Abstract
Pastoral caregiving within a clinical setting and the parameters of interdisciplinarity and a team approach to healing and helping, cannot escape the public demand for a professional approach to caregiving i.e. safeguarding the well-being of people and patients. In this regard, differentiation in terms of theory, paradigmatic conceptualization, and directives for a base anthropology, are paramount. To detect the identity of the pastoral caregiver within the parameters of the pastoral ministry and the Christian tradition of cura animarum, the research focuses on the theological paradigm for comfort and compassion. It is argued that the professional stance of caregivers is shaped by biblical hermeneutics. The theological characteristics of pastoral interventions and engagements are determined by the appropriate God-image of compassionate being-with as pastoral exemplifications of a theologia crucis, directed by a theologia resurrectionis.
Highlights
Background and motivationDue to the interplay between psychologization and professionalization, the researcher became aware of a growing tension between pastoral care and other professions, notably psychology
In South Africa, this had become evident in various ways, for example, the resistance from the psychology fraternity to affiliating pastoral care to its professional bodies (SAAP 2017)
The concerns regarding the progressive undermining of the unique theological character of pastoral identity (Stone 1989; Campbell 1981; Oden in Aden & Ellen, 1988) as well as the consequences for the identity of pastoral caregiving, the loss of its distinctive theological character when viewed in relation to the social sciences (Campbell 1985; Foskett, 2001; Gärtner 2010)
Summary
The article seeks to broadly outline some of the challenges faced by pastoral care identity in lieu of ministry. Within the interdisciplinary discourse and contact with various disciplines within the field of healing and helping, it became evident that the pastoral ministry cannot escape the need for professional based care to promote human wellbeing. Very the area of religion has become infiltrated by conceptualizations borrowed from the human sciences Without any doubt, this process of psychologization impacts on the paradigms applied by spiritual leaders, chaplains, ministers, and caregivers. The professionalization of pastoral care refers to the tendency to reframe the pastoral caregiving and ministerial praxis of comfort and compassion more and more in terms of specialised communication and counselling skills derived from human and social sciences, in order to provide a scientific and theory based helping and healing service to clients on the. Is set by the Christian tradition of cura animarum and supported by sources like biblical interpretation (religious hermeneutics and exegesis), prayers and other liturgical and sacramental performances as linked to the characteristics of a specific faith community
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