Appraisal of applicants for ministry careers

A proposed evaluation protocol addresses the need for standards of practice in assessing candidates for ministry careers. The protocol is tailored to parish clergy psychological risk and resiliency factors articulated by personnel officers and identified in scholarly literature. It employs readily available psychological tests with demonstrated psychometric qualities. It utilises interview questions to confirm or disconfirm test-generated hypotheses and to probe for evidence of coping with challenging circumstances. The protocol generates data for appraising risk and promoting long-term resilience. Application of the protocol to 120 applicants for clergy careers in the Episcopal Diocese of the Southwest (EDSW) demonstrates that applicants respond to psychological tests in a manner different from general job applicants. Data analysis generates norms for indentifying unusual applicants who may be at risk for troubled careers. Discussion centres on identifying early markers of risk and resiliency in ministry careers.     

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.