Shaun Joynt

South African Theological Seminary · Faculty of Theology

There is a shortage of clergy, at least in the Roman Catholic Church. Protestant churches in general are experiencing more of a distribution or placement challenge than a shortage. The two greatest hindrances to addressing the Protestant clergy distribution challenge are a lack of adequate compensation for clergy and the undesirable geographical lo...

Sacred places are integral to religious beliefs and practices, contributing to individual and group identity as well as social cohesion. Health benefits associated with religious gatherings occurring in sacred places include aspects that shape mental health, physical health, and social relationships. The COVID-19 pandemic has shifted the locus of s...

In this longitudinal study, we examine changes in psychological distress and multidimensional well-being from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic among South African adults. As a secondary purpose, we explore whether pre-pandemic flourishing is protective against subsequent psychological distress during the public health crisis. The analytic sam...

Importance: Forgiveness interventions have been shown in prior randomized trials to reduce depression and anxiety symptoms. Most such interventions require trained therapists, limiting scalability. Objective: To determine whether a brief self-directed forgiveness workbook intervention could alter forgiveness, depression symptoms, and anxiety sympto...

A systems perspective explains dynamics of human flourishing based on the relations between its constituents. Using cross-sectional data from emerging adults (ages 18–29) in 10 countries (N = 7221), this study explored the interrelatedness among constituents of flourishing – happiness & satisfaction with life, mental & physical health, meaning & pu...

Physical and existential threats stemming from the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may provoke religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles or exacerbate preexisting angst and questions. In the Global South, where pervasive social–structural disadvantages limit resource availability to mitigate psychosocial consequences, doubts about divine pre...

We used two waves of longitudinal data from a sample of South Africans (n = 274) to examine whether religious/spiritual (R/S) struggles following an interpersonal transgression might lead to both pain (i.e., depression) and gain (i.e., perceived posttraumatic growth) six months later. We also explored the role of positive R/S coping in modifying ea...

In the South African Sesotho-language Western Five Fingers for Marseilles (2018), Tau flees his hometown of Marseilles in the aftermath of a violent incident. Returning after apartheid ended, Tau finds his hometown in ruins at the hands of some of the very individuals—his childhood friends—who were supposed to protect it. Tau seeks to save Marseill...

Religious coping has emerged as a guiding paradigm for understanding ways in which religion shapes how people adapt to life’s most difficult experiences. Although research on religious coping has advanced substantially over the last two decades, there has been a disproportionate focus on non-interpersonal stressors with samples from predominantly w...

"In his book The End of Youth Ministry? Andrew Root explores why youth groups rank low on parents’ pursuit of a good life for their children and offers a way forward to youth workers by concluding that “youth ministry is for joy … in friendship and rejoicing in the summum bonum [the highest good] of Jesus Christ” (225). His journey to this conclusi...

"The Pastor in a Secular Age is Andrew Root’s second volume of three in a series titled Ministry in a Secular Age, which draws extensively on Charles Taylor’s seminal work A Secular Age (Belknap Press, 2007). Root explores our current secular age that “has devalued the pastor” and “slowly erased the transcendent referent that would make the pastor...

To identify potential protective mechanisms that might buffer the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on well-being, the current set of studies (NStudy 1 = 1172, NStudy 2 = 451) examined the roles of hope and religious coping (positive and negative) in promoting well-being during stay-at-home orders that were implemented in Colombia and South Africa....

"... The book is divided into two sections. Part 1 considers a history of the age of authenticity that poses a challenge to faith formation, while part 2 introduces the apostle Paul and proposes meeting the youthful spirit of the age with a spirit of ministry. Before embarking on these, Root describes a concern of contemporary church leaders regard...

Since its inception, the Christian church has been involved in social transformation, especially when it has sided with the poor and the oppressed. Despite losing its focus from time to time, throughout church history, it has mostly managed to adhere to its missional responsibility. Given the increasing poverty, violence and injustices in today’s w...

Poor workplace or employee engagement results in decreased productivity and creativity as well as increased absenteeism and turnover. Being heard is a positive contributor to workplace or employee engagement and in establishing a healthy relational ecology. Conversely, not being heard adversely influences clergy's decision to remain in full-time pa...

"David P. Gushee and Colin Holtz begin and conclude Moral Leadership for a Divided Age: Fourteen People Who Dared to Changed Our World by observing that a fascination or obsession with leadership is a result of the rarity or absence of true leadership (4, 348). They state that leadership requires three elements: leaders, followers, and a goal (4),...

"“What does it mean to identify oneself as Christian?” (xv) is the question answered by a selection of essays that focus on specific individuals and some groups over a four-thousand-year period, starting with Abraham and concluding with the shared Christian communities of Africa. The editors state that the first use of the word Christian is found i...

Research largely supports the apology-forgiveness cycle, a process in which perpetrators’ post-transgression apologies are reciprocated with victims’ forgiveness. This cycle is often facilitated by the mere provision of an apology. Yet, there are times in which apologies may be rejected. We hypothesised that when apologies matched victims’ apology...

Conflict affects clergy’s response to the call. Unresolved conflict negatively influences their decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. This contributes to a shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church, but to a lesser extent, the Protestant church, as it faces a distribution or displacement challenge. The shortage negatively affects...

The church-funded CARFO or KARFO (Afrikaans Christian Filmmaking Organisation) was established in 1947, and aimed to ‘[socialise] the newly urbanized Afrikaner into a Christian urban society’ (Tomaselli 1985:25; Paleker 2009:45). This initiative was supported and sustained by the Dutch Reformed Church (DRC), which had itself been part of the sociop...

The birth of a first child can be stressful on intimate partner relationships and the women having their first child. Conflict can occur, and hurts might be experienced, which could lead to post-partum depression. Thus, capacity for forgiveness with specific hurts might affect post-partum depression. We investigated women having their first child (...

We examined associations between mental toughness, self-directed, negatively toned emotions and cognitions, and self-forgiveness. With reference to their participation in competitive tennis, a sample of 343 competitive tennis players (Mage = 17.56, SD = 2.37) completed questionnaires measuring their mental toughness, self-forgiveness, and tendency...

"Pete Ward outlines his monograph Introducing Practical Theology: Mission, Ministry, and the Life of the Church by stating that “an introduction to a field of study always has two purposes [for beginners:] to orient themselves and grasp the basic ideas, methods, and writers in the field [and] to attempt to shape the field of study by drawing attent...

"In her monograph Young People and Church Since 1900: Engagement and Exclusion, Naomi Thompson “explores young people’s engagement with organized Christianity in England from the early twentieth century up to the present day” by focusing on “the Sunday School movement’s peak at the start of the twentieth century, its virtual demise in the mid-centu...

BOOK REVIEW - "The Rise of Pentecostalism in Modern El Salvador forms part of a series that seeks to address the “seismic shift in Christianity’s location, vitality and expression” (vi). The author’s aim in this volume is to “examine the origins and cultural implications of a wide ranging religious resurgence that has taken place over the past half...

"In their monograph, The Rise of Network Christianity: How Independent Leaders Are Changing the Religious Landscape, Brad Christerson and Richard Flory aim to “explain the phenomenal growth rates of one particular subgroup of independent neo-Charismatic believers…labelled Independent Network Charismatic [INC]”..." (Completed 31 October 2017; North-...

Leaders play an important role in clergy’s response to their call. Toxic leadership, also known as the dark side of leadership, negatively influences their decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. There is a shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church and a distribution or displacement challenge facing the Protestant church. This shor...

Conflict affects clergy’s response to the call. Unresolved conflict negatively influences their decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. This contributes to a shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church but to a lesser extent the Protestant church, as it faces a distribution or displacement challenge. This shortage of clergy poses a r...

"In Collaborative Parish Leadership: Contexts, Models, Theology editors William A. Clark and Daniel Gast provide a thoroughly engaging account of INSPIRE—the collaborative leadership project funded by both the Lilly Endowment Inc.’s Sustaining Pastoral Excellence program and a partnership between Loyola University Chicago and the Archdiocese of Chi...

‘Who will lead the sheep when the shepherds are gone?’ Clergy plays an important role in the establishing and sustaining of the church; without them, congregants will not be rooted in the faith nor will the faith be transmitted to the next generation. The shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church and the distribution or displacement challenge...

"In The Limits of Forgiveness: Case Studies in the Distortion of a Biblical Ideal Maria Mayo contributes to the ongoing discussion in forgiveness research by challenging the notion that forgiveness should be unlimited, unconditional, and unilateral..." (Completed 7 March 2017; University of Pretoria affliation; review available at http://readingrel...

Leaders play an important role in clergy’s response to their call. Toxic leadership, also known as the dark side of leadership, negatively influences their decision to remain in full-time pastoral ministry. There is a shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church and a distribution or displacement challenge facing the Protestant church. This pose...

Who will lead the sheep when the shepherds are gone? Clergy play an important role in the establishing and sustaining of the church; without them congregants will not be rooted in the faith nor will the faith be transmitted to the next generation. The shortage of clergy in the Roman Catholic Church and the distribution or displacement challenge fac...

There is a shortage of clergy, at least in the Roman Catholic Church (cf Schoenherr&Sorenson 1982:23; Heilbronner 1998:11; Tentler 1998:348; Carroll 2001:1; Fernandez 2001:ix-x; see Seidler 1979:764; Berger 1987; Hoge et al 1988:264, 280). The Protestant Church in general is experiencing more of a distribution problem than a shortage (cf Chaves 200...