Prophetic ministry in the nuclear world

This essay opens with a summary of a modern psychoanalytic theory of large groups. This theory is used to analyze the character, first, of the American church; second, prophetic ministry; and finally, what the nuclear threat means to the American church. The essay concludes with a discussion of what this analysis says about how to do effective prophetic ministry in the American church in the nuclear age.He is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and an experienced psychotherapist. He is active in the anti-nuclear movement, most recently serving on the committee which successfully organized to make Chicago a Nuclear Weapon-Free Zone.     

Persistence in seminary and in ministry

A follow-up study of 672 seminary students from 14 seminaries who took the Theological School Inventory in 1962 and 574 from 10 seminaries who took it in 1973 investigated factors involved in persistence in seminary and in ministry. Among those found were definiteness of decision, interest in parish ministry, a supportive spouse, unambivalent resolution of the authority problem, good role models in father and ministers. Motivations included redemptive outreach, pastoral care, Christian insight and scholarship, the encouragement of other people and a sense of effectiveness in ministry.Dr. Cardwell is Assistant Professor of Psychology and Counseling at Christian Theological Seminary, 1000 W. 42nd St., Indianapolis, Indiana 46208. This study was the basis for her Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, June, 1978. TSI data for the 1973 subjects were made available by Richard A. Hunt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Southern Methodist University, and Director of Ministry Inventories, P.O. Box 8265, Dallas, Texas 75205. TSI data for the 1962 subjects were coded and made available by Edgar W. Mills. Ph.D., presently visiting Associate Professor of Sociology, University of Texas, San Antonio, formerly Director, Ministry Studies Board. Special credit is due the 16 seminaries who cooperated by furnishing follow-up data.     

Marriage and ministry in midlife women

This study of 15 midlife women seminarians or clergy and 13 of their husbands focuses upon the tension between a commitment to family life and a commitment to ordained ministry. The women were preparing to become Protestant clergy or were already in this vocation, while their husbands were middle-class, successful professional people. The study examines the impact of the new cultural self-development ethic upon the lives and religious faith of the women. Husbands' responses to the wives' changes are considered, and suggestions are made to supervising judicatories regarding assistance that may be given to the couples.He is an ordained minister of the Lutheran Church in America as well as a licensed psychologist in the state of Pennsylvania.     

Training for the campus ministry

Conclusion We will finish as we started. The minister preparing himself for work on the campus is like an army chaplain entering the battlefield for the first time. Anticipatory anxiety is to be expected. This anxiety can paralyze efficient work and endanger the integration of the personality, but by careful training this same anxiety can become constructive instead of destructive and a source of great pastoral creativity instead of distress. A minister who is prepared for his task can enter a university community even when it is in great turmoil, without fear. He is free. With a realistic confidence in his abilities, with a sense of inner harmony and, most of all, with trust in the value of his service, he can be a free witness for God, strengthening hope, fulfilling love, and making joy complete.This article will be a chapter inIntimacy: Pastoral Psychological Essays by the Rev. Henry J. M. Nouwen, to be published in the spring, 1969, by Fides Publishers, Inc., Notre Dame, Indiana. (The author wishes to give special thanks to Jim Burtchaell, C.S.C., David B. Burrell, C.S.C., Ralph F. Dunn, C.S.C., and John Gerber, C.S.C., of the University of Notre Dame for their constructive criticism on the first draft of this article.)     

Psychotherapy and counseling in professions other than the ministry

Conclusion My own chief impression and conclusion about this conference could not be better stated than has been done already by Lawrence K. Frank, Co-Chairman of the conference and member of our Editorial Advisory Board. He wrote:... the conference that was held is significant of a pervasive, may I say almost revolutionary, change in the climate of opinion. This change is characterized by a new awareness, a new set of assumptions, a new set of expectations, a particularly different way of thinking about ourselves ... Individuals suffering from early stunting and distortion can be helped to grow and mature, their strengths and potentialities can be evoked by various processes so that they can develop more nearly in terms of their capabilities.It is significant that every profession represented in these pages has declared itself a social agent, feeling itself to be a responsible agent dedicated ... to making operational our cherished beliefs in the worth of individual personality. Each group is working in its own way to recognize and conserve the human dignity of man, woman, and child.... each group here has acknowledged that no single profession is competent to undertake this difficult task of psychotherapy and counseling without further training and clinical experience that goes beyond the M. D., Ph.D., D.D., or whatever the degrees or titles may be ... No one person, merely because he has professional training and a degree, can claim that he is competent to undertake this difficult process.We may be approaching the time ... when we may see more agreement on scientific concepts, so that we can have an orchestration of professional skills and knowledge. I like the term orchestration because it gets away from ancillary and other terms of subordination and superordination. In an orchestra we recognize the unique place, function, and range of every instrument, but we realize that the instruments have to be played with coordination if they are going to be really productive of any theme played in unison.We may indeed hope that Lawrence Frank is right. And that we of the clergy may make a continuing contribution to such an end.