Abstract
Given the fact that Peters is a Marine and Army chaplain who was deployed in Iraq in 2005, it could be easy to think this book is merely for his fellow veterans who are suffering from war-induced post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). While there is no doubt this book would be a tremendous gift to someone who served in Afghanistan or Iraq or other war-torn areas of the world, to limit its readership to that population would be to miss out on profound theological and spiritual insights that can benefit us all.
From the beginning of this text, Peters gently, graciously invites us all in, to the community of survivors. If we have lived through the pandemic, through the horrors of school shootings or natural disasters, or the realities of systemic oppression or war or any of the other myriad crises that life can throw at us. Basically, if we have been alive in the last decade or two, then we qualify as people who have been traumatized. As Kaethe Wingarten wrote in the early 2000s in Common Shock, we do not necessarily have to be the direct recipient of violence to be traumatized. The reality of a 24-hour-news cycle and the myriad of media sources at our fingertips means that from childhood we witness violence on a regular basis, and it is traumatizing. If we have experienced it in our own lives or communities, then that trauma is even greater.
So all of us need Peters’ powerful and engaging text. It offers us hope and inspiration in the midst of our fear and anxiety. It invites us to see Jesus and Bible stories we know so well in a new light. Peters does this in a way that invites us into them, and helps us to see that the healing stories throughout the Gospels are not just for lepers or demoniacs or those who are blind. Those stories, and the possibility of healing that is found through a deeper relationship with Jesus is for every person.
He starts with the crucifixion, of course, but then takes us back to Jesus’ birth and through his life and ministry in thirty brief chapters that offer remarkable insights and invite us to see Jesus’ world and ourselves in new ways. Peters’ compelling descriptions of life under Roman occupation remind us that Jesus did not minister simply to the poor or the marginalized, he ministered to the traumatized. The healing and new life offered by Jesus takes on a new level of meaning when you realize the life transformation it offers to someone for whom daily life has been consistently traumatizing for as long as they can remember. Of course, transformation is not just for those portrayed in the Gospel texts, it is for us too.
This is a book that has a myriad audience. It is a spiritual text for individuals looking for a way to connect with Christ and with the Gospels, and for anyone seeking healing from their own trauma. It is a resource for preachers, because it offers new insights into familiar texts. It is a resource for seminary and graduate students as an example of how to connect biblical texts with the realities of daily life and how to write a text that is well researched, engaging, and approachable wherever someone might find themselves on their faith journey.
