Читать книгу Converging Horizons - Allan Hugh Cole - Страница 13

Introduction

Pastoral theology has attracted me for nearly two decades. Several of its qualities inform this attraction. One quality has to do with pastoral theologians themselves. I find them to be smart, creative, interesting, wise, and fun. They also tend to take intellectual and professional risks in ways that set them apart. As a result, they intrigue me and garner my admiration and affection.

Another attractive quality relates to pastoral theology’s identity as a field. As Robert C. Dykstra has noted, pastoral theology “typically refuses to behave, especially in terms of conclusively defining itself” (Dykstra, 2005, 5). In other words, pastoral theology and pastoral theologians maintain complex, variable, and often multiple identities. Pastoral theologians also tend to live and work contentedly with a measure of ambiguity, iconoclasm, countercultural appreciation, and even rebellion, all of which I think we need more of in theological education, not to mention the church. For all of these reasons, I find pastoral theology attractive.

I am also attracted to pastoral theology because, at its best, it works mainly with two broad fields of inquiry and practice that I find particularly significant and compelling—namely, the fields of theology and psychology. Of course, pastoral theologians draw from these fields in a variety of ways. Their work involves appealing to multiple forms of theological and psychological knowledge and practical wisdom—that is, appealing to various schools of thought within these wide-ranging disciplines, in both “systematic” and “ad hoc” manners. Pastoral theologians routinely engage other resources relating to the human condition as well, drawing especially from the range of human and social sciences. Making use of multiple approaches allows for intellectual diversity in pastoral theological work. Pastoral theology not only welcomes panoplies of focal subjects, but it remains less wed to prescriptive methods than some other academic fields. Indeed, when engaging in pastoral theological thinking, writing, and practice, one may drink plentifully from deep wells of knowledge and wisdom that attend to some of life’s most profound, pressing, and perplexing concerns; but one may extract from these wells using different types of “pumps” and “containers” appropriate for particular contexts, distinct needs, and available resources. For all of these reasons, pastoral theologians enjoy a measure of freedom uncommon in the academy.

When describing an encounter he had with a colleague who works in another academic discipline, Dykstra writes eloquently of the freedom that pastoral theologians enjoy precisely because pastoral theology “refuses to behave.” After sharing details about his current research with a friend, this friend remarked, “You know, it’s not fair; you pastoral theologians can study whatever you damn well please” (Dykstra, 2001, 48). Reflecting on this encounter, Dykstra writes, “His spontaneous comment . . . served to reinforce my conviction that, at some point long before or during their professional training, ministers and theologians typically learn to hesitate to pursue their own particular passions or to remain interested in what interests them” (48). This perspective helps me clarify further my own attraction to pastoral theology. My attraction follows from encounters with pastoral theology’s complex and multiple identities, but also from encounters with pastoral theologians who enjoy the freedom to remain interested in what interests them, and to study what they damn well please.

In my work as a pastoral theologian, I draw from my own complex and multiple identities. I make use of what might be called my “two selves.” One is my unconventional (and sometimes iconoclastic) self, perhaps most clearly reflected in my work in the psychology of religion and with psychodynamic psychologies (Cole, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2005a, 2005b, 2009b, 2010a, 2010b; Dykstra, Cole, and Capps, 2007). In this type of work, I enjoy swimming against prevailing tides (theologically and otherwise), stretching boundaries, challenging hegemony, and thinking outside of the proverbial “box.” The freedom to engage in this kind of work and, as important, the freedom to learn from those doing similar work, spawned, and later furthered, my interest in pastoral theology. These freedoms have also sustained my desire to make working in pastoral theology my primary vocation.

I think here especially of the shaping influences of scholars such as Donald Capps (1993a, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2008), Robert C. Dykstra (1997; 1999, 2001, 2005, 2007 [with Cole and Capps], 2009), James E. Dittes (1967, 1973, 1996, 1999a, 1999b) Bonnie Miller-McLemore (1988, 2003, 2006), John McDargh (1983, 1992), and more recently, Jaco Hamman (2007, 2009) and Nathan Carlin (2005, 2006, 2009a, 2009b, 2009c). Although their interests and perspectives vary, their collective penchant for working with ambiguity, iconoclasm, and unconventional ideas, their ability to draw from wide-ranging intellectual resources, and their faithful rebellion and “misbehaving” continues to buoy not only my intellectual life but my religious life as well. In a variety of ways, these thinkers (and some others like them) have helped me find new meaning and joy, not only in my work but also in my faith. Truth be told, these thinkers and others like them have helped restore faith qualities that had been compromised prior to my encounters with pastoral theologians. People who “misbehave” sometimes inspire us. They help us make more sense of who we are, what we do, and what truly matters to us, even when we may not always join in their misbehaving or misbehave differently.

Another part of me, my other self, is more conventional and temperate. It has also been nurtured and sustained at the wells of pastoral theology. I have in mind here especially the part of me that believes in the uniqueness and sacredness of the individual person, qualities that derive from having been created by God and called to serve God and other persons by virtue of God’s love. Jesus’ rhetorical question to his disciples, “If a shepherd has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine on the mountains and go in search of the one that went astray?” (Matt 18:12), points to this sacredness of individual lives. I also have in mind the importance that I attribute to ministers and congregations for attending to personal concerns and needs, so that these unique, called, and loved individuals (with God’s grace) may thrive. The same pastoral theologians I mentioned previously have fostered growth in my more conventional self, too; but some others have as well—scholars like Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger (2006), Carol Schnabel Schweitzer (2008, 2009), Daniel S. Schipani (2003), Gaylord B. Noyce (1982, 1989), Ralph Underwood (1993), and Margaret Kornfeld (2000)—all of whom have been known to “misbehave” as well, but whose work often centers on more conventional and even traditional pastoral theological pursuits.

My interest in pastoral care in particular, reflected in the majority of my published work and on most days my primary scholarly focus, largely (though not exclusively) issues from my more conventional self (e.g., Cole, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2009a). Also springing from my more conventional self, I suspect, is my belief that caring ministers, by virtue of their distinctive vocation, have something to offer to persons in the way of care and nurture that professional caregivers (e.g., psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, and psychotherapists) do not have to offer, at least not by virtue of their professional orientations and commitments. On this point I have been helped in my thinking especially by Donald Capps (1979, 1990, 1993b, 1998, 2001) and Paul W. Pruyser (1976). The balance of this essay considers this view concerning the distinctiveness of pastoral care.

For me, these two selves and the work that issues from them need one another in order to do pastoral theological work in the most meaningful and relevant way. I would suggest that pastoral theology as an academic discipline also needs to maintain, and even celebrate, its multiple selves. That is, multiple sets of perspectives—the iconoclastic, unconventional, and rebellious, along with the conventional, traditional, and temperate—necessarily inform one another, learn from one another, and, in a sense, hold one another accountable. Some days, and with some projects, one of my selves may take the lead role, but the other tags along and reminds its companion of their shared presence and need for one another. Perhaps this is true for other pastoral theologians, too.

The balance of this essay attends to the question “What Makes Care Pastoral?” These reflections were first presented in an address delivered on the occasion of Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary’s opening convocation service in the fall of 2009. In offering these reflections here, I want to make a case for pastoral theology including a place for its distinctiveness, whether when taking up new directions or when reclaiming former ones.

An Encounter at the Pool

A few weeks ago, on a Saturday morning, my family and I were at a local pool. We were trying to “beat the heat” of a central Texas summer. Meeting a nice couple with a little girl about the same age as our youngest daughter, my wife, Tracey, and I began chatting with them while our kids played together. We talked about the sweltering heat, our children (of course), and some other matters. But as these types of conversations often unfold, it wasn’t long before talk turned to our respective occupations. “What sort of work do you do?” the woman asked me. “I am a seminary professor,” I said, “I teach at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary.”

The man, who is an architect, lost interest rather quickly. I know that he lost interest because he began looking at his daughter’s pool noodle; and he slowly but deliberately moved out of the conversation. Perhaps you’ve experienced a similar kind of parting. It’s like when someone looks at her watch when you are in the middle of saying something.

But the woman wanted to know more. It turned out that she had a long-standing interest in ethics; and she had even toyed with the idea of going to seminary herself before deciding on law school instead. She inquired further, “What do you teach?” “Well,” I replied, “I teach pastoral care.”

On this note, her husband began moving to the other side of the pool. Clearly, I’d lost him back at “I am a seminary professor,” and the part about teaching pastoral care merely sealed the deal on his lack of curiosity. But she remained close by, so we continued talking. We spoke about various things—including her work as a corporate attorney. We also conversed about Tracey’s experiences in geriatric social work and I joked about her being my “long-term investment.” And we talked more about our children and some of the joys and challenges of parenting. But then the woman returned to the earlier subject and asked me another question, “What exactly is pastoral care?”

Now I must confess that at this point a part of me wanted to move to the other side of the pool, too. I was there to cool off and to have family time, not to talk shop. And I especially had reservations about doing so with someone I figured was not conversant in “seminary speak” nor possessing of a “pastoral lexicon”—you know, someone who would require more of an explanation about pastoral care than I was prepared to give. It was sort of like when someone asks you a question that requires about ten minutes to answer and you have thirty seconds to work with.

Or, maybe more honestly, it felt a little awkward to take the conversation further. One of my conversation partners was clearly uninterested in what I had to say—he was still across the pool. My other conversation partner had just quipped about strategies for protecting personal assets and leveraging business deals in her work as an attorney. All I had to talk about were strategies for active listening, interpersonal communication, critical self-reflection, speaking the truth in love, naming and honoring feelings (for God’s sake), and strategies for following Jesus. I felt like one wearing a Speedo on a deep sea fishing expedition. I felt unprepared and a little out of place.

But this was an opportunity to bear witness, at least in part, to what I love and claim as my vocation; to bear witness to what I do—to what we do—at Austin Seminary and as ministers of the church. And wanting to be faithful to all of that, I offered a response to the woman’s question: “My courses focus on equipping students, many of whom will be ministers, to provide supportive care and brief counseling to people in need.” I think it sounded more eloquent at the pool, but you get the idea, I hope, of what I was up against.

Two Distinct Qualities of Pastoral Care

This experience got me thinking afresh about what we do—or presume to do—as ministers of care, as servants who seek to support and nurture others on behalf of God in Jesus Christ. It got me thinking anew about what we do as pastoral caregivers. It also brought to mind a question—one that I often ask students the first week of class; a question that frames many of the courses I teach. The question is this: “What makes the care and nurture of persons pastoral?” Or, to ask it in a slightly different manner, “How is pastoral care distinct, even unique, as compared with other types of care?” I invite you to think with me on those questions as a way of getting at answers to the similar question posed by the woman at the pool—namely, “What exactly is pastoral care?”

Now, let me note from the outset that I think one could correctly point out numerous qualities that make pastoral care distinctive, which is to say that I do not presume to cover all of those qualities in this address. One could also rightly note that some of what pastoral caregivers do (whether as pastors, deacons, chaplains, lay leaders, or professional pastoral counselors) is not all that distinctive. It overlaps with what other caregivers do—people like social workers, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, and nurses. Truth be told, typical pastors (to cite one type of caregiver) may on any given day feel as though what they do is as much “social work” or “counseling” as any other vocation or profession—including, perhaps, that of pastor. Nevertheless, I want to suggest two distinctions that we do well to confer on both the conceptualization and practice of pastoral care—two responses that are appropriate for answering the question, “What makes care pastoral?”

First, pastoral care necessarily embraces what has traditionally been called “the care of souls.” Pastoral care is “soul-care.” Second, pastoral care takes place in the foreground of what we may call “the Christian story.” This means that biblical narratives and theological principals necessarily shape the way that we conceptualize pastoral care and the way we practice it. Let us consider each of these distinctions.

Soul-Care

First, pastoral care involves soul-care. In order to say what this means, I must begin with a few words on the history of pastoral care. The view that pastoral care involves soul-care dates to the first understandings of pastoral work, when the early church used the term poimenics to refer to a principal responsibility for clergy—namely, the care and cure of souls.1 This care and cure of souls included four ancient pastoral functions. These were healing, sustaining, guiding, and reconciling (Clebsch and Jaekle, 1964/1967, 32–66). To offer pastoral care—to care for souls—meant to foster healing, sustenance, guidance, and reconciliation, not merely for individuals but for communities of people.2

Such a view of pastoral care largely persisted through the medieval period and the Protestant Reformation. In the Enlightenment period, however (that is, beginning in the late seventeenth century), three principal influences altered how pastoral care was viewed and practiced. First, more systematic and formal training of clergy gradually became the norm. Second, the Western world increasingly explained and understood life and the world without necessary references to God or religion (Clebsch and Jaekle, 1964/1967, 28). Third, theological education began a fragmentation into various areas of specialized study within the modern research university. All of these factors led to a narrowing of pastoral care. It now focused principally on individuals and their needs (as opposed to the needs of both individuals and groups), but especially as these needs related to a new emphasis on “religious privacy” on the one hand, and moral guidance on the other (31). In other words, pastoral care became less communal and more privatized, along with attending to a comparatively smaller set of concerns for “personal” religion and “personal” salvation.

In the early twentieth century, especially in North America, pastoral care became even more private in nature. Often limited to one-on-one encounters among clergy and laypersons, its focus increasingly became matters of mental illness and related problems.3 By the mid-twentieth century pastoral care was guided largely (and some would argue, primarily) by perspectives tied to psychology, psychotherapy, and related clinical disciplines; and, to a lesser degree, by other human sciences (i.e., anthropology, sociology, and critical theory), and by hermeneutics. At the same time, pastoral care drew less on religious language and perspectives as primary guides. With these changes of focus came less attention to and concern for “souls”—at least as traditionally viewed—and more attention on “personhood” as understood through the medical and human sciences.

What followed was the trend for ministers of care to function as armchair therapists. In the last half century, ministers have increasingly embraced the language and perspectives of the human sciences while often relegating their own principal language and perspectives (that is, religious or theological ones) to the back burner, if they weren’t taken off the stove altogether. I’ll say more about this trend in a few minutes.

Suffice it to say here that views on pastoral care have changed throughout the church’s history; and appropriately so. It would be a mistake to seek to reclaim a premodern view of persons or ministry. It would be equally unwise to embrace the care of souls for reasons of nostalgia. As a matter of fact, we must draw considerably from the human sciences and other bodies of knowledge to provide the most competent and faithful soul-care. Furthermore, unlike earlier periods of church life, we now rightly view pastoral care as including the work of congregations. It’s not the responsibility of clergy alone. Soul-care in our age requires the interest and efforts of faith communities and indeed the larger body of Christ—perhaps like never before. If for no other reasons than these, we do not want to go back to centuries-old views of pastoral care.

But there are aspects of those views that we would do well to embrace. A principal one, and the one I wish to highlight here, is that pastoral care requires close attention to the human soul. This attention, which arises from the value attributed to souls by the Christian faith, makes pastoral care distinctive among other types of care.

So I now need to say what I mean by “soul.” I have in mind something similar to what theologian Jürgen Moltmann says about the soul when discussing the concept of immortality (what he refers to as “personal eschatology”).4 According to Moltmann (2004), the soul denotes “the relationship of the whole person to the immortal God” (105).5 We should not view the soul (or the body, for that matter) as a discrete part or aspect of a human being. Rather, because it encompasses the whole person, the soul is best viewed as a locus for relationship between a person (in his or her entirety) and God. Much of Western Christianity, I would argue, has mistakenly viewed the body and soul as separate constituent parts of the human being. Influenced by Platonic idealism on the one hand, and by Cartesian dualism on the other, Western Christianity has typically embraced the necessary separation, and even sharp bifurcation, of body and soul; and, more recently, of body, mind, and soul—the latter idea maintaining that the mind serves as a bridge between the other two (incongruent)aspects of personhood.

Here is the way this line of thinking unfolds. The body, being mortal, does not endure. Over time, its health and functioning declines and eventually it perishes. Another idea often goes with this view—namely, that the body, because it dies and thus remains imperfect, is tied to evil. The body thus has little value, at least when held alongside of the soul.

Not so for the soul, this same way of thinking continues. The soul is superior to the body; and it’s superior because it endures and especially because it serves as the means for salvation—that is, for one’s eternal life with God. As a result, the soul has the potential for reaching perfection—if not in the present life, then in the next one. A consequence of this prevailing view of souls has been that whereas it has been highly valued and attended to in theological reflection and in the Christian life, the body has been devalued if not discounted altogether. In a common Christian way of speaking, “If your soul is right with God, nothing else matters all that much!” (Cole, 2008c, 12).

Moltmann suggests an alternative view. He points to the creation story and notes that it says: “‘God breathed his breath into the lump of the earth,’ so that the first human being, ‘Adam,’ ‘became a living soul’ (Gen. 2:7, KJV). That means ‘he does not have a living soul. He is a living soul’” (Moltmann, 1985, 256). Similarly, Moltmann adds, Martin Luther understood that a person who dies “can lament: ‘I am encompassed by death, I am flesh,’ which means ‘He does not possess his flesh. He is flesh’” (Moltmann, 1985, 12). Body and soul together make the person.

The writer Wendell Berry (1992) holds a similar view. He calls the dualistic thinking that grounds the modern mind “the most destructive disease that afflicts us,” and he observes further that the dualism of body and soul remains the most “dangerous” and “fundamental” version of it. Berry writes:

God did not make a body and put a soul into it, like a letter into an envelope. He formed man of dust; then, by breathing His breath into it, He made the dust live. The dust, formed as man and made to live, did not embody a soul; it became a soul. “Soul” here refers to the whole creature. Humanity is thus present to us, in Adam, not as a creature of two discrete parts temporarily glued together but as a single mystery (106).

But this dualistic thinking is common in my experience, and especially in the church. In one of Berry’s (2000) novels, a young man by the name of Jayber Crow reflects on this common way of thinking:

I took to studying the ones of my teachers who were also preachers, and also the preachers who came to speak in chapel at my various exercises. In most of them I saw the old division of body and soul I had [long known]. . . . Everything bad was laid on the body, and everything good was credited to the soul. It scared me a little when I realized that I saw it the other way around. If the soul and body were really divided, then it seemed to me that all the worst sins—hatred and anger and self-righteousness and even greed and lust—came from the soul. But those preachers I’m talking about all thought that the soul could do no wrong, but always had its face washed and its pants on and was in agony over having to associate with the flesh of the world. And yet those same people believed in the resurrection of the body (49).

With Moltmann and Berry, I think of “the soul” as the whole person, in his or her entirety, in relationship to the living God. Consequently, I want to stress two matters of soul-care. First, we should think of personhood in terms of the body, mind, and soul existing in what Moltmann calls “reciprocal relation” and “mutual interpenetration” (Moltmann, 1985, 257). People are embodied souls and soulful bodies, if you will. Second, and related, the term soul denotes not part of a person that relates to God but rather the whole person in relationship to the living God, whether in life or death. A person is a soul. A soul is a person.6

Recognizing souls in the fashion that I am advocating will do more than help restore soul language to pastoral care. More important, it will shape how pastoral caregivers think about human life and experience. This includes thinking about what persons are and how persons are formed and transformed; but also about how God and faith communities may participate in their formation and transformation. Its appreciation for and focus on souls—their care and cure—distinguishes pastoral care from other types of care.

Storied Care

If pastoral care involves soul-care, pastoral care also involves what could be called “storied care.”7 In fact, we may further distinguish pastoral care by noting that it takes place in the foreground of a particular story—the Christian story. I have described the Christian story elsewhere as “the story of God’s creative, transformative, and redemptive acts throughout history, which Christians have most frequently recognized in the history of Israel; the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit” (Cole, 2008c, 172). Told in the pages of Scripture, this story has been brought to life for two millennia through shared beliefs, passions, and acts among Christian persons. Certainly, the Christian life entails living intentionally in relationship to this story.

Of course, I want to recognize here that the term “the Christian story” will represent different things to different people—all of whom may identify themselves as Christians. Actually, the Christian story derives from many stories, including those recounted in Scripture and church traditions, but also those stories that are lived out—historically and in the present—in the contexts of various faith communities and beyond. Therefore, we can never be sure of precisely what we have in mind, nor that we agree on what we mean, when making an appeal to “the Christian story.” Moreover, our own understandings of this story evolve. As South African theologian John de Gruchy suggests, how people understand and give expression to the Christian story will change over time as that story gets lived out in different contexts and eras (de Gruchy, 2006, 11).

Nevertheless, I believe that my description of the Christian story is sufficiently broad. It leaves room for different understandings and expressions with respect to contextual and temporal factors. It also recognizes that the power of the Christian story persists in its varied understandings and traditions.

We should note here, then, several characteristics of the Christian story as I have described it. First, it makes claims about “the way things are, what holds the greatest value and importance, and what qualifies as moral, ethical, and just” (Cole, 2008c, 172). Second, it presents normative ways of carrying ourselves and being in relationships, including relationships with other people, with the created world, and with God. Third, the Christian story calls those who embrace it to live by its claims and norms; and this entails locating “their personal stories within its story so that it molds, guides, and sets boundaries for their personal stories” (172). As we claim it and live by it,

the Christian story claims us and makes claims upon us; it offers promises to us and informs how we make meaning of life, including how we view the world, our relationships, ourselves, and ultimately God. We could go so far as to say that the Christian life is a lived story. Giving us our identity, constituting our selfhood, and commissioning our way of being and acting, this story makes us who we are (172).

Implications of Distinction

So what does this have to do with pastoral care? Caring for souls in the context of this story—by virtue of allowing it to shape our perspectives on caring—comprises the pastoral caregiver’s expertise and distinguishing contributions among those of other helping persons—those we typically call professionals. In some cases the pastoral caregiver may be a professional, too; but more importantly, the pastoral caregiver is “a professor—that is, one who professes. She professes the Christian faith. She professes belief in and embrace of a particular story, the Christian story. In so doing, she lives her life in accord with what it proclaims and the responsibilities to which it calls its adherents” (16). Furthermore, she rightly sees herself—and is seen by others—as caring for souls in the foreground of this story. Why? Because this story encompasses her own story. Her faith and its practices ground her calling and training as one who offers care to souls because her faith and its practices ground her life.

When it comes to pastoral care, my experience has been that ministers easily lose sight of the distinctiveness of care that unfolds against the backdrop of the Christian story. That is, they lose sight of what it is they have to bring to the caregiving party that other (professional) caregivers do not—which is to say that ministers let go of their distinctive vocation and training as caregivers. Doubting their expertise and contributions to the care of souls, they defer to “the professionals.” Interestingly, ministers rarely defer to others on matters of preaching, Christian education, and church administration; and this suggests that pastoral care challenges the minister’s confidence and comfort with respect to his distinct perspective. A lack of confidence shows when the minister too quickly defers to the expertise of the psychologist, social worker, or psychiatrist through a referral.8 Worse, however, is when the minister imitates their expertise without requisite training, experience, and practical wisdom; that is, when the minister seeks to function as a therapist.9 Incidentally, this imitation likely follows from the familiarity in our therapeutic culture with popular psychology and various self-help movements, many of which claim grounding in one or more spiritualities.

Moreover, we should note that the tendency for ministers to genuflect before the altar of the mental health professional is not new. As I have noted, this tendency has been evident for more than half a century.

Attention was given to this phenomenon in the 1970s by the clinical psychologist Paul W. Pruyser. A Presbyterian elder, Pruyser worked at the Menninger Foundation in Topeka, Kansas (now located in Houston). He supervised ministers in graduate and postgraduate clinical education; and when reflecting on case studies with them, Pruyser noted something interesting. Ministers often had difficulty drawing on their distinctive perspectives and training. He writes: “To put my observations in a nutshell, these [ministers] all too often used ‘our’ psychological language, and frequently the worst selection from it—stultified words like depression, paranoid, [and] hysterical. When urged to conceptualize their observations in their own language, using their own theological concepts and symbols, and to conduct their interviews in full awareness of their pastoral office and church setting, they felt greatly at sea” (Pruyser, 1976, 27). In other words, Pruyser observed that regarding the giving of care and counsel ministers had let go of their distinctive perspectives and training, which no other professional would embody and utilize, at least not as frequently or explicitly.

High Stakes

“So what?” You might ask. What is the big deal? Well, quite a lot. As Clebsch and Jaekle (1964/1967) observe, much is at stake when pastoral caregivers loose sight of what they and they alone may bring to peoples’ lives. They write, “[Ministers] who in this age have imitated doctors, lawyers, psychiatrists, psychologists, counselors, and social workers, like [ministers] who imitated the current helping professions of other ages, frequently become merely incompetent amateurs or inexpert apprentices in arts properly belonging to others” (68). In other words, ministers become members of a “me too” vocation.

As an alternative, Pruyser urged ministers to reclaim their distinctive offering to people in need—what he called “a pastoral perspective on personal problems.” He pointed out that in turning to ministers most people want “to ponder, understand, and solve a problem within the very framework to which the [minister] professes”—that is, his or her faith (see Cole, 2008c, 18). Not only that, but, as Pruyser (1976) further noted, “a great many persons who turn to their [ministers] for help in solving personal problems seek assistance in some kind of religious or moral self-evaluation. They want to see some criteria of their [own] faith applied to themselves” (49–50, emphasis added).

We may assume, therefore, that someone seeking out a minister (whether an ordained pastor or other servant of the church) believes, on some level, that the minister will not only be helpful but that this help will grow out of her vocation as minister of the gospel. As Pruyser put it, “Problem-laden persons who seek help from a [minister] do so for very deep reasons—from the desire to look at themselves from a theological perspective” (43).

I should add that Pruyser does not endorse an exclusively theological perspective. He neither wants to reify theology nor dismiss what theologians may learn from the human sciences and other fields of inquiry and practice. As Robert C. Dykstra (2005) points out, although Pruyser wants ministers to move beyond “any exclusive attachment to psychology and the intrapsychic realm” and to reclaim their distinct offerings regarding personal problems, he is not “suggesting that ministers return to some pre-critical, pre-clinical, [or] moralistic frame of reference of past eras” (153; see also Cole, 2008c, 18–19). Nevertheless, Pruyser reminds us that people who approach ministers with their problems usually assume that the care the minister may offer will be laden with certain understandings and commitments—namely, those that follow from the minister’s embrace of Christian faith and her vocation as one of its professors. As Pruyser (1976) asks rhetorically, “In seeking a pastoral answer, even if recognizing that [it] may be only a first or tentative answer, are they not placing themselves voluntarily into a value system, and into an ambience of special tradition and communion which they consider relevant?” (45).

At the same time, Pruyser suggests that when a person comes to a minister with a problem or need—that is, when a person comes to one assumed to embody and represent the Christian story—if the minister’s response does not convey a willingness to work with the person from commitments to that story (however implicit these may be), then the person may very well have his pain and disillusionment exacerbated. People seek out ministers for a reason, Pruyser suggests. They want a minister’s perspective. So, indeed a lot is at stake with regard to the perspectives on caregiving that we as ministers embrace.

Conclusion

I am reminded here of psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson’s (1950/1993) claim that what he offered his patients was “a way of looking at things” (403). Pastoral caregivers may offer a way of looking at things—namely, through the lens of the Christian story. By virtue of their calling, training, and (in some traditions) their office—all of which assume a larger community’s endorsement—ministers (whether ordained or lay) bring something particular and distinctive to caring. As those who embrace the Christian story and who attend to souls against its backdrop, ministers have ways of looking at things that the people they serve want and need.

It goes without saying that ministers do not have a monopoly on caring. Nor do Christians, for that matter. Scores of people—professionals and nonprofessionals, Christians and those of other faiths alike—may care for those in need; may care for souls. We must not discount what may be provided by those who are not ministers or by those who embrace stories other than the Christian story. Moreover, human struggles and needs may call for more than pastoral care. Medical, psychological, or other means of care may be required when caring for souls, perhaps along with pastoral care. A variety of care approaches may serve as instruments of grace.

Furthermore, we must be open to caring not only for those who seem interested in what we may offer (the woman at the pool), but also (perhaps especially) for those who lack interest (the woman’s husband who took off for the other end of the pool). My experience has been that typical caregivers encounter in the ordinary course of life and ministry those with different tolerances for care. We meet persons who are more receptive and open to what the caregiver represents but also those who run for cover when the conversation gets “religious,” “spiritual,” or “churchy.” But this is as it should be given that the Christian story calls for not only “reaching in” but also “reaching out.”

Faithful care thus requires that pastoral caregivers learn to reach in multiple directions, even when doing so requires different approaches to care.

Still, I am suggesting that pastoral caring tied to Christianity entails particular kinds of care—distinctive offerings located in and arising from a particular frame of reference, a “way of looking at things.” That frame, as I have suggested, is first and foremost the story of God’s creative, transformative, and redemptive acts throughout history, which Christians have most frequently recognized in the history of Israel, the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit. That frame is the Christian story. Perhaps Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1954) put it best in his classic book Life Together: “It is not that God is the spectator and sharer of our present life, howsoever important that is; but rather that we are the reverent listeners and participants in God’s action in the sacred story, the history of the Christ on earth. And only insofar as we are there, is God with us today also” (53–54, emphasis added).

This way of looking at things may never make for an easy pool conversation. It certainly did not for me. But if ministry is distinctive work—and I believe it is and I hope that you do, too—then its complexities and the challenges of articulating them must never prevent speaking as best we can about what we do: speaking thoughtfully, faithfully, and perhaps even courageously about our way of looking at things, whether having to do with the care of souls or some other aspect of ministry in the name of Christ. Why? Because the stakes are high! If ministers do not offer their distinctive perspectives on personal problems, then who will offer them?

1. For a fuller discussion of this history see Cole (2005c).

2. In the late sixth century, wanting to offer more guidance for clergy in these matters, Pope Gregory the Great contributed to a more formal understanding of pastoral care along these classical lines. He published Liber regulae pastoralis (The Book of Pastoral Rule) (c. 590 CE), which is most often translated in English as Pastoral Care. This publication furthered the work of John Chrysostom in the fourth century, especially as found in his tract titled On the Priesthood (386 CE). Both of these ministers of the church were concerned with guiding the “care of souls” in more intentional and precise ways. Gregory’s work spawned a body of literature called pastorilia, which increasingly became normative for clergy instruction and development. The influence of this literature lasted through the medieval period and the Protestant Reformation, with the latter being marked by such well-known works as Martin Bucer’s On the True Cure of Souls (1538) and Richard Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor (1656), both of which speak to matters of “soul-care,” albeit in different ways.

3. These concerns also fell largely within the realm of “the private,” which contributed further to their social taboos and lack of acceptance.

4. For a fuller account of my perspective on souls see Cole (2008c).

5. I share Moltmann’s rejection of Platonic dualism, which splits soul and body, and thus I use “soul” to denote the locus for relationship of the human being, in toto, to the living God.

6. An ancient Jewish understanding held the soul (nephesh) to be enlivened by the spirit (ruach), which means that soul and spirit, although distinct, nevertheless remain inseparable themselves. This view suggests that those who speak in terms of “spiritual” conditions or matters of one’s “spiritual life” are also interested in soul-care. In fact, soul-care requires spiritual attention (see Cole, 2008c, 12–14).

7. I have written about the place of “the Christian story” in matters of both pastoral care and self-care (see Cole, 2008b and 2008c).

8. When referrals are legitimately called for, however, pastoral caregivers may continue to meet with the referred party for pastoral care while he or she is also receiving services from other professionals—that is, while he or she is in therapy.

9. Here I should distinguish between pastoral counseling and pastoral care. Professional pastoral counselors who hold certification in a sanctioning body such as the American Association of Pastoral Counselors, and/or who hold state-issued licenses to practice, are qualified to offer various kinds of therapies by virtue of their extensive and specialized training.