Article

Sheer grace: PSALM 88, depression and the dark night of the spirit

January 2017
COMMUNIO VIATORUM 59(2):160-176

Authors:

The inner landscape described in Psalm 88 is one of terrifying inner darkness, devoid of a sense of comfort or hope. As a result, the Psalm is often neglected as a resource for pastoral care and spiritual direction. It is the view of St John of the Cross, however, that this Psalm presents an example of the "dark night of the spirit". Adopting this interpretation as a hermeneutical tool, this article considers how Psalm 88 might be used to help people who are going through an experience of extreme spiritual dislocation and distress. © 2018 Charles University in Prague, Protestant Theological Faculty. All rights reserved.

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Article

A Christian for the Christians, a Muslim for the Muslims? Reflections on a Protestant View of Pastor...

December 1998 · Christian Bioethics

Whereas in the first half of the 20th century, proclamation was the focal point of pastoral care in Germany, the 1970s witnessed an embracing of the American pastoral care movement. From then on, pastoral care was increasingly understood as accompanying patients whilst adopting the spiritual dimension . Nowadays, Christian chaplains are encountering an increasing number of patients from different ... [Show full abstract] religious communities. Various models have been proposed to help Protestant chaplains find an authentic form of pastoral care suitable for all religions. Until a clear position is assumed with regard to Christianity's demands of absolutism, however, none of these approaches can be satisfactory.

Article

WO 510 The Servant as Liturgist

January 1970

Lester Ruth

Reading list: --General required: E. Byron Anderson, ed., Worship Matters, 2 vols. (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1999). (WMII and II) Authentic Worship in a Changing Culture (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1997). (AWCC) James F. White, Introduction to Christian Worship, rev. ed. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1992). (ICW) WO510 Syllabus, page 2 --B level: The general required reading plus the ... [Show full abstract] following: Rob L. Staples, Outward Sign and Inward Grace: The Place of Sacraments in Wesleyan Spirituality (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1991). John D. Witvliet, So You’ve Been Asked To…Lead a Worship Service (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1999). John D. Witvliet, So You’ve Been Asked To…Plan a Worship Service (Grand Rapids: CRC Publications, 1999). And these articles in the course packet: Bradshaw, Paul F. Two Ways of Praying (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), pp. 13-28, 45-72. Bridge, Donald and David Phypers, The Water That Divides: The Baptism Debate (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1977), pp. 153-187. Collins, Dori Erwin and Scott C. Weidler. Sound Decisions: Evaluating Contemporary Music for Lutheran Worship (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1997), 6-7. Hamilton, Michael S. “The Triumph of the Praise Songs: How Guitars Beat Out the Organ in the Worship Wars.” Christianity Today 43, 8 (July 12, 1999): 29-35. Lulofs, Roxane S. “Conflict in the Church: A Time to Confront and a Time to Compromise.” Worship Leader 9, 2 (March/April, 2000): 24-6. Ruth, Lester. “The Literature on Liturgical Inculturation as It Relates to the Issue of Worship in North America: An Initial Review.” Unpublished essay, 1999. Von Allmen, Jean-Jacques. “The Theological Meaning of Common Prayer.” Studia Liturgica 10, 3/4 (1974): 125-136. Webber, Robert E. Planning Blended Worship: The Creative Mixture of Old & ,ew (Nashville: Abingdon, 1998), pp. 13-49. --A level: The general required reading plus the B level reading plus the following: Marva Dawn, A Royal “Waste” of Time: The Splendor of Worshiping God and Being Church for the World (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999). Gayle Carlton Felton, By Water and the Spirit: Making Connections for Identity & Ministry (Nashville: Discipleship Resources, 1997). Sally Morgenthaler, Worship Evangelism: Inviting Unbelievers into the Presence of God (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999). And four of these articles in the course packet: Jones, Cheslyn, Geoffrey Wainwright, Edward Yarnold, and Paul Bradshaw, eds. The Study of Liturgy. Revised edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 565-590. Lathrop, Gordon W. Holy People: A Liturgical Ecclesiology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1999), pp. 49-71. Liesch, Barry. The ,ew Worship: Straight Talk on Music and the Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House), pp. 61-85. Proctor-Smith, Marjorie. In Her Own Rite: Constructing Feminist Liturgical Tradition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), pp. 13-35. Russell, Letty M. “Toward a Trinitarian Language of Hospitality.” The Living Pulpit 8, 2 (April-June 1999), 26-27. Von Allmen, Jean-Jacques. “A Short Theology of the Place of Worship.” Studia Liturgica 3, 3 (1964): 155-171. White, James F. Christian Worship in ,orth America (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1997), pp. 103- 134.

Article

21 st Century Manifestations of the Pietistic Evil (originally: The Effects of the Age of Pietism on...

January 1970

Paul T Prange

The age of pietism began with a strength and weakness analysis of a group of Lutheran congregations. Church leaders identified opportunities and threats, and decided that spiritual renewal was necessary. They set specific, measurable goals for the renewal, and decided to work especially through the clergy. When the new reforms did not achieve the desired results, the leaders decided to appeal ... [Show full abstract] directly to the laity. With a love for the Savior and a desire to see more good works, men with strong personalities and good fund-raising techniques built up a college that emphasized lay ministry. The activities at that college institutionalized the worst practices of pietism and diluted the message of the gospel. The reader of this paper can sense that its topic still has application today. The effects of the age of pietism on the Lutheran Church can be summarized by the following theses: 1. The age of pietism institutionalized applying "correct" doctrine to the wrong situation. 2. The age of pietism resulted in less use of the Means of Grace. 3. The age of pietism gave Lutherans forms that appeal to the Reformed. 4. The age of pietism emphasized mission expansion at the expense of thorough study of the Word. 5. The age of pietism forced orthodox Lutherans to reaffirm their great heritage. Thesis One -The age of pietism institutionalized applying "correct" doctrine to the wrong situation. Why is it so difficult to identify a Lutheran pietist? Historian after historian complains that "pietism" is slippery to define. The title of this paper limits it to Lutheran pietists, but even in this smaller arena it is difficult to find a definition that suffices. The problem is that we tend to define religious movements or bodies by the doctrines they teach, and most Lutheran pietists at least begin by teaching correct doctrine. They can quote the Bible, the Lutheran Confessions, and Luther himself very easily to support their points. What makes them pietists is that they apply "correct" doctrine to the wrong situations. When they do this often enough, an observer unacquainted with the specific situation simply senses that a pietist emphasizes certain doctrines to the exclusion of others. A charge often leveled against pietism is that it confuses justification and sanctification or emphasizes sanctification to the exclusion of justification. 1 Readings from the most famous pietist writers make that clear. 2 Where does the confusion or wrong emphasis come from? Pietists operate from a strength and weakness analysis of congregations and from a "felt need" analysis of individuals. Such navel-gazing to find problems is always in the realm of the law, and the logical answers suggested by the opinio legis are also law answers. Unless the gospel is forced into the discussion and understood as "our only strength and comfort" (CW 536, stanza 2), it is never studied or applied as a solution to the problems of individual Christians, congregations, or synods.

Article

Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India (review)

September 2003 · Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History

Kevin Grant

Kevin Grant Imperial Fault Lines: Christianity and Colonial Power in India, 1818-1940. By Jeffery Cox. Standford: Standford University Press, 2002. Imperial Fault Linesis an important study of Protestant missionary institutions and the development of a hybrid Christianity in the Punjab under British rule. Jeffery Cox sets aside simplistic associations between the bible and the flag to ... [Show full abstract] demonstrate that missionaries spent a great deal of their time in laying the groundwork for a Christian community that would survive in their absence. While missionaries clearly participated in the imperial project, it is noteworthy that many influential missionaries regarded the Empire as ephemeral and acknowledged that the future of Christianity depended on the growth and self-governance of indigenous Christian communities. Although, as Cox explains, missionaries and Indian Christians were in many respects engaged in a common enterprise, "fault lines" emerged throughout the Punjabi Christian community as its disparate brethren attempted to answer a basic question: "Can we participate in a shared faith, on the basis of spiritual equality, in an imperial setting?" (16) The imperial setting of the Punjab presented many obstacles to a shared faith and spiritual equality, ranging from economic inequity to conflicts over the conversion of lower castes. Moreover, Cox elucidates theological differences between missions that contributed to fractious competition for converts. What distinguishes this book, and renders it a significant contribution to the history of missions and empire, is the balance that Cox strikes between his meticulous attention to missionary institutions and his discussion of how the great majority of Punjabi Christians developed their own forms of spirituality, piety, and worship beyond the limited reach of pastoral care.

Article

Full-text available

The English Puritans and Spiritual Desertion: A Protestant Perspective on the Place of Spiritual Dry...

May 2010 · Journal of Spiritual Formation and Soul Care

David C Wang

Spiritual depression is a term originally employed by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones to describe the phenomenon of Christians experiencing a state of the soul that is marked by an unusually potent and longstanding sense of pessimism, inadequacy, despondency, and lack of activity within (but not limited to) one's relationship with God for what appears to be no discernable cause. Although St. John of the ... [Show full abstract] Cross' The Dark Night of the Soul is arguably the most historically influential work on the subject, the English Puritans also developed a robust perspective of their own—one built upon the principles of the Reformation and a solidly Protestant perspective of the spiritual life. The Puritan concept of spiritual desertion is most lucidly articulated in a lesser-known work by Joseph Symonds titled, The Case and Cure of a Deserted Soul—a rich and invaluable resource for contemporary pastoral care.

Article

“Emotionally, Soulfully, Spiritually ‘Free to Think and Act’: The Helen Flanders Dunbar (1902–59) Me...

March 2001 · Journal of Religion and Health

Robert Charles Powell

This essay aims to stimulate rethinking about religious and medical “healing and wholeness.” While psychiatrist (Helen) Flanders Dunbar (1902–1959) is well known as a psychosomatic investigator and as “Medical Director” of the Council for Clinical Training, the initial home of Anton Boisen's groundbreaking movement for the clinical pastoral education of institutional chaplains and parish ... [Show full abstract] ministers, she is less appreciated as a theologically-trained scholar. This essay explores an earlier era's understanding of the “spiritual” and the more “soulful” components of healing and how Dunbar combined these to focus on helping all peoples become “free to think and act.” This essay was originally delivered as The Helen Flanders Dunbar Memorial Lecture on Psychosomatic Medicine and Pastoral Care at Columbia Presbyterian Center of the New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York on November 2, 1999.

Article

Full-text available

FACT, A Chaplain's Tool for Assessing Spiritual Needs in an Acute Care Setting

March 2012 · Chaplaincy Today

Mark LaRocca-Pitts

Spiritual histories constitute a genre and are distinct from spiritual screens and spiritual assessments. Five spiritual history tools (CSI-MEMO, FICA, HOPE, FAITH and SPIRIT) are presented as examples of this genre. In comparison, FACT is not a spiritual history tool. Instead, FACT is a spiritual assessment tool designed for chaplaincy use in an acute care setting. Other health care clinicians ... [Show full abstract] interested in spiritual care may also find this tool helpful. A reviewer for the Australian Journal of Pastoral Care and Health (AJPCH) commented on a previous article by Mark LaRocca-Pitts as follows: “[T]itling FACT as a spiritual history tool seems unfortunate. FACT does not gather a history in the way a physician gathers a medical history. Rather, it provides information for an assessment, upon which an intervention might be planned.” In response, this article originally appeared in AJPCH (3:2, December 2009) under the title “In FACT, Chaplains Have a Spiritual Assessment Tool” and is reprinted with permission.

Article

Spiritual Screening: The Starting Place for Intentional Pastoral Care

March 1999 · Chaplaincy Today

Swindell Hodges

The spiritual screening tool presented in the following article was developed at The Methodist Hospital in Houston, Texas. This hospital admits a large number of cardiovascular surgery patients whose care is managed by the Heart Care Service Line. This tool was developed in response to the identified need of setting priorities for pastoral care to this large population of patients and sharing ... [Show full abstract] relevant observations about those patients with the multidisciplinary care team. The task was to develop a method of spiritual screening that was simple and could be completed in the course of pastoral conversation. The focus was on evaluating support systems and religious coping skills. The goal beyond spiritual screening is the development of intentional pastoral care.

Article

Protecting the self and resisting grandiose narcissistic selfobjects : a mainline Protestant Latino/...

January 1970

Jesús. Rodríguez

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, 2003. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 174-181).

Chapter

Walter Benjamin and Christian Critical Ethics?A Comment

May 2016

Hille Haker

Among current receptions of Benjamin, few terms and metaphors have caught more attention than those that carry a heavy theological weight. Since the 1970s, Christian theologians (and more so Catholic theologians) have begun to reflect upon Benjamin’s hermeneutics of danger and remembrance as the center-piece of a “theology after Auschwitz.” Famously, Johann Baptist Metz framed the approach as ... [Show full abstract] “new political theology”: an attempt to take serious, on the one hand, the radical questioning of the interpretation of tradition, history, eschatology, and the hope that Benjamin called for, and on the other hand, to undertake a practical and political re-interpretation of Christian faith in society. This chapter examines this reception history with respect to the hermeneutics of danger and remembrance (Eingedenken), and explores the possibilities of a new dialogue between theology and philosophy.

Article

Do Baptists Really Want an Educated Clergy? Vocation and Charism for Theological Education

August 2006 · Review & Expositor

Molly T. Marshall

Baptists have tended to be suspicious of the scholarly practice of ministry as exemplified in the vocation of theological education. This may be due to an underdeveloped concept of this vocation in the life of the church. There is a particular calling to formation of ministers that, if neglected, leads to the impoverishment of congregational life. Yet, if the church is to forthrightly engage ... [Show full abstract] post-Christian contexts, not only must this vocation be exercised, it must also be configured in ways that support the spiritual and theological formation of church leaders who can guide their faith communities into such engagement. Of chief concern is what kind of formation process makes this engagement most fruitful. This article argues that there is a unique vocation in theological education, which should be valued as necessary for strengthening congregational life. To that end it would be helpful for Baptists to construct a better covenant with the church. The shape of Baptist theological education as “reflection on practice” grows out of the central conviction of discipleship as faithful Baptist witness. Intrinsic to this is missional identity, long a hallmark of Baptist life.

Article

Maintaining Personal Resiliency: Lessons Learned from Evangelical Protestant Clergy

December 2003 · Journal of Psychology and Theology

Despite the prominence of clergy in providing human services, and the work-related Stressors they experience, clergy health and coping responses have rarely been the focus of psychological research. We report two studies. In the first, we evaluated responses of 398 senior pastors to three open-ended questions regarding personal coping, structural support for their work, and remediation efforts in ... [Show full abstract] rimes of distress. In the second study, Christian mental health professionals and Christian education professionals identified Protestant Christian clergy who exemplify emotional and spiritual health. Twenty-six participated in individual 30-minute interviews. Respondents emphasized the importance of being intentional in maintaining balance in life and developing healthy relationships. They also value a vital spiritual life, emphasizing both their sense of calling into ministry the importance of spiritual disciplines, and an ongoing awareness of God's grace. We suggest ways that Christian mental health professionals can support pastors in preventive and remedial roles.

Last Updated: 22 Oct 2024