Clergy divorce and remarriage

The incidence of clergy divorce and remarriage requires a rethinking of the church's position when the divine intent for marriage is not fulfilled. A ministry to clergy couples and families marked by truth and grace can lead to a restoration of persons and an effecting of constructive ministries for clergy who have themselves been restored.Dr. Brown is Assistant Professor of Pastoral Theology, Princeton Theological Seminary, CN 821, Princeton, New Jersey 08540. She is currently serving as the Chairperson of the Theological and Social Concerns Committee of the American Association of Pastoral Counselors.     

Knowledge of Aging Among Clergy

A standard Facts on Aging Quiz was administered to 140 ordained ministers representing five Protestant denominations as well as Catholics and Jews. Their mean score reflected an accuracy rate of 66 percent, while a subscore indicated a high pro-aging bias. A comparison reveals clergy's level of knowledge of aging is no better than that of a criterion group of undergraduates. There is a suggestion clergy's high pro-aging bias may be unrealistic and thus militate against effective intervention on behalf of the elderly.     

Racial and Ethnic Differences in the Utilization of Prayer and Clergy Counseling by Infertile US Women Desiring Pregnancy

Religion can have a significant influence on the experience of infertility. However, it is unclear how many US women turn to religion when facing infertility. Here, we examine the utilization of prayer and clergy counsel among a nationally representative sample of 1062 infertile US women. Prayer was used by 74.8% of the participants, and clergy counsel was the most common formal support system utilized. Both prayer and clergy counsel were significantly more common among black and Hispanic women. Healthcare providers should acknowledge the spiritual needs of their infertile patients and ally with clergy when possible to provide maximally effective care.     

Clergy wives of the new generation

This article describes the changes that are occurring in the lives of wives of ministers, the difficulties and satisfactions they are experiencing, the issues they are confronting. It presents the thesis that the crucial change in the past 15 years for wives of ministers is that they no longer derive their primary identity from being ministers' wives, and therefore they are less involved in their husbands' ministries and more focused on their own issues and careers.Dr. Niswander is a pastoral counselor and senior staff member of the Pastoral Psychotherapy Institute, 1580 N. Northwest Highway, Park Ridge, Illinois 60068. She has been the wife of a United Methodist minister for 27 years and was recently ordained by that denomination as an elder herself. She has led retreats, workshops and study groups for wives of ministers as well as counseling them professionally.     

Pedagogies of Interpretation in Educating Clergy

Abstract. In this essay the authors describe how four seminary educators pedagogically engage students in practices of interpretation and explore how the variations in their teaching practices shape the critical thinking they seek to cultivate in their students. The piece is excerpted from an ethnographic study of Jewish and Christian seminary educator teaching practices sponsored by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (Educating Clergy: Teaching Practices and Pastoral Imagination, Jossey‐Bass Publishers, November 2005). The study explores how the classroom‐ and community‐based teaching practices of seminary educators prepare students to integrate professional knowledge and skill with moral integrity and religious commitment in professional practice. In addition to the pedagogies of interpretation explicated here, we observed pedagogies that engage students in practices of formation, contextualization, and performance. Attention is also given in the study to the influence of pedagogies embedded in the traditions of seminary education on student learning and to the cultivation of spiritual and professional practices beyond the classroom in community worship and through strategies of field education and small groups.     

The Fate of the Anglican Clergy and the Class of '97: Some Implications of the Changing Sociological Profile of Ordinands

This paper identifies some of the most salient trends in the changing sociological profile of Church of England ordinands over the past 30 years. While the Church itself monitors age and gender, there have been few independent studies carried out since the 1960s which explore these and other variables in any depth. By measuring changes in age, gender, churchmanship, ethnicity, plans for future ministry and setting these alongside wider changes in Church life, occupational mobility in society, and Church policy on ordination training (especially towards families and women's vocations), it is possible to highlight some likely implications for the future. What appears to be predictable with some degree of certainty is the continued growth of the evangelical tradition, increasing involvement in chaplaincy (which itself signals an interesting dynamic in the 'location' of religion and religious professionals in social life), and much more willingness within the Church to experiment with different patterns of ministry and more flexible modes of theological training.     

Agendas,Relevance and Dialogic Ascent

E. C. W. Krabbe characterizes a metadialogue as a dialogue about a dialogue, which in turn, is characterized as a ground level dialogue. Krabbe raises a number of interesting questions about this distinction, of which the most pressing is whether the difference between ground level and metadialogues can be drawn in a principled and suitably general way. In this note, I develop the idea that something counts as a metadialogue to the extent that it stands to its ground level counterpart in a relation of irrelevance. The irrelevance in question subsumes a triple of subconcepts: strategic relevance, agenda-relevance and irredundancy-relevance.     

The Changing Challenges in the Lives of Three Generations of Professional Women

The American Journal of Psychoanalysis -     

The Clergy Occupational Distress Index (CODI): Background and Findings from Two Samples of Clergy

This study demonstrates the reliability and validity of the Clergy Occupational Distress Index (CODI). The five-item index allows researchers to measure the frequency that clergy, who traditionally have not been the subject of occupational health studies, experience occupational distress. We assess the reliability and validity of the index using two samples of clergy: a nationally representative sample of clergy and a sample of clergy from nine Protestant denominations. Exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s scores are generated. Construct validity is measured by examining the association between CODI scores and depressive symptoms while controlling for demographic, ministerial, and health variables. In both samples, the five items of the CODI load onto a single factor and the Cronbach’s alpha scores are robust. The regression model indicates that a high score on the CODI (i.e., more frequent occupational distress) is positively associated with having depressive symptoms within the last 4 weeks. The CODI can be used to identify clergy who frequently experience occupational distress and to understand how occupational distress affects clergy’s health, ministerial career, and the functioning of their congregation.     

The Oswald Clergy Burnout Scale: Reliability, Factor Structure and Preliminary Application Among Australian Clergy

This study assesses the Oswald Clergy Burnout Scale (OCBI), the psychometric properties of which have not been previously described. Analysis of responses from a large number (N?=?3,012) of ministers in charge of Australian congregations showed that the scale’s internal reliability was satisfactory, and that the scale could be represented by two factors, identified, respectively, as the personal and social aspects of burnout. This structure was supported by confirmatory factor analysis. Several demographic and job-related variables that might relate to burnout were regressed on the total, personal and social factor scores. Age is the predominant (negative) predictor of burnout as measured by the total scale and the personal factor scores. All variables predict burnout as measured by the social factor. However, in all models, the predictor variables account for no more than 5% of the total variance. These findings suggest that demographic factors and working conditions are poor predictors of burnout among clergy.