The Influence of Secular and Theological Education on Pastors’ Depression Intervention Decisions

Will a pastor refer to a mental health center? If they feel qualified to intervene themselves, they may not. Because pastors often provide grief counseling, it is important to understand the decisions they make when intervening with depressed individuals. A random sample of 204 Protestant pastors completed surveys about their treatment practices for depression. Fisher’s exact analyses revealed that more pastors with some secular education yet no degree felt that they were the best person to treat depression than pastors who had no secular education or pastors who had at least a secular bachelor’s degree. However, the level of theological education did not influence beliefs about the pastor being the best person to treat depression. In addition, neither secular nor theological education level influenced pastors’ views on referring people to mental health centers for depression treatment. Based on findings, this paper discusses implications for best practices in training pastors on depression and other mental health topics.     

Adolescent mental health: the role of youth and college pastors

The present study investigates the gatekeeping role of youth and college pastors, specifically exploring their psychological training, perceptions, attitudes, and interactions concerning adolescent congregants' mental illness. Texas youth and college pastors were anonymously surveyed regarding referral patterns, mental health interventions and contact, adolescent mental health perceptions, and means of collaboration. While the sample reported actively working with numerous adolescent mental health issues, the majority did not feel qualified to work with significant psychopathology. Despite this, they reported using various intervention methods, with the most common being initial counselling followed by a referral. Although the sample frequently referred to other professionals, they described many perceived barriers in collaborating with others in the mental health field. Overall, a positive role exists for youth and college pastors in adolescent mental health; however, tensions and conflicts between pastors and mental health professionals hinder the usefulness of these unique gatekeepers. Implications and recommendations for mental health professionals are highlighted.     

“Now there are diversities of gifts,but the same spirit.” (1Cor 12:4): images of the self and concepts of office of LGBTQ* pastors in Germany

ABSTRACT

After providing background information on the legal status and admission of LGBTIAQ* pastors in Germany, the paper focusses on experiences of LGBTQ* Protestant pastors in the major German Protestant church (Evangelische Kirche in Deutschland) to explore how they include their sexual orientation and/or gender in their pastoral work. LGBTIAQ* pastors face the challenge of managing visibility and discretion, in relation to a heteronormative setting, as well as the specific expectations of LGBTIAQ* Christians. The presumption of shared experiences and knowledge by similarly marginalized people plays a part in their ministry. The paper argues that embracing those experiences and community knowledge as part of pastoral theology can strengthen their reflection on pastoral work.     

When to Preach About Poverty: How Location,Race, and Ideology Shape White Evangelical Sermons

Social scientists have long been interested in how intergroup contact or elite messaging can reduce or eliminate racial biases. To better understand the role of religious elites in these political questions, we show how a church location's income and racial characteristics interact with racial and economic ideologies to shape the political content of sermons. Testing our theories through both quantitative and qualitative analysis of an original data set of more than 102,000 sermons from more than 5200 pastors, we show that contact is only effective as a means of decreasing prejudice to the extent that actors—in our case, pastors—are ideologically capable of reconciling their potential role in economic inequality. White Evangelical pastors rarely preach about issues of poverty or racial justice overall, but the context of the preaching matters. We find that the greater the share of Black population there is in a church community, the less likely White Evangelical pastors are to mention issues of poverty or racial justice, and when they do mention it, they hold to ideological commitments that avoid blaming systems for racialized economic inequality.     

Involved,Loyal, Alienated,and Detached. The Commitment of Pastors

This article deals with the commitment of pastors to their profession. An empirical inquiry among Roman Catholic and Protestant pastors reveals that two types of commitment play an important role in the pastoral profession: affective commitment and cost commitment. Affective commitment concerns positive emotional ties with the pastoral profession. Cost commitment refers to the problems that pastors expect to encounter were they to quit their profession. Both forms of commitment are connected to the pastors' religious orientation and their job satisfaction. The conclusion discusses the influence of commitment to the pastoral profession on staying on as pastor. It also reviews the effects of commitment on the pastors' dedication to their jobs and their general well-being.     

Life Stories of Latvian Lutheran Pastors

I have interviewed leading Latvian pastors and present here a series of autobiographical tributes in grateful recognition of their work. When I look at the typed pages on my table, it seems strange to me that it could all fit on a few sheets of paper: the pain, the suffering, the love and the victory, many victories. These pages are the fruit of long conversations with people I had known for many years - now I think I had not really known them before. Their deepest thoughts and longings had been hidden from the casual enquirer. For the first time in my life I have played the part of the journalist, one who enquires with the purpose of understanding and communicating this knowledge to others. A mysterious, even sacramental world has revealed itself to me: the world of the human soul, the world of a pastor's soul as he leads his flock through vicissitudes to the green pastures of heavenly life here on earth. I asked myself whether the pastors had always known the way, whether they had always seen the mighty hand of God in action. I was reminded that these people are our neighbours too; that as human beings it is they who sometimes need our help. The Latvian people owe their freedom to their pastors. I would like this brief collection to be a gesture of thanks to all the other pastors whose stories have not been told.     

Gender and Mainline Protestant Pastors' Allocation of Time to Work Tasks

Some scholars argue that male and female members of the Protestant clergy have differing ministerial styles. They argue that women are more person-oriented and interested in direct interaction with their parishioners and that men are more focused on job status and interested in administration. Using data on 1,688 clergy in eight mainline denominations, this research note compares the proportion of time that male and female pastors spend on 10 work tasks. Women devote less time than men to staff administration and supervision, a difference that is empirically attributable to their underrepresentation as senior pastors. The expectation of differing ministerial styles is most strongly supported in women's greater allocation of time to pastoral counseling—a "personalized," one-on-one ministry. However, they also spend proportionately less time than men on home and hospital visitation. This seemingly anomalous difference can be explained empirically as a factor of differential childcare responsibilities, which appear to limit women's but not men's movement away from home and church.     

African-American clergy's perceptions of the leading health problems in their communities and their role in supporting parishioners' health

This article is a report on a survey of Southern California pastors to learn of their perceptions of the leading health problems in their congregations. Participants (N=41) identified stress, overweight, and obesity as the top three health indicators that effect the health of their congregations. Tobacco use and substance abuse were listed among the top five. From a list of health problems, pastors felt that from the pulpit they could impact parishioners responsible sexual behavior most. Pastors expressed their opinions about the reasons for certain maladies and addictions. The findings indicate room for improvement in building clergy's understanding of the nature of illness and addiction and in empowering them in their role of supporting healthy behaviors in the African-American community.     

Baptist senior pastors’ knowledge and perceptions of mental illness

Senior pastors at churches affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT) were anonymously surveyed using an online questionnaire to ascertain their knowledge and perceptions of the causes and potential treatments of mental illness. BGCT senior pastors reported a moderate level of contact with the mentally ill and populations known to have higher than average rates of mental illness (e.g., homeless). They also reported that the individuals with whom they counsel are rarely diagnosed with mental illness. While Baptist senior pastors embraced biological causes and treatments for mental illness as most important and effective, they varied greatly across disorders as to the perceived contribution of psychosocial and spiritual factors. Senior pastors in the present study reported being open to referring their congregants to mental health care professionals with whom they shared common values. Overall, the results of the study point to a need for greater mental health education for Baptist clergy as well as opportunities for the development of increased collaboration between the mental health and faith communities.     

The Performance of Authenticity: Ordination and Profession in Pastoral Care

Quite a few pastors experience a feeling of inauthenticity when performing their duties. Trying to fulfill the wishes and needs of those of the congregation who ask for their help, they feel like an impostor. The discrepancy between act and experience causes a serious problem in identity. However when authenticity is not considered to be an individual experience and a personal dilemma but as a relational characteristic, the concept of play may be usefully engaged to explain the dramaturgical essence of pastoral performance. The success of pastoral performance depends on maintaining the right aesthetical distance in the drama enacted, so that some form of catharsis might be effected. That distance is found in introducing the concept of ordination where the relation between pastor and congregation is concerned, and it is to be found in the concept of profession where pastors perceive and evaluate their own role performance. Both ordination and profession act as distancing devices enabling the pastor to play the right role rightly. Acting as if, the pastor may be experienced as authentic, as a real pastor.     

Ethical Issues in Counselling and Pastoral Care

The historical and contemporary context of pastoral care and counselling within the judaeo/Christian tradition is reviewed. Three kinds of pastors who use counselling in their work - Christian, specialist, and generic - are identified and the ethical problems of their positions clarified. The ethical principles of autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice are applied to the counselling work of pastors. Theology's definition of various ethical levels, and the impact of these upon the professional ethics of pastoral carers and counsellors, are explored, and some conclusions for the future drawn.     

Christ‐Centered Concreteness: The Christian Activism of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr. were both pastors and theologians who wrestled with the meaning of Christ‐centered faithfulness for their time. They were advocates of social justice and human rights who resisted the temptation towards a secularizing two‐realms split that makes Christianity a private life religion; they defied contemporary laws and cultural norms, and they faced opposition to their work from many of their fellow Christians. We may learn from their prophetic witness for Christian faithfulness in our contexts by paying attention to their respective interpretations of the way of Jesus.     

A theology of pastoral multiplicity

The contemporary moment is characterized by liquidity and difference. “Liquidity” means rapidly changing social structures, accelerations in consumption, and constantly changing personal and group identities. In this increasingly diverse context, encounters with difference are not only inevitable, they are essential—and can be transformative for our understandings of our multiple selves, for our pastoral encounters with others, and for our theological imagination, as well. Viewing the self, especially the pastor's self, as a collection of multiple selves, identities, and performances illumines pastoral leadership; pastors who claim their multiplicity more wholly meet “others” when encountering difference. The triune God reveals divine multiplicity, so pastors who claim their multiplicity as their identity thereby make a theological claim.     

Pastor,are You a Religious Illiterate?

Abstract : The growing religious diversity of the United States forces pastors into the role of spokesperson for the Christian faith along with becoming chief educator about other religious traditions for the congregation. Pastors, now more than ever, have the responsibility to become educated about the world's religions and to share this knowledge with their parishioners. To prepare clergy for these new responsibilities, three Lutheran pastors speak from their own experiences of deliberately engaging and studying diverse religious communities. With special focus on Islam and Hinduism, the pastors provide resources for further reading and study. This collaborative effort aims to encourage and empower pastors to embrace these new components of their calling by openly and regularly interacting with their religious neighbors.     

Spiritual support in life threatening illness

This work evaluated the experiences of 45 patients of children with cancer and 101 cancer patients with their home pastors and hospital chaplains. The sttisfactions and difficulties enountered in these interactions are detailed, and recommendations are offered to aid persons in acute distress. Individuals in these circumstances appear to desire spiritual support more than evident psychologial aid, though the skillful use of the latter to understant the religious desires of the patients and parents is appreciated. It is also evident that pastors dealing which problems related to potential terminality are themselves under considerble stress.     

Not Practising Theology

Many pastors are prepared for a vocation they do not practice while they are performing a ministry they have not learned. While providing pastoral care they are eager to help, support, and comfort but they hesitate to theologize, to practice theology. At least three considerations may offer an explanation for this paradoxical fact: 1. Most pastors consider theology to be static and historical instead of dynamic and interactional; 2. Students of theology never learn to practice theology, therefore, as a minister, they prefer to listen and refuse to speak; 3. Many ministers mask a lack of courage and motivation in publicly professing what they privately believe, by providing therapeutic help to those who are in pastoral need.     

Pastoral counseling with alcoholics and their families

The pastor is often in contact with the alcoholic and his or her family. Providing help to alcoholics and their families is a spiritual, humanistic, and therapeutic challenge. Recent developments have favored a family systems orientation to working with alcoholic families. This orientation acknowledges the family as contributor to maintaining alcoholic behavior and includes the family in treatment. Specific family systems concepts are discussed and how they relate to the dysfunctional unit which houses an alcoholic. Implications for pastors and specific role definitions are explored. Krebs' therapeutic model is expanded to: 1) evaluate, 2) support, 3) refer, and 4) support, as appropriate for the pastor working with alcoholics and their families.     

The Perceptions of Lutheran Pastors Toward Prenatal Genetic Counseling and Pastoral Care

The purpose of this study is to explore a theological perspective toward genetic counseling. A survey was sent to 207 ministers within the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), to determine their perspectives toward four different scenarios in a prenatal genetic counseling setting. The four different scenarios included situations involving Huntington disease, Down syndrome, trisomy 18, and anencephaly. Nearly all ELCA Lutheran pastors perceived genetic counseling as beneficial and useful and wanted to be involved in the decision-making process for whether or not to terminate the pregnancy. Their views toward termination of pregnancy varied depending on the severity of the genetic abnormality. Severity in this study was based upon life compatibility. As the severity of the genetic abnormality increased, the percentage of Lutheran pastors who viewed termination as an option increased from 23% (Down syndrome) to 62% (anencephaly). A better understanding of how spiritual leaders view genetic counseling would provide an insight into how genetics and religious beliefs together play a significant role in shaping the decisions of those faced with abnormal pregnancies.     

Pastoral counseling among Chinese churches: a Canadian study

This article reports the results of a survey of Canadian Chinese pastors (N 20) regarding their experiences and attitudes related to pastoral counseling. It identifies common concerns encountered during pastoral counseling, as well as key areas of church concerns. Results of the survey indicate that pastoral counseling may be more important than is currently recognized by Chinese pastors, particularly in key areas of marriage, family life, and general relationship issues. The authors discuss possible implications of the survey relative to training and equipping Chinese pastors to engage more in pastoral counseling as an integral part of their parish ministry.