The Trauma of Doctrine

New Calvinism and the Victim investigates the difficult relationship between traumatic experiences, maximalist religious beliefs, and the experience of God. This project highlights the dynamic and conflictive interplay between the timeless realities of abuse, divine control, and the psychology of religious participation.

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New Calvinism and the Victim endeavors into the overlapping areas of psychological trauma and systematic theology by investigating the dynamic interplay between the psychology of holding maximalist theological beliefs and recovery from abuse trauma. Maxwell examines the effect that the Calvinist belief can have upon the traumatized Christian who negatively internalizes its superlative doctrines of divine control and human moral corruption. The project seeks to understand these intersecting realities by investigating a triptych of inquiries: From a theological perspective, can a Christian lose his faith because of a traumatic experience? Moreover, what are the consequences of such a loss? And, how could Reformed theology exacerbate this religious detachment?

Ultimately, the research suggests that there are experiential harmonies between the belief in Reformed theology and the experience of trauma, which are neither existentially necessary nor therapeutically negligible—rather, they are conceptually likely based on both philosophical analysis and psychological research.