Journal: Southern Baptist Journal of Theology
Volume: SBJT 29:2 (Summer 2025)
Article: Mapping Doctrinal Drift In Biblical Counseling: From Classical Christology To Trauma-Bound Theology
Author: Megan Bess King

Mapping Doctrinal Drift In Biblical Counseling: From Classical Christology To Trauma-Bound Theology

Megan Bess King

Megan Bess King is a PhD student at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky. She is also the founder and president of Word & Story Counseling. She earned her MA in Biblical Counseling and Practical Theology from Southern Seminary. She has been a certified counselor since 2018. She and her husband, B. J. live in Georgetown, Texas with their five children, where they are members of Emmaus Church of Georgetown.

Christology stands at the center of the Christian message. Classical/ orthodox Christology has been passed hand to hand through the centuries, shaped by the outcomes of theological discussions and ecumenical councils. The Councils of Nicaea (325), Chalcedon (451), and those that followed provided the early church with classic formulations that have long served to safeguard the faith against heresy. While these conciliar definitions have historically functioned as a doctrinal tether, they have not been without critique. In our contemporary context, one significant line of challenge emerges from the perspective of trauma theology.

Trauma theologians understand the human experience of trauma to be so profoundly disruptive that traditional readings of Scripture are rendered insufficient for facilitating comprehension or healing. To the trauma theologian, the effects of trauma are so far reaching that even extensive explorations into the field of theodicy are inadequate. From this perspective, a new theology must imagined to account for trauma and its effects. Trauma theologian Shelly Rambo describes it this way: “Trauma forces us beyond a familiar theological paradigm of life and death,

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and places us, instead, on the razed terrain of what remains. Trauma presses theologians to seek new language to express God’s relationship to the world.”1 And so, trauma theologians labor to re-imagine theology, and Christology in particular, in order to make them more palatable and potent for trauma survivors.

This article will be developed in four parts with four goals: (1) make a general presentation of trauma theology; (2) contrast it with classical Christology; (3) describe the historical path from classical Christology to trauma theology; (4) and introduce the subsequent effects of trauma theology in biblical counseling. These four aims are presented in support of this article’s thesis: Emerging from the divergent traditions of liberation and feminist theology, the developing field of trauma theology represents a significant departure from classical Christianity and, while it may inform biblical counseling on trauma, it should be...