AN EXPLORATION of how the Letter to the Hebrews can help in recovery from trauma was declared the winning talk at the fourth Theology Slam final, on Tuesday evening.
It was given by Amanda Higgin, who is training as a Baptist minister at Regent’s Park College, Oxford, alongside working towards a Master’s degree in New Testament theology, with a focus on the Letter to the Hebrews.
The final took place in St Edmund’s, Roundhay, in Leeds, as part of the HeartEdge conference “Humbler Church, Bigger God”. It was the first time since 2019 that the final was held in person: for the previous two years, it was online only, owing to the pandemic.
In her talk, Ms Higgin spoke of how, in May last year, she was diagnosed with complex post traumatic stress disorder (c-PTSD), two years after coming out of an abusive relationship.
“As I found myself in recovery, I found myself holding the Letter to the Hebrews,” she said. “And, as I grappled with my own pain, I started to see how uncertainty and trauma underpinned this masterful anonymous theological address.”
The author of Hebrews, she said, was “addressing a traumatised congregation”, whose members had “suffered beatings, looting, and imprisonment”.
Ms Higgin went on to say that the Letter to the Hebrews read Psalm 95 “in light of Jesus’s life”, explaining “how a sabbath rest remains for the people of God. Not a geographical Canaan rest, but an eternal sabbath rest, which we enter following behind not Joshua, but Jesus.”
She concluded: “So, as we encounter people and communities carrying trauma, Hebrews shows us a way. Recovery is a wandering from pain to healing. And that recovery is guided by the living and active voice of God, if only, today, we will hear that voice.”
Another finalist was Alex Clare-Young, a pioneer minister in the United Reformed Church (URC), currently serving in Cambridge, who is in the final stages of submitting a thesis for a Ph.D. in queer theologies at the University of Birmingham.
Clare-Young, who is a trans non-binary person, spoke on the implications of the incarnation for how Christians think about the body.
“My complex body is both part of the Church and reflective of the body of Christ,” Clare-Young said. “Or, to put it another way, the body of Christ is both trans and gender queer. The Church includes members who are male, members who are female, and members who are not defined by binary gender. And that has to impact how we do things.
YouTubeThe Revd Dr Isabelle Hamley with the finalists: Alex Clare-Young; Victoria Turner; and Amanda Higgin
“The Church cannot be restricted to a pretend understanding that it’s only one thing or one way. The Church cannot continue to be limited towards normative, binary debates that are literally tearing it apart.”
The third finalist was Victoria Turner, also a member of the URC, who is in the final stages of a Ph.D. in world Christianity at the University of Edinburgh, where she is exploring developments in Christian mission. She spoke on the theme of “justice” in relation to Amos 5.
“The rich in our society are the ones who believe that they know what’s best for the poor, despite the rich in our society living the way they do through the normality of exploiting them,” she said. “Why do we as privileged Westerners still believe we know what’s best for people we do not know?”
The justice of Amos, she went on to say, is “so abundant and so challenging”, because God sets a “high bar”.
She continued: “Tolerance is so obviously not peace. Peace is full, intentional, costly understanding, and love.”
Theology Slam is organised jointly by the Church Times, SCM Press, and, for the first time this year, HeartEdge (News, 1 March).
The competition was open to anyone, lay or ordained, between the ages of 18 to 35. Applicants were asked to write 500 words on one of seven contemporary issues: Work, Body, Grace, Justice, Space, The Virtual, Recovery.
Alongside the 500 words, applicants were also asked to submit a 90-second video, introducing who they were and why they were interested in the topic.
The finalists’ talks were judged on the night by a panel of theologians: Canon Rachel Mann, writer and Area Dean of Bury and Rossendale, in Manchester diocese; Prebendary Isabelle Hamley, Secretary for Ecumenical Relations and Theology and Theological Adviser to the House of Bishops; Canon Anderson Jeremiah, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics, Philosophy, and Religion at Lancaster University; and the Revd Dr Sam Wells, writer, Canon Theologian of Guildford Cathedral, and Vicar of St Martin-in-the-Fields, in London.
The winner receives £250 to spend at Church House Bookshop, and the Theology Slam trophy; her talk will be published in the Church Times next week.
Watch the final here