535 - Biblical Themes for Pastoral Care

Biblical Themes for Pastoral Care
By William B. Oglesby, Jr.
Nashville, Abingdon, 1980. 240 pp. $10.95.

Since we have learned to appreciate the insights of the human sciences for pastoral care, pastoral theologians have been struggling to apply psychological and sociological perspectives to human problems while maintaining the theological integrity of pastoral care. Most such efforts fail. Aspirants for membership in the major pastoral care organizations usually stammer when asked what is specifically pastoral about their work, and what they do manage to say is superficial. We have long needed work that incorporates and transcends the psychological disciplines, and is frankly theological. Only a few-Hiltner, Oates, and the like-have undertaken this task.

Professor of pastoral care at Union Theological Seminary in Richmond, Virginia, Oglesby has written a book in this direction. It is not baptized psychology, nor Freud dressed up in costumes from a Cecil B. DeMille movie, but solid biblical theology addressed to the practice of pastoral care and counseling.

After a lengthy introduction, he tackles five pairs of themes, each of which are dynamically related: initiative and freedom, fear and faith, conformity and rebellion, death and rebirth, risk and redemption. His debt to Hiltner's Theological Dynamics is apparent, but the treatment is his own. That the place where we spiritually exist at any given moment is the product of conflicting forces, that one's theology is, for example, driven by the fear of being discovered and slain, and the desire to be known and loved, is a major theme in biblical theology. For the

536 - Biblical Themes for Pastoral Care

understanding of how this theme runs throughout a pastoral care relationship, we are indebted to the author's clear interpretation.

He clearly acknowledges the major strand of contemporary psychotherapeutic thinking. But the center of his own thinking is what he calls the "great quadratic emphasis": God, humankind, sin, and salvation. From this center Oglesby never strays more than a few paces. Yet here is no cheap biblicism. Rich with references to specific passages and texts, the book is empty of proof-texting. Not hesitant to exegete a particular passage, he is less concerned about our agreement with his hermeneutics than with our willingness to perceive the relationship between pastoral care practice and its underlying theology.

The chapter on fear and faith is particularly engaging, although it suffers from having only one pastoral conversation for analysis, instead of the two in other chapters. It begins by tracing human fear from Adam and Eve to the Philippian jailer, with, by the way, a set of profound references to Cain. The dynamic tension between fear and faith is identified and plentifully illustrated with biblical references. The author walks a careful tight-rope to show the reader that the injunction not to be afraid is ridiculous when it denies human feelings, but effective when it also contains the message that Christ loves me and is with me. He then traces this same theme through a pastoral conversation. Finally, he returns to a discussion of the jagged quality of the progress of the development of faith. Other chapters follow a similar format.

The theme of the book is the same as biblical theology in general: our ambiguity, our doubting faith, our faithful doubt in the face of God's offering of healing. The minister's work in pastoral care and counseling is effective to the extent that this ambiguity is squarely faced and clearly understood.

It is faulty to make a simple identification of this theme with the theme of resistance in psychoanalytic thinking. The two are certainly related, but resistance in therapy is a pale shadow of our ambiguous response to God's offer of healing.

The minister searching for new techniques or rules will not profit from this book. Its principal contribution is to enrich our thinking and change our attitudes, rather than to sharpen our counseling skills. Both the pastor and the professional pastoral counselor, both of whom have yearned for a way to think theologically about what they do, may well find this the best door that has been opened in some time.

There are, unfortunately, many editorial errors in the book, particularly in the end footnotes. Poor editing is a plague of epidemic proportions in the publishing industry, and not all the fault lies with the publisher. Both the reader and the author deserve more careful treatment than they receive in this edition.

Kenneth R. Mitchell
Eden Theological Seminary
Saint Louis, Missouri