Abstract
The existence of Pastoral Theology as a discipline is problematic. The possibility of becoming a discipline is discussed as requiring a shift from a clinical/therapeutic to an ecclesial paradigm as its center. The shift would foster a valuing of the pastor as an interpreter of human existence, attention to the need for a pastoral hermeneutic, and an appreciation for particularity. The field needs to attend its intellectual tasks and to assess the debits/credits of its relations to secular disciplines.
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Walter Brueggemann, “The Covenanted Family: A Zone for Humanness,”Journal of Current Social Issues, Winter 1977, p. 18.
Howard Clinebell,Growth Counseling: Hope Centered Methods of Actualizing Human Wholeness (Nashville: Abingdon, 1979).
Bernard Loomer, “Announcements,”Catalogue of the Divinity School, University of Chicago, July 25, 1953.
Ibid.
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Way, P.A. Pastoral excellence and Pastoral Theology: A slight shift of paradigm and a modest polemic. Pastoral Psychol 29, 46–57 (1980). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01762328
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01762328