560 - Pastoral Care and Social Conflict

Pastoral Care and Social Conflict
By Pamela D. Couture and Rodney J. Hunter
Nashville, Abingdon, 1995. 256 pp. $14.95.

This interesting book is a collection of essays honoring and broadening the work of Charles Gerkin, one of the "old hands" and, simultaneously, creative innovators in the field of pastoral care and pastoral theology. Edited by two of his Candler School of Theology, Emory University, colleagues, the book consists of sixteen essays addressing the history, special contextual issues, and new practical approaches that confront our pastoral callings in the face of the "truth" that the old psychological paradigm is no longer sufficient to the task. The broadening of the horizons, something Gerkin pursued in his use of hermeneutical theory and social-theory, clearly has made its mark on the, seventeen authors of these sixteen ­essays.

As with most books of this genre, some essays are better than others, and no real theme holds the essays together (other than that Gerkin has had an influence on us all). In addition, it seems to be a book written by pastoral-theology scholars more interested in talking with each other than with the practitioner eager for honest and critical practice. This is a shame, for Gerkin's own work is readily available to scholar and minister alike.

Brian H. Childs
Columbia Theological Seminary
Decatur, GA.