as well as the conduct of qualitative research and feminist practical theology.”

– Nicola Slee, The Queen’s Foundation for Ecumenical Theological Education, Birmingham, UK

“This is essential reading for anyone in the Church with authority, those in ministerial training, all clergy in pastoral positions, and those who hope to understand the estimated one in five people who are abused at some point in their lives. […] This is a timely and important book.”

– Sue Atkinson, Church Times

“[Shooter] carefully balance[s] throughout her text a clear condemnation of abuse with the affirmation that no situation is beyond the transformative power of the God who can “hold a victim while a new, and free, identity is recreated out of the ‘nothingness’ of victim identity” (p. 165, emphasis in original). She surely deserves praise for this delicate task and anyone who is interested in speaking carefully and powerfully about grave issues should look to her text as a model.”

– Julia A. Fader, Theology & Sexuality

“A great achievement of this work is its rich account of the survivors’ experiences. […] Ultimately, this research is of most value to theologians, particularly in developing ministry for the abused. I believe that the central concepts of the Presence of God, Transformation, and Knowing ministry which emerge from Shooter’s analysis are sound and valuable theological contributions on the basis of which a greater understanding of the spirituality of survivors can be explored.”

– Susie Donnelly, Journal of Contemporary Religion

“Susan Shooter’s ethnographic scholarship […] establishes the theological agenda and also the possibility of ecclesial authenticity, which is why the painstaking work of Shooter and others, not to mention survivor witness disclosed in PBS Frontline films such as The Silence and Secrets of the Vatican, is so important. Vulnerability to these forms of witness is a requisite first step.”

– John N. Sheveland, Redeeming Trauma: An Agenda for Theology Fifteen Years On