What Makes Care Pastoral?

This essay argues for including two principal foci in both research and practice within pastoral theology. These foci include the care of souls (soul care) and care offered against the backdrop of “the Christian story.” The distinctiveness of pastoral care, as compared with other types of care, is also discussed.     

The Educational Reform Movement: What Does it Mean for Counseling?

Case, C.W., Lanier, J.E., & Miskel, C.G. (1986). The Holmes Group report: Impetus for gaining professional status for teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 37(4), 36–43.     

Strange Bedfellows?: Rational-Emotive Therapy and Pastoral Counseling

Integrating Rational-Emotive Therapy with biblical precepts is discussed as a basis for pastoral counselors to bridge the gap between religion and psychotherapy.     

Gender and Counseling in the Twenty-First Century: What Does the Future Hold?

As the twenty-first century approaches, counselors will be increasingly called on to assist individuals and society in adapting to changing conceptions of gender. Hence, counselors must be aware of the impact of gender on the way in which our society is defined, organized, and functions in order to do the best possible job for our clients. Ignoring the impact of conceptions of gender on our work is an invitation to disaster.     

Dual Relationships and Pastoral Counseling: Asset or Liability?

Dual relationships are proscribed in the standards of ethical conduct for most professional groups that provide counseling or psychotherapy. Dual relationships are thought to be unethical because they cloud the clinical judgment of the counselor and may present conflicts of interest that prevent the counseling relationship from being beneficial. Pastors frequently provide counseling for troubled persons or families, yet they often maintain other roles and relationships with these persons and families. This article addresses the issue of the inevitability of dual relationships in pastoral counseling. Courses of action for handling dual relationships in pastoral counseling are identified.     

“For-giving” and Forgiving: Process and Practice in Pastoral Care

This article examines some of the basic psychodynamic understandings of forgiveness including forgiveness as aesthetic, ahistorical, tact, or the ability to for-give that Julia Kristeva (1995, 1989, 1987a, b) presents in her writings on depression and melancholia, analytic process and technique, and love and faith. These are supplemented by more recent examinations of forgiveness in the therapeutic community (Worthington 1998; Watts and Gulliford 2004; McCullough et al. 2000) as they relate to Christian belief, Christian practice and pastoral care. I argue that it is in the context of a caring relationship where and when individuals experience “for-giving” that they develop the ability to accept forgiveness (especially of the self) and thus become individuals who can extend forgiveness to others. Even those entering pastoral ministry who have no desire or little ability to engage in pastoral counseling will be served well if their own abilities to be “for-giving” are cultivated during their theological education. Thus, the application of “for-giving” extends far beyond the analytic process or technique that Kristeva envisions to include pastoral identity formation and pastoral ministry.     

Spirituality in Counseling: What Do Counseling Students Think About It?

The author discusses students' reactions to 4 seminars. 1‐hour each, on the topic of spirituality in counseling. Students were enrolled in a master's‐level counseling program, Several issues emerged that have implications for the training of counselors on spiritual issues, including students' level of comfort with discussing spiritual issues, the difficulty of defining spirituality, client and counselor readiness to explore spirituality, and training issues in the area of spirituality.     

Does Univocity Entail Idolatry?

Idolatry is vehemently rejected by the Abrahamic faiths (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), and closely connected with idolatry are certain varieties of anthropomorphism, which involve the attribution of a human form or personality to God. The question investigated in this paper is whether a highly anthropomorphic conception of God, one that commits the sin of idolatry, is entailed by a particular theory of religious language. This theory is the 'univocity thesis', the view that, for some substitutions for 'F', the sense of '___ is F' as applied to God and its sense as applied to human creatures is exactly or substantially the same. My claim is that the univocity thesis entails a strong form of anthropomorphism that in effect reduces God to creaturely status and thus succumbs to idolatry (albeit a conceptual form of idolatry). In the course of my argument, a comparison is made between, on the one hand, the methods of Duns Scotus and modern proponents of perfect-being theology in arriving at a concept of God as maximally perfect, and on the other hand the work of Thomistic philosophers (especially Barry Miller) in showing how a more adequate conception of divinity can be reached by dispensing with some of the methods and assumptions of perfect-being theology, particularly the assumption of univocity.     

Does Dispositionalism Entail Panpsychism?

Topoi - According to recent arguments for panpsychism, all (or most) physical properties are dispositional, dispositions require categorical grounds, and the only categorical properties we know are...     

Does Universalism Entail Extensionalism?

Does a commitment to mereological universalism automatically bring along a commitment to the controversial doctrine of mereological extensionalism—the view that objects with the same proper parts are identical? A recent argument suggests the answer is ‘yes’. This paper attempts a systematic response to the argument, considering nearly every available line of reply. It argues that only one approach—the mutual parts view—can yield a viable mereology where universalism does not entail extensionalism.     

Does Conceivability Entail Metaphysical Possibility?

In this paper, we argue that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’, which is the view that ideal primary positive conceivability entails primary metaphysical possibility, is self‐defeating. To this end, we outline two reductio arguments against ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’. The first reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that conceivability both is and is not conclusive evidence for possibility. The second reductio shows that, from supposing that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is true, it follows that it is possible that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is necessarily false, and hence that ‘Weak Modal Rationalism’ is false. We then argue that adopting a weaker position according to which conceivability is merely prima facie evidence for possibility provides limited protection from our criticism of conceivability arguments. 1     

Virtual Empathy? Anxieties and Connections Teaching and Learning Pastoral Care Online

Is it possible to teach pastoral care online? McGarrah Sharp and Morris describe their process of transforming a residential on‐campus pastoral care course into the first online offering of the course at their seminary. They begin by describing a series of pedagogical choices made with the intent of facilitating dynamic movement between peer‐to‐peer, small group, and whole class discussions throughout the semester. Before and during the course, anxieties arose at many levels of instruction for the professor, teaching assistant, and students. Anecdotes and examples from the online course show how the online course design and facilitation was able to name and respond to anxieties as part of integrating pastoral care course content and practice – a key learning goal for the course. The authors are persuaded that online pedagogy can help identify how anxieties create space for developing empathy as much, if not more than, a traditional on‐campus format.     

Children and Psychotropic Medication: What Role Should Advocacy Counseling Play?

There are currently millions of children with mental and emotional symptoms who are being treated with psychotropic medication. The authors critique such treatment and suggest that advocacy counseling is a responsible approach to balance the power of both the pharmaceutical companies and the medical model in the mental health arena.