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