What Job's Friends Could Have Done

""How ought the church care for the traumatized who, like Job, have suffered a catastrophic experience that disrupts their ability to 'play their part?' Torr weaves psychoanalytic insights into the mother/child relationship onto my theodramatic vision of the Christian life. If, as Calvin says, the Church is both 'Mother' to those to whom God is Father and 'theater' of the gospel, then it, like Job's friends, can best heal the traumatized by becoming a theater-cum-nursery of redemption."" --Kevin J. Vanhoozer, Research Professor of Systematic Theology, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School ""Stephen Torr has made a significant contribution to practical theology. His work to better inform the ways we think about pastoral care to those who have experienced trauma is both useful and noteworthy in that it extends both theological and psychological understandings of trauma. His dialogue between biblical studies, theology, and the psychology of D.W. Winnicott is especially creative and engaging."" --Stephen Parker, Professor Emeritus, Regent University ""Stephen Torr is passionate that the church learns how to minister to those with trauma, so that they might experience healing from their wounds. To that end he takes us on an extensive tour of Kevin Vanhoozer's theodramatic approach to theological anthropology and ecclesiology, with a healthy dose of Donald Winnicott's psychology of maturation, while reflecting on Job and his friends and suggesting implications for the church today."" --J. Richard Middleton, Professor Emeritus of Biblical Worldview and Exegesis, Northeastern Seminary