Christian bias has historically played a major role in the development of US educational, political, and medical institutions. Too often, Christian theologies that promote segregation, disembodiment, silencing, and ultimately trauma seep into our policies in a way that oppresses people based on their age, gender, race, and so on. A revised Christian social ethic is in order to resist, repair, and reshape these norms and better pursue the common good.

This project presents a childist-feminist method in light of trauma theory as an avenue for doing this work of resistance, reparations, and change for not only pregnant teens, but more specifically, homeless pregnant teens. By focusing on the particularities of homeless pregnant and parenting youth, one can gain clearer access to both the sacredness of these persons, as well as the necessary Christian communal responses to reclaiming their needs and dignity at a social level. A hermeneutic for doing this work is developed out of key concepts from childist, feminist, womanist, and trauma theories. The hermeneutic is grounded in a theological anthropology that prizes human relationality, embodiment, creativity, and non-linear growth. While childist and feminist methods promote de-centering oneself to peoples who have been socially marginalized, trauma theory helps illuminate the ways in which not listening to the silenced, erased, and forgotten is damaging to the whole. In turn, using a trauma-focused, childist-feminist approach to Christian social ethics, one is challenged to bear witness to the silenced stories with the belief that we can heal through a greater understanding of the truth. Out of this more complete truth, individuals and communities can really engage in the struggles for change. This project bears witness to pregnant and parenting homeless teens and then provides strategies for reparative justice work.