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When Harm Becomes Formation: Trauma, Difference, and Institutional Failure Concerning Respect, Humility, Sympathy, and Empathy for Others Whilst Practising Public Theology!
When Harm Becomes Formation: Trauma, Difference, and Institutional Failure Concerning Respect, Humility, Sympathy, and Empathy for Others Whilst Practising Public Theology!
Public theology confronts individual institutional failure in light of scripture before our true Triune God, naming trauma exclusion as theological violations demanding repentance justice.
First and foremost, there are experiences that do not merely occur within discrete moments but instead exert a formative and enduring force across the span of a life. In consequence, such experiences are not resolved by the passage of time, nor neutralised by achievement, theological language, or institutional reassurance. By necessity, they shape perception, regulate behaviour, and recalibrate one’s understanding of dignity, power, trust, and belonging. This article is not offered as personal grievance or moral exhibitionism. Instead, it is presented as testimony to the psychological and theological consequences that arise when institutions entrusted with care and formation fail to uphold their responsibility before God and neighbour.
Without qualification, scripture is unequivocal that harm inflicted upon the vulnerable is neither accidental nor morally inconsequential. As stated in Psalm 34: 18, the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Even so, such declarations simultaneously indict systems that participate in crushing. Trauma does not arise in isolation. Indeed, it is produced and compounded where violence, contempt, or neglect are tolerated by those who possess authority, despite the biblical mandate, as stated in Psalm 82: 3, to defend the weak and maintain the rights of the afflicted.
At the outset, my earliest encounter with such institutional failure occurred during my primary school year at ACS Baker Road Primary School in Singapore in 1998. During lunch recess, I was subjected to physical violence when peers pushed me down two flights of concrete stairs. In response, the outcome was neither protection nor accountability, but dismissal. Both my form teacher and the school principal referred to me as a “dumb dumb”. Scripture warns that life and death reside in the power of the tongue, as stated in Proverbs 18: 21. When such speech is issued by authority, it functions not merely as insult but as moral classification, legitimising exclusion and undermining the recognition of the image of God in the child so addressed, as stated in Genesis 1: 27. As a consequence, Christ’s warning concerning those who cause the little ones to stumble establishes a boundary that was unmistakably transgressed, as stated in Matthew 18: 6.
By way of further context, I was born in Singapore through a complicated delivery involving tight forceps, amid a lack of sufficient medical staff to respond with the urgency required while my mother was in severe labour. While no simplistic causation can be asserted, this early environment has since been considered a contributing factor when, during my high school years, I was formally diagnosed with mild autism. Such recognition did not diminish my humanity or agency. More precisely, it provided a belated language for understanding differences that had long been perceived as a deficiency. Scripture affirms that human life, in all its embodied complexity, is known and formed by God, as stated in Psalm 139:13–16. When such complexity is misunderstood rather than discerned, vulnerability is amplified, and harm is more readily justified.
Thereafter, this pattern did not remain confined to childhood. Between 2005 and 2006, during my time at Auckland Grammar School, I experienced sustained peer bullying, not only because I participated in sport as a starter, but because my difference was visible and known. Scripture explicitly condemns partiality and exclusion, declaring favouritism incompatible with faith, as stated in James 2: 1 – 9. In practice, the difference was treated as a liability rather than a gift. As such, visibility became vulnerability, and authenticity invited sanction, in direct contradiction to Christ’s command to love one’s neighbour, as stated in Mark 12: 30 – 31.
Similarly, these dynamics extended into sporting and professional contexts. Not only that, Special Olympics New Zealand’s National Events Manager characterised my written concerns as rude and harsh, without any attempt to discern intent, context, or communicative difference. In effect, advocacy was reframed as misconduct. Scripture exhorts believers to be quick to listen and slow to judge, as stated in James 1: 19. Yet institutional power was exercised without charity or inquiry, resulting in harm rather than correction.
Of further concern, in my subsequent public service role, workplace bullying manifested in sustained and systemic forms. I was persistently misunderstood, marginalised, and treated in ways that eroded professional confidence and psychological safety. These were not isolated misunderstandings but patterns reflecting institutional incapacity to engage difference without suspicion. Within this environment, dominated by an older generation of the opposite gender, repeated misinterpretation and the exercise of power without discernment resulted in severe trauma. Scripture warns that those who oppress the vulnerable insult the Lord Jesus, their Maker, as stated in Proverbs 14: 31.
Taken collectively, these experiences have resulted in severe and cumulative trauma. I experience intrusive memories and traumatic flashbacks that return me involuntarily to moments of danger, humiliation, and dismissal. Scripture’s acknowledgement that unexpressed anguish consumes the inner life is an explicit recognition of sustained suffering, as stated in Psalm 32: 3 – 4.
It must also be acknowledged that individuals who have been traumatised often become acutely, and at times ultra-sensitive, to interpersonal cues. Such sensitivity is not moral weakness but reflects a learned response to repeated harm. In my own case, this has required sustained engagement with professional counselling and appropriate medical care. Even now, much of this suffering is borne quietly and without visibility. Scripture affirms that a bruised reed is not broken, as stated in Isaiah 42: 3.
It must further be acknowledged with sober honesty that the cumulative weight of these experiences, endured across the span of my life now extending over thirty-four years, has at times given rise to profound despair, including periods marked by suicidal thoughts and a deep sense of not wanting to belong on this earth. These moments did not arise from attention seeking or moral weakness, but from the exhaustion of repeatedly encountering misunderstanding, exclusion, and the painful recognition that others simply do not grasp the nature or severity of the harm being endured. Even now, this suffering often continues in silence, carried privately and without visibility. Thereby, the persistence of such despair underscores not individual failure, but the grave consequences of communities that neglect understanding, withdraw relationship, and leave the wounded to carry unbearable weight alone, as stated in Psalm 88: 3 – 6.
Taken seriously, I am now cautious in forming friendships, not through unwillingness but through necessity. Scripture affirms that the prudent perceive danger and take refuge, as stated in Proverbs 22: 3. Such caution constitutes self-preservation rather than deficiency.
On these grounds, and as a matter of moral obligation, those who have not inhabited such circumstances are called to more than abstract sympathy. They are summoned to disciplined moral imagination, placing themselves within the lived reality of those who suffer. Scripture commands such identification, as stated in Hebrews 13: 3.
In theological terms, this reality, therefore, raises a necessary question of moral and communal formation. Are we, in practice rather than rhetoric, becoming better at understanding one another across difference, including the diversity of cultures, lived experiences, and the realities of those with different abilities. Or do our patterns of interaction continue to privilege familiarity and conformity, thereby excluding those whose ways of being, communicating, or belonging do not align with dominant norms. Such reflection cannot remain abstract. It demands that individuals and communities examine their own actions, omissions, and postures of power, and where harm has been enacted or sustained, to repent with integrity and to pursue tangible change. Scripture’s call to love one’s neighbour demands not mere tolerance, but the patient labour of understanding, attentiveness, and humility.
Of grave concern, patterns of harm produce isolation and heightened vulnerability, particularly for those with different abilities. Scripture affirms that those deemed weaker are indispensable and deserving of greater honour, as stated in 1 Corinthians 12: 22 – 23. Belonging, healing, and dignity are not restored by rhetoric or time, but by truth, repentance, and the lived practice of love commanded in scripture.
In light of the above, recovery remains profoundly impeded where wounds are treated lightly, and peace is declared where there is no peace, as stated in Jeremiah 6: 14.
In light of the foregoing, those who claim to labour within ministry or theological leadership bear heightened responsibility. Scripture condemns shepherds who fail to strengthen the weak and bind up the injured, as stated in Ezekiel 34: 4. Failure to do so is a theological failure.
Consequently, on these grounds, any individual who has mistreated others in such contexts ought to repent, not merely in word but in action, and to enact positive change by educating others and making unequivocally clear that such attitudes and behaviours must be brought to an end, as stated in Acts 3: 19. Repentance entails reorientation of posture, practice, and power. Without such transformation, apologies remain hollow and harm persists.
With moral urgency, a final challenge must be stated with theological seriousness and moral clarity. How is an individual to feel loved, safe, or able to recover when they have been so deeply wounded, isolated, and left to endure suffering alone, in direct contradiction to Christ’s command to love one’s neighbour as oneself, as stated in Mark 12: 30 – 31. How can healing take place where empathy is withheld, responsibility evaded, and dignity deferred? Yet even so, until these realities are confronted honestly, those who have been harmed will continue to struggle to integrate within community life, not because they lack willingness, but because trust has been systematically eroded.
Let us state without equivocation that sympathy and empathy are not optional virtues, nor discretionary expressions of goodwill. They are imperative and non-negotiable obligations intrinsic to any authentic expression of faith, leadership, or ministry. Unless embodied in practice rather than proclaimed in rhetoric, faith is rendered hollow and harm is permitted to become formative once more, standing in direct opposition to what the Lord requires, as stated in Micah 6: 8. Let this stand as a sober wake-up call, issued with urgency and accompanied by prayer, calling all to intercede earnestly for those who have endured trauma, exclusion, neurological difference, and sustained misunderstanding.
Let it be recognised with moral clarity that, in the absence of such sympathy and empathy, is there not a moral responsibility to pause and to reckon honestly with the severity of the impact imposed upon the individual, particularly when failure to do so results in the profound impairment of that person’s capacity to function with dignity, trust, and psychological safety, unjustly transferring the burden of consequence onto the wounded and entrenching exclusion rather than facilitating healing.
Thank - you.
Atua (God) Bless.
** Please check out the article, which I have published on Substack: open.substack.com... .
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