Care Of Souls Care Of Polis

In the fields of pastoral care and pastoral theology, there are times when a book signals a paradigm shift. This is one such book. LaMothe develops a political pastoral theology that is used to examine critically political, economic, and societal structures and practices. In the first part of the book, LaMothe argues that care and pastoral care are political concepts, which, along with the notion of justice, can be used as a hermeneutical framework to assess macropolitical and macroeconomic realities. Included in this section is the notion of civil and redemptive discourse, necessary for the survival and flourishing of persons and polis. The last section of the book examines U.S. Empire, capitalism, class, classism, and other pressing political issues using the hermeneutical lens of care.

Pastoral care is often focused on individual problems, but much of what harms and impedes us stems from the larger social maladies at work in our lives. This unprecedented gathering of two dozen essays discusses the realities of racism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, ableism, and classism prevalent within the church and society in an effort to broaden and inform pastoral caregivers with the knowledge and the skills needed to respond effectively to oppressed and marginalized persons. The volumes also help pastors to reflect on the ways their own social location has an impact on their ministries and to gain familiarity with resources available to support pastoral caregivers in a variety of contexts.

Given the fierce urgency of now, this important book confronts and addresses key problems and questions of political theology with the aim of proposing a radical political theology for the Anthropocene Age. LaMothe invites readers to think and be otherwise in living lives in common with all other human beings and other-than-human beings that dwell on this one earth.

Leading pastoral theologians explore a wide variety of themes related to pastoral practice. Pastoral Theology and Care: Critical Trajectories in Theory and Practice offers a collection of essays by leading pastoral theologians that represent emerging trajectories in the fields of pastoral theology and care. The topics explored include: qualitative research and ethnography, advances in neuroscience, care across pluralities and intersections in religion and spiritualties, the influence of neoliberal economics in socio-economic vulnerabilities, postcolonial theory and its implications, the intersections of race and religion in caring for black women, and the usefulness of intersectionality for pastoral practice. Each of the essays offers a richly illustrated review of a practice of pastoral care relationally and in the public domain. The contributions to this volume engage seven critical directions emerging in the literature of pastoral theology in the United States and internationally among pastoral and practical theologians. While coverage of these topics does not exhaust important points of activity in the field, it does represent especially promising resources for theory and practice. This important work: Offers unique coverage of new directions in the field Includes contributions from an exceptional group of experts who are noted leaders in their areas of study Introduces the newest perspectives on pastoral care and offers constructive proposals Filled with case illustrations that make chapters pedagogically useful, Pastoral Theology and Care is essential reading for faculty, seminarians and students in advanced degree programs, and pastors.

Melting glaciers and icecaps, massive forest fires, enormous storms, extensive and prolonged flooding, and desertification of large tracts of land are realities we currently face and will continue to struggle with as a result of climate change. Our climate crisis invites, if not demands, a critical evaluation of our political, religious, economic, and cultural narratives and rituals that give rise to our ways of relating to one another, to other species, and to planet Earth. This book argues that the climate emergency exposes deep problematic roots of Western religious and political paradigms and apparatuses that undergird ideas of and methods for human flourishing. In particular, Western religious and political philosophies have produced and maintained a radical rift between human beings and other species, as well as beliefs about human dominion over other species and the earth. These ideas and practices are responsible for the colonization of Nature and for climate change. Understanding these sources invites a radical reimaging of our religious ideas and practices. Specifically, this book proposes a coming Jesus—a form of life that traverses the rift, while denying human and divine dominion for the sake of recognizing and respecting the singularities and flourishing of all species.

In Creating Resistances: Pastoral Care in a Postcolonial World, Melinda McGarrah Sharp studies the concept of resistance to outline what postcolonial pastoral care can look like in practice, particularly for people who feel more removed from the urgency of today’s postcolonial realities.

The practice of pastoral care cannot escape the realities of injustices and oppression that often operate in the context where caregiving happens. In response, Sheryl A. Kujawa-Holbrook and Karen B. Montagno present a compilation of essays that reach beyond individualistic, white, Western, middle-class models of caregiving that can mimic systems of injustice. Instead, the resulting volume offers constructive approaches to caregiving that more effectively meet the needs of those who routinely experience marginalization and oppression. Kujawa-Holbrook and Montagno argue that the fundamental work of religious traditions, including caregiving, is about human freedom and wholeness. As such, Injustice and the Care of Souls helps chaplains, pastoral counselors, social service workers, and other caregivers to better situate their work within the contexts of those seeking care. The book also helps caregivers to reflect on ways their social locations affect their work. Since its first publication nearly fifteen years ago, this book uniquely offered content that situated contexts such as substructures in urban neighborhoods, religious liturgical practices, and the impact of public policies as the focus for examining critical dynamics surrounding those seeking care, the caregiver, and the hope for oppression-sensitive forms of pastoral care. This second edition revises and reorganizes previous essays while providing additional ones. New chapters include ones that highlight the dead time of prison life, the impact of moral decision-making on veterans, and the life-or-death challenges that immigrants and refugees often face. Kujawa-Holbrook and Montagno divide this edition's twenty-seven essays into five parts, with the first part devoted to the pastoral caregiver's positionality. The remaining sections address pastoral caregiving as embodied practices, cultural fluency and intersectional awareness, pastoral practice across the life span, and pastoral practice and public witness. This volume's contributors offer spiritual caregivers a compilation of approaches to the care of souls that bring healing, voice, and wholeness to the marginalized and oppressed.