Prison pastoral care: The seer as a new paradigm

The purpose of this essay is twofold: to review two existing paradigms (the Priest and the Prophet) of pastoral care with prisoners; to propose a new paradigm (the Seer). The prison chaplain has been traditionally identified as a priest or a prophet. The change of pastoral setting from parish to prison is a drastic one that requires a paradigm shift. Incarceration is understood in terms of liminality which is a transitional period of a life re-ordering. To those in liminality, the Seer as a divine visionary of hope comes to reawaken a sense of God's presence and aims at renewing of covenant faith.This article is an edited version of an address presented by the author to the Chaplains of Tennessee Department of Corrections at their annual meeting in January 1990.     

Incarnation and pastoral care

This essay is an examination of the usefulness of incarnation as a theological metaphor for pastoral care and counseling. Understanding the incarnation as both an event and as a paradigm of God's relationship to the world provides a theological perspective for examining four interrelated questions about identity and the helping relationship frequently asked by the pastoral care-giver. The incarnation metaphor finally frees us to care in the confidence that in God the Incarnating One, all things, including our care for the sick, are held together.Dr. Anderson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology and Counseling at Wartburg Theological Seminary, 333 Wartburg Place, Dubuque, Iowa 52001.     

Phenomenology and pastoral care

The author discusses phenomenology as a potential resource for pastoral care generally and then illustrates its implications in two specific areas of pastoral care. After a brief discussion of the development of phenomenology, he defines pastoral care and identifies its methodological problem. Phenomenology, it is argued, offers potentially helpful methods and interpretative categories in its attitude, its attempts at self-aware, ordered discernment, and its anthropology. It serves to militate against the temptation in pastoral care to understand human problems in terms of individual and social pathology, in the case of individuals, and to illumine the ways the community functions as a dimension of pastoral care.He is the author ofEcclesial Man.     

Ministry as Womb and Tomb: Baptism as a Paradigm for Ministry

This article rethinks a paradigm for ministry in a world in which a culture of choice is radically challenging sacramental, baptismal theology. Drawing on the two fundamental biblical metaphors for baptism—baptism as a womb (John 3) and a tomb (Rom 6)—the article tries to reimagine ministry emerging from these two metaphors. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of developing ministry by the use of this dialectic—ministry as both womb and tomb.     

Jungian psychology and pastoral care

This article provides a review of the implications of analytic psychology for pastoral care and the caregiver. Four areas of Jung's thought are examined: (1) his mode of treatment, (2) the process of individuation, (3) his theory of personality types, and (4) his concept of synchronicity. We suggest that Jung's system of thought contains a rich reservoir of insight for the enrichment of pastoral care.     

Genetic science and pastoral care

Important advances in the field of genetic science have raised new and challenging pastoral issues. This article describes the nature of genetic screening and artificial fertilization and follows each with the relevant pastoral implications.     

Toward a theology of maturity in pastoral care

Popular theology has neglected a developmental perspective and has reinforced the concepts of human inadequacy and divine self-sufficiency. This has tended to keep persons in a state of infantile dependency on a super-father-figure God. Pastoral care, with its concern for the person and its commitment to the processes of growing and maturing in the self and in relationships, needs a theological frame of reference which positively reinforces a developing maturity in relation to God, as well as self and others.Formerly Associate Professor of Psychology of Religion and Pastoral Care at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dr. Woodruff is Executive Director of the Peninsula Pastoral Counseling Center, Hampton, Virginia.     

The Relationship Between Marital Characteristics,Marital Interaction Processes,and Marital Satisfaction

Structural Equation Modeling techniques were used to clarify the relationship between marital characteristics, marital processes, and the dependent variable—marital satisfaction—in a sample of 201 participants who were in 1st marriages. The Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS; G. B. Spanier, 1976) and the Enriching and Nurturing Relationship Issues, Communication and Happiness Inventory (ENRICH; D. H. Olson, D. G. Fournier, & J. M. Druckman, 1987) provided scales to measure marital interaction processes and marital satisfaction. A new instrument, the Characteristics of Marriage Inventory (CHARISMA; J. R. Rosen‐Grandon & J. E. Myers, 2001), was developed using factor analysis to determine which marital characteristics were statistically significant. Structural equation modeling identified a path model wherein 6 marital interaction processes had a statistically significant influence on marital satisfaction when mediated by 3 latent factors of marital characteristics (love, loyalty, and shared values) and 2 moderating variables (length of marriage and gender of participant).