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Shame, Ministry, and Theological Education: Leaves from the Notebook of a Defiant Seminarian

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Abstract

Many young adult Christians are highly influenced by relativism of all sorts, which can lead them to a state of doubt. If they voice their doubts too loudly, they are often shamed and abandoned by their elder Christians who do not have (or, perhaps better, do not voice) these doubts. I suggest that those of us involved in youth ministry must meet our youth where they are at, that is, meet them in their doubt, which is not, in my view, a bad place to be. This article focuses on a psychoanalytic understanding of shame and draws from the work of Donald Capps, Erik H. Erikson, Heinz Kohut, and D. W. Winnicott.

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Correspondence to Nathan Steven Carlin.

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Carlin, N.S. Shame, Ministry, and Theological Education: Leaves from the Notebook of a Defiant Seminarian. Pastoral Psychol 53, 501–514 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11089-005-4817-8

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