Pastoral theologians from Congo, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe address, in this book, the issues of leadership, Ubuntu (community), gender-based violence, political violence, healing, and deliverance faced by pastors and ministers in African contexts today. Drawing on biblical, theological, social scientific, and cultural contextual perspectives, these African Christians offer much needed insights to assist in the care and counseling of persons towards healing, health, and well-being.
Pastoral theologians from Congo, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa, and Zimbabwe address, in this book, the issues of leadership, Ubuntu (community), gender-based violence, political violence, healing, and deliverance faced by pastors and ministers in African contexts today. Drawing on biblical, theological, social scientific, and cultural contextual perspectives, these African Christians offer much needed insights to assist in the care and counseling of persons towards healing, health, and well-being.
The coming of Colonization and Christianity to Africa and other indigenous cross-cultural contexts was a "mixed bag" of pros and cons. The impact of the advent of the two has had a lasting effect being felt even today. It created issues of bi-culturalism and bi-religiousness in personal and religious identities that counselors and the church need to address when working with people from these contexts. There is the existence of deep cultural trauma (including psychological and spiritual scars) needing healing for those living in most of these post-colonial contexts. The Western counseling approaches and Christian rituals need contextualization. A counselor or pastoral caregiver with an integrative consciousness is required to address the psychological and religious identity conflicts existing in African and other indigenous cross-cultural contexts.
This anthology is about caring for all persons as a part of the revolutionary struggle against colonialism in its many forms. In recognition of the varied ways in which different forms of oppression, injustice, and violence in the world today are traceable to the legacy and continuing effects of colonialism, various authors have contributed to the volume from diverse backgrounds including differing ethnic identities, religious and cultural traditions, gender and sexual orientations, as well as communal and personal realities. As a postcolonial critique of spiritual care, it highlights the plurality of voices and concerns that have been overlooked or obscured because of the politics of race, religion, sexuality, nationalism, and other structures of power that have shaped what discursive spiritual care entails today. Postcolonial Images of Spiritual Care presents voices of practical and pastoral theologians, academics, spiritual care providers, religious leaders, students, and activists working to provide greater intercultural spiritual care and awareness in the areas of healthcare, community work, and education. The volume, as such, expands the discourse of spiritual care and participates in the ongoing paradigm shifts in the field of pastoral and practical theology.
Illness causes an existential crisis for people as it confronts them with the fragility, vulnerability and finitude of the human condition. Serious illness and hospitalisation can be challenging and life-changing experiences, especially in a context with poor resources and limited support. Healthcare workers meet patients in this space of disarray. Human qualities, such as faith, hope and compassion become crucial aspects of care. Patients’ responses to these qualities highlight the importance of spirituality as part of holistic care, not only for the patients and their families, but also for the healthcare worker. The 2nd Biennial South African Conference on Spirituality and Healthcare brought together leading experts from different disciplines, and offered a variety of perspectives to explore the ways in which spirituality interacts with healing, growth and wholeness in healthcare. This volume addresses principles and practices for spirituality and healthcare, spiritual assessment, the role of community psychology, models of spiritual care, volunteers and children’s spirituality in healthcare.
Meet Me at the Palaver makes the case for a particular approach to pastoral counseling as a response to the destructive impact of colonial Christianity on indigenous African communities. The book opens with stories of destructive change brought to indigenous contexts (such as Zimbabwe, Africa), wherein the culture, values, religion, and humanity of African peoples were often marginalized. Mucherera demonstrates that therapy or counseling as taught in the West will not always suffice in such contexts, since these approaches tend to promote and focus on individuality, autonomy, and independence. Counselors in indigenous contexts need to get off their couch or chair and into the neighborhoods--into those places made vulnerable to disease and poverty by the collapse of the palaver and other traditional institutions of social stability. Since storytelling was at the heart of the practices of the palaver and continues to be a way of life in African cultures, Mucherera argues for a holistic narrative pastoral counseling approach to assess and service the three basic areas of human needs in indigenous African communities: body, mind, and spirit.
Respond to God's unfolding drama to bring healing and reconciliation. In this major revision of his classic book, Dr. Edward Wimberly updates his narrative methodology by examining current issues in African American pastoral care and counseling.
Meet Me at the Palaver makes the case for a particular approach to pastoral counseling as a response to the destructive impact of colonial Christianity on indigenous African communities. The book opens with stories of destructive change brought to indigenous contexts (such as Zimbabwe, Africa), wherein the culture, values, religion, and humanity of African peoples were often marginalized. Mucherera demonstrates that therapy or counseling as taught in the West will not always suffice in such contexts, since these approaches tend to promote and focus on individuality, autonomy, and independence. Counselors in indigenous contexts need to ""get off their couch or chair"" and into the neighborhoods--into those places made vulnerable to disease and poverty by the collapse of ""the palaver"" and other traditional institutions of social stability. Since storytelling was at the heart of the practices of the palaver and continues to be a way of life in African cultures, Mucherera argues for a holistic narrative pastoral counseling approach to assess and service the three basic areas of human needs in indigenous African communities: body, mind, and spirit. ""Mucherera tactfully captures the lost art of storytelling as a mode of communication for therapy and moral values. Though commonly used by indigenous Africans to transmit oral traditions, the narrative approach is a unique tool that creates safe distance for the care receiver and offers ample opportunity to the caregiver to non-judgmentally form an uplifting and therapeutic relationship. This book is a must read for all pastoral caregivers, pastors, counselors, and ministry students, since the narrative approach is an effective communication tool in today's cross cultural world."" Anne Kiome Gatobu, Assistant Professor of Pastoral Care, Asbury Theological Seminary ""The impact of Western colonialism's attempt to extinguish indigenous peoples' stories, communities, value systems, and culture--recruiting them into negative identities through colonial strategies--has crippled, for example, African people's ability to face many contemporary problems such as poverty and the HIV/AIDS pandemic. This book presents a hopeful strategy of recovering stories, cultural traditions, and values that have been subjugated in the past as effective means for dealing with contemporary life in indigenous contexts such as Zimbabwe. This narrative pastoral counseling approach is based on traditional African wisdom as well as the knowledge growing out of the author's pastoral counseling experience in Africa and the United States. The author challenges dangerous traditional practices in the age of HIV/AIDS, and the need for justice for the poor. A must read for those interested in working with indigenous peoples."" Edward P. Wimberly, Academic Dean & the Jarena Lee Professor of Pastoral Care at I. T. C. in Atlanta. Tapiwa N. Mucherera is Professor of Pastoral Counseling at Asbury Theological Seminary and Assistant Provost, Florida campus. He is the author of Pastoral Care from a Third World Perspective. An ordained United Methodist pastor, he has served churches in Zimbabwe, Iowa, and Denver.
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.
