Charles V. Gerkin

Pastoral Ministry between the Times

Pastors in the seventies must adapt to ministering in a pluralistic and rapidly changing society. This situation presents both special problems and opportunities for ministry to persons caught in the transition between what are here called “cultural value time frames.” Three case examples from pastoral counseling practice are presented and reflected upon utilizing the concept of cultural value time frame conflicts. An argument is made for the minister as one especially equipped to be of help to such persons because of his necessary continuing dialogue with a theological tradition. The suggestion is made that what is most needed in such situations is genuine search for culture-transcendent values as these values relate to the concreteness and particularity of human relationships in changing times.

Responding to Living Human Experience at the Point of Need: Remembering Carroll Wise

My most enduring memories of Carroll A. Wise date back to my first encounters with him when as a seminarian at Garrett Biblical Institute (now Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary), I eagerly enrolled in the first courses he taught there while he was commuting from Minneapolis one day a week in the spring of 1947. I had earlier been introduced to Anton Boisen and his work in an evening adjunct course at Garrett taught by Fred Kuether, then Executive Secretary of the Chicago office of The Council for Clinical Training and Chaplain at Cook County Hospital. That experience had enticed me to take a quarter of clincial training at Elgin State Hospital with Bill Andrew as my supervisor and Pappy Boisen as a now officially retired, but still very active presence in the training program. The Elgin experience had convinced me that my future in ministry lay somewhere in deeper involvement in the clinical pastoral care movement. So when I learned that Carroll, one of Boisens early students and his successor as Chaplain at Worcester State Hospital, was coming to Garrett to teach about pastoral care and counseling in the context of the parish, I happily registered for both his afternoon and evening courses. The next year I began my own first encounter with parish ministry in my home Methodist conference in Kansas and Carroll began his long and productive tenure as Professor of Pastoral Psychology and Counseling at Garrett.

Clinical Pastoral Education and Social Change

The awareness that we live in a time of revolutionary social change is now as commonplace as the newspaper. Likewise the dawning awareness that many if not all of the institutions of the Western world are enmeshed in structures and processes that inhibit rapid and creative adjustment to change sets the stage for concern with ministry to structures at all levels of our corporate life. Church renewal, once experienced as a necessity in order to bring the Church into workable relationship with other institutions that were thought to be more congruent with the life style of modern man, now must be undertaken within the broader context of fundamental cultural revolution. Institutional crisis is all about us. The crisis in the Church, theology and education for ministry can be understood only as part and parcel of the crisis of an age.

On the art of Caring

Those who read The Christian Century with some regularity in an attempt to keep up with the implications of the Christian gospel for the issues of the day will be familiar with the series of articles that appear under the general title of How My Mind Has Changed. Articles in the series have been authored by a wide variety of significant figures in theology and the church who have used the writing as an occasion to reflect on the impact of events and changing cultural patterns on their thought. As one might expect, some tend to emphasize the continuity of their thought and the abiding truth of their ideas, while others give voice to the sometimes radically new directions in which their minds have turned. But in all the articles there appears evidence of the flow of history, the turn of events, the presence of the new that must be taken into account.

Book Review: Practical Theology: The Emerging Field in Theology, Church, and WorldPractical Theology: The Emerging Field in Theology, Church, and World.BrowningDon S. (Ed.) (San Francisco, CA: Harper and Row, 1983). 204 pp.

That the resurgent interest in theology on the part of pastoral counselors and clinical pastoral educators is matched by a comparable revival of concern for the connections between theology and the practice of ministry and the Christian life in the modern world should come as no surprise to practitioners of pastoral care who read this journal. As the subtitle of this important book indicates, practical theology, however that sub-discipline may be defined, is an emerging field that has ramifications not only for theology itself, but also for a wide range of activity in the church. Whatever the arena of engagement of the multifarious problems that modernity has thrust upon us-problems ranging from the familiar ones involving the care for persons caught in the problems of modern life to the more blatant and complex problems of injustice and inequity that have spawned the so-called liberation theologies or feminist theologies-the questions concerning praxis of the Christian life and its various ministries become more and more pressing. The very breadth and variety of concerns that foster the revived interest in practical theology, however, make for considerable confusion as to just what is meant by that designation and how what is meant is to be distinguished from, as well as related to, the other sub-disciplines of theology; namely, systematic, historical, or what has come to be called fundamental theology. It is just at this point that this volume of essays coming out of a conference convened by the University of Chicago Divinity Schools Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion in 1981 makes an important contribution to the ongoing conversation on these matters both among academic scholars debating the issues of Christian praxis and among practitioners of ministry in its various practical forms. With chapters by the editor, Don Browning, and by john E. Burkhart, Edward Farley, james W. Fowler, Leander E. Keck, james N. Lapsley, Dennis P. McCann, Thomas W. Ogletree and David Tracy, the book succeeds both in illuminating the confusion over just what the historical and foundational issues are that define the field and demonstrating the variety of contributions that must be given serious consideration if practical theology is to gain any unified vision that encompasses the range of modern practical concerns. It is impossible in a brief review to do justice to the richness and variety of contributions made by so distinguished and multi-talented a group of authors as those listed above. One must accept, to begin with, that the strength of a volume such as this one will be in its presentation of a melange of perspectives and interests rather than in its explication of a unified vision. Given that limit of possibility, this reviewer found the rich variety both stimulating and an invitation to enter the arena of argument of the

8.95 (paper).

This essay was prepared to be presented orally to a group of clinical pastoral education colleagues at their invitation. The invitation had been extended to come and share some reflective thoughts on the theme of power and powerlessness or helplessness in clinical pastoral education. The request carried the implication that this group of CPE colleagues had been experiencing some frustration with the system the CPE movement has developed for getting its work done. The result seemed to be increasing feelings of powerlessness and helplessness to do anything about either changing the system or adjusting to its increasingly alienated and arbitrary way of relating to the individual CPE supervisor. Thus the invitation carried with it the request that I be somewhat pastoral in my response while yet offering a perspective that might provide a certain critical distance from the felt problem.

Power and Powerlessness in Clinical Pastoral Education

rabbis to assume leadership in the sex education field. Somemay fault his liberal position on sex ethics, but one cannot fault his concern to guide youth toward mature and responsible sexual relationships. The pastor must be selective in choosing books in the sexual field today, for they are appearing almost weekly. If you have a limited budget, I would say, buy this book. Buy an extra copy for your church library so that parents can keep it circulating and doing its outrageous but effective job. •