Abstract
This article contributes to pastoral care within communities under transition. It seeks to contribute to the corpus of literature that relates pastoral care with culture and, particularly, multicultural contexts. It seeks to critically engage with pastoral care approaches that has dominated three strands of pastoral care. James, Boisen and Hiltner represent modern pastoral care in the United States of America and theologies of Tillich, Hiltner and the ‘secular’ theologians of the 1960s influenced British pastoral theology. The third strand, African perspective, lacks coherency and consistency as illustrated by the Society for Intercultural Pastoral Care and Counselling (1988–2008), Pastoral Care and Counselling Today Manuscript (1991) and The African Association for Pastoral Studies and Counselling (1985). This article analysis narrative as a methodology for pastoral care.After an overview of pastoral care and culture, different approaches of pastoral care are discussed. A narrative approach to pastoral care in changing communities is recommended as an effective means of care. The positions of the caregiver and cared for is changed within the pastoral care so that both learns from the existential experience. The narrative approach has three interrelated aspects, namely communication, community and experience.
Highlights
Two years ago, I was appointed to have pastoral oversight of a church community in Fisantekraal
Fisantekraal is a densely populated space where shacks and very low-cost housing are the only means of accommodation. It has a population of about 13 000 people of which 51% is black South Africans and 46.9% people of mixed race
Considering the various attempts to describe pastoral care, historical development (Weiss 2009), functionalist (Lartey 2003), definitions (Louw 2012), interdisciplinary (Browning 1991) and institutional (Magezi 2016; Weiss 2009), I conclude that the following weaknesses are evident and should be taken seriously when addressing a contemporary approach to the relationship between pastoral and culture for effective care: Reality is restricted to interpreted experience; it is problemcentred and implies an exclusively giver and receiver process; it is activity centred at the expense of identity; it does not address power dimensions between carer and cared for adequately; it is limited to the spirituality of the carer; and communication is structuralist
Summary
I was appointed to have pastoral oversight of a church community in Fisantekraal. I use Fisantekraal to point out how pastoral care can effectively address the needs of those who live in contexts where people of various cultures co-exist. How can pastoral care relate to diverse cultural communities for effective care?
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