Shame and Pastoral Care: Implications from an Asian Theological Perspective

Using the story of a Korean woman as a case study for pastoral caregivers, this article attempts to address some appropriate pastoral responses toward the “human impasse” from an Asian theological perspective. This article highlights the significance of remembrance and connection rather than repression and forgetfulness in order to bring justice to shamed persons, like this Korean woman. This article builds on Jacoby’s “social amnesia,” calls for redefining the meaning of community, and attempts to address the human predicaments such as shame experiences from an Asian perspective. In order to address pastoral responses, this article also builds upon Martin Luther King, Jr.’s concept of interrelatedness and shared destiny. It critically examines Jung Young Lee’s theology of marginality and draws the pastoral implications of this theology of marginality with respect to shame experiences. This article concludes with an Asian model of pastoral care and counseling.     

Middlesex: A Pastoral Theological Reading

This article, written for the Group for New Directions in Pastoral Theology’s conference on the theme of “Emotion, Mood, and Temperament,” focuses on Middlesex, a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Jeffrey Eugenides, Professor of Creative Writing in the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University. The novel, set in 20th century America and written as a fictional memoir, is a coming-of-age story of Cal/Calliope, a man with an intersex condition caused by 5-alpha-reductase deficiency. The mission statement of the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA) states that the organization is “devoted to systemic change to end shame, secrecy, and unwanted genital surgeries for people born with an anatomy that someone decided is not standard for male or female.” This essay employs the resources of pastoral theology to assist in the project of ending shame regarding intersex conditions by offering a pastoral theological reading of Middlesex. As such, this essay is an example of the discipline of pastoral theology being employed in the field of medical humanities in particular and the field of clinical humanities more broadly, and it also serves as an example as to how one might offer a pastoral theological reading of a novel.     

A Pastoral Theological Approach to the New Anxiety

Noting that we live in anxious times, and that the question is not whether but to what extent are the persons with whom pastoral and spiritual caregivers work today are experiencing anxiety, the paper claims that a basic understanding of the nature of anxiety is required in order to practice pastoral care effectively. To this end, it focuses on the role an uncertain future plays in the development of anxiety; on the importance of determining whether the person with whom one is working has a degree of anxiety that is out of proportion to the threat that he or she is under; and on the fact that although anxiety is endemic to the modern condition, it is also the case that a more acute form of anxiety is a primary feature of the super-modern condition. This “new anxiety” is complex and multifaceted, but a fundamental feature of this new anxiety is that it has less to do with the loss and more to do with an excess of meaning. Resources from the Judeo–Christian tradition include the teachings of Jesus on anxiety and the importance it places on hope experientially grounded in the living presence of a loving God.     

Debating the Theological Implications of New Technologies

In a recent report on focus group discussions of GMOs in Britain, Celia Deane Drummond et al. observed that public anxieties about emerging biotechnologies often reflect concerns that are ultimately theological in nature. Such concerns (whether in relation to biotechnology or other areas of technological development) may be easily dismissed as peripheral or irrelevant to the core secular issues of health, safety, environmental impacts, the politics of commercialization and research integrity. However, I shall argue that theological questions are actually integral to the ongoing development of technology and that there is a need for a public discourse that enables such questions to be articulated and debated.     

From a Distance: Pastoral Care and Theological Education

Abstract. This article is a presentation and discussion of a seminary course on the Corinthian Correspondence. The pedagogical model for this course was structured to parallel the pattern of Paul's pastoral care from a distance as he relates to the Corinthian congregation by personal visits, delegations from and to the congregation, letters from and to the congregation, and unofficial grapevine types of communication. The course was designed for dispersed students to interact with the Corinthian letters, with each other, and with myself as instructor in ways that 1) simulate a first‐century exchange between congregation and apostle and 2) facilitate careful interpretive work on the message of these letters, including their contemporary relevance.     

Love as a Starting Point for Pastoral Theological Reflection

This article draws on recent work in the theology of love to propose steps toward the development of a pastoral theology of love in order to inform the practice of pastoral care. A pastoral theology of love is a necessary foundation for an ecclesial practice of pastoral care that promotes growth in love. The article defines love and addresses key issues in the theology of love, namely, human agency and the analogies that exist or do not exist between human and divine love and the concept of growth in love, or sanctification. The article concludes by proposing and sketching some key features of a pastoral theology of love for pastoral practice.     

Theological Implications of Possible Extraterrestrial Life

Bible and tradition remain silent on intelligent extraterrestrial life, and few modern theologians have expressed themselves on this topic. Scientific insight suggests the possibility, even likelihood, of the development of life on extrasolar earthlike planets. It is argued that such life forms would resemble earthly life (biochemistry, genetic system, neuronal processes) and also develop a religious and moral life. As creatures with free will they would be prone to sin and in need of salvation. It is argued that this would not require multiple incarnations, since Jesus is the cosmic Christ.     

Pastoral Theological Reflections on Pamela Cooper-White's Shared Wisdom: Use of the Self in Pastoral Care and Counseling

This article reviews Pamela Cooper-White's book as an extraordinarily well developed, nuanced, and empirically grounded reflection on the significance of transference and countertransference dynamics in ministry; it also points to several ways in which the book's thesis could be more fully developed theologically and more broadly applied in ministry.     

Pastoral ecstasy and the authentic self: Theological meanings in symbolic distance

Pastoral ecstasy is defined as the capacity for and the experience of my distance from myself. It is the ability to stand outside one's social roles for purposes of critical reflection. Social roles are inevitable and cannot be laid aside. The role-distancing of the authentic self nurtures emotional well-being and enables the pastor to reflect, address his failures, and modify his patterns and behavior. The capacity for role-distancing demonstrates a natural self-role duplicity that is legitimate, i.e., to stand outside of and critically reflect on one's role while performing responsibly within it. Authentic living involves this legitimate duplicity and indicates honest commitment.This article was first presented as an address before the Southwest Regional Meeting of the Association for Clinical Pastoral Education in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Spring 1976.     

The Passion to Heal: A Theological Pastoral Approach to HIV/AIDS

Abstract. The global pandemic of HIV/AIDS is the most significant challenge of our time. The ongoing conversation between religion and science comes to a critical juncture in this pandemic. The global community has not yet found a vaccine or cure for this virulent virus, which will likely claim five million more lives in the coming year. The global statistics challenge even the most sophisticated imagination, with projections in the tens of millions of people dead, orphaned children, and many more living in various stages of incapacitation or diminished lives. There is a common prophetic religious imperative among Western faith communities that urgently requires both science and religion to respond. Both disciplines define their scope and purpose as universal, and the global pandemic provides a significant challenge to that universal claim. Regardless of the many differences among the nations and peoples challenged by this pandemic, there is a common moral foundation to which the Western religious and scientific traditions must respond. Religion and science cannot deny their respective social responsibilities by claiming the role of neutral bystander. There are several critical ethical choices to be made in response to the pandemic, and the disciplines of religion and science are critical in formulating those choices.     

Pastoral Theological Reflection on Grief: Contemporary Theory and the Practice of Ministry by Melissa Kelley

This article highlights four of Melissa Kelley’s contributions in her book Grief: Contemporary Theory and Practice. The author identifies these as: 1) Kelley’s capacity to distill and synthesize the most important areas of contemporary grief theory; 2) her work on attachment theory and its relationship to people’s ways of coping with grief; 3) the focus on the research of Bonanno et al. (Journal of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences 60:67–73, 2005) and showing us who is most vulnerable and in need of pastoral care during grief; 4) her emphasis on meaning making as the core of the grieving process. The article also lifts up questions concerning communal practices for grieving loss born of injustice and the need for prevention and fostering coping mechanisms so that the worst effects of grief might be mitigated.     

Spirituality and Homelessness: Implications for Pastoral Counseling

This article presents a limited number of findings from a larger research project that explores spiritual themes related to the experience of homelessness as reported by 16 research participants following their residence in a 90-day emergency shelter program in Los Angeles County, California. By utilizing interpretive phenomenological analysis, the study focuses solely on three spiritual themes present in the experience of homelessness. Participants noted experiencing the presence of hope and motivation while homeless, the challenges of coping with the homeless stigma, and times in which they felt (and did not feel) “human.” Implications for pastoral counselors and others offering spiritually-integrated counsel in the context of homelessness are discussed.     

Models of Psychotherapy: Implications for Pastoral Care Practice

Pastoral care givers are called to provide care and counseling to parishioners that are suffering in many ways. A core question is what does a pastor rely on to provide this care? Pastors usually call on models of psychotherapy to inform their care giving. A framework of theological anthropology, cosmology, soteriology and harmatiology is developed for analyzing the worldviews inherent in models of psychotherapy. The specific models of Adler’s Individual Psychology, Narrative therapy, Horney’s personality theory, and Intersubjective theory are used to demonstrate the application of this framework. Several pastoral care implications are developed following the application of the framework.     

The Theological Contributions of Bishop K. H. Ting to Christian/Pastoral Counseling

As China enters an era of urbanization and change, mental health issues are increasingly becoming a concern of the Christian church. Pastoral counseling is taking new shape as people of faith respond to those in their midst in need of care. Bishop K. H. Ting, a long-time leader of the Chinese church, has stressed the importance of an indigenous Chinese Christianity. This article is based on an examination of Bishop Ting’s theological writing with the aim of eliciting themes that might be foundational in the construction of inherently Chinese models of pastoral counseling. Based on a survey of his work, six themes emerge with particular importance for pastoral counseling: the Three-Self church, God is Love, the Cosmic Christ, ethical responsibility, theological reconstruction, and religion in society. These themes are explored within their uniquely Chinese context and suggestions for application to the practice of pastoral counseling are discussed. Original publication: Wang, P. (Ed.) (2006). Seeking Truth in Love. Nanjing, China: Nanjing Seminary Press. This essay was originally published in a collection of essays honoring Bishop K. H. Ting on his 90th birthday. Bishop Ting has been the head of the Chinese Protestant church for over five decades and his leadership has profoundly shaped Chinese theology and church life. The purpose of this essay is to explore how his collected theological writings might inform a uniquely Chinese approach to pastoral counseling. This article is published with the permission of the original publisher.     

Religion,Morality, and Democratic Virtues: A Liberal Theological Approach to Pastoral Care

Starting from a general definition of pastoral care and politics, it is argued that pastoral care can have nothing to do with party politics. Instead, the theme of pastoral care and politics should be regarded as a sub-set of the larger issue of religion and politics in a democratic society. Adopting the view that political philosophy is at bottom an exercise in moral reflection, this article focuses on two interrelated issues: the compatibility of religion and democracy, and the connection between religion and morality. The argument proceeds in three steps. In the first section, it is demonstrated why and how major political philosophers deem it necessary to impose certain limitations on the role of religion in the public square. In the second section, Kierkegaard’s interpretation of the biblical story of Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22) is treated as a problematic tradition in Christian theology of admiring authoritarian faith. Finally, as a means of overcoming these difficulties, a plea is made for returning to the tradition of liberal theology and its emphasis on the internal connection between religion and morality, and on developing conscience and civic virtues by way of self-culture.     

The Nearing Death Process and Pastoral Counseling

Philosophic concepts of death are pervasive throughout all societies as shared values, differing in particulars, but similar in general. So, too, is the prospect of a death a consideration for every person, an eventual reality brought most forcefully to mind as it nears. This article explores various mindsets those who provide pastoral counseling will encounter among clients and suggest effective approaches to providing the mental and spiritual solace sought. Further, consideration is given to the psychological and spiritual mein of the pastoral counselor, and how this can affect both client and counselor.