Incarnating Grace

Abstract

The Christian tradition has failed survivors of sexual violence who have received the message that traumatic suffering is a vehicle for God’s saving grace. Grace is God’s gift of self to us which saves and restores us. This grace never comes to us in and through violence. Incarnating Grace attempts to save our broken ways of talking about God’s grace—discarding that which fosters violence and unearthing some of the liberating resources buried in the Christian tradition. Drawing on the sixteenth-century Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila in dialogue with contemporary political and feminist theologians, philosophers, and legal scholars, Feder offers an account of Christian salvation as mystical-political healing that is both incarnational and eschatological. Incarnating Grace makes clear that God does not want human beings to suffer from sexual violence. Instead, God’s grace comes to us in mystical and political practices of posttraumatic healing, animated by God’s gifts of courage and hope. Christian ideas about salvation have historically contributed to sexual violence in our communities, particularly to the extent that Christians have insisted by human suffering is salvific. But, the Christian tradition is also capable of fostering resistance to sexual violence and supporting posttraumatic healing, particularly in its reflections on suffering and embodiment. Salvation is God’s ongoing and comprehensive restoration of bodies—materially, socially, politically, and spiritually.