Converging Horizons. Allan Hugh Cole

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      The writer Wendell Berry (1992) holds a similar view. He calls the dualistic thinking that grounds the modern mind “the most destructive disease that afflicts us,” and he observes further that the dualism of body and soul remains the most “dangerous” and “fundamental” version of it. Berry writes:

      God did not make a body and put a soul into it, like a letter into an envelope. He formed man of dust; then, by breathing His breath into it, He made the dust live. The dust, formed as man and made to live, did not embody a soul; it became a soul. “Soul” here refers to the whole creature. Humanity is thus present to us, in Adam, not as a creature of two discrete parts temporarily glued together but as a single mystery (106).

      But this dualistic thinking is common in my experience, and especially in the church. In one of Berry’s (2000) novels, a young man by the name of Jayber Crow reflects on this common way of thinking:

      I took to studying the ones of my teachers who were also preachers, and also the preachers who came to speak in chapel at my various exercises. In most of them I saw the old division of body and soul I had [long known]. . . . Everything bad was laid on the body, and everything good was credited to the soul. It scared me a little when I realized that I saw it the other way around. If the soul and body were really divided, then it seemed to me that all the worst sins—hatred and anger and self-righteousness and even greed and lust—came from the soul. But those preachers I’m talking about all thought that the soul could do no wrong, but always had its face washed and its pants on and was in agony over having to associate with the flesh of the world. And yet those same people believed in the resurrection of the body (49).

With Moltmann and Berry, I think of “the soul” as the whole person, in his or her entirety, in relationship to the living God. Consequently, I want to stress two matters of soul-care. First, we should think of personhood in terms of the body, mind, and soul existing in what Moltmann calls “reciprocal relation” and “mutual interpenetration” (Moltmann, 1985, 257). People are embodied souls and soulful bodies, if you will. Second, and related, the term soul denotes not part of a person that relates to God but rather the whole person in relationship to the living God, whether in life or death. A person is a soul. A soul is a person.6

      Recognizing souls in the fashion that I am advocating will do more than help restore soul language to pastoral care. More important, it will shape how pastoral caregivers think about human life and experience. This includes thinking about what persons are and how persons are formed and transformed; but also about how God and faith communities may participate in their formation and transformation. Its appreciation for and focus on souls—their care and cure—distinguishes pastoral care from other types of care.

      Storied Care

If pastoral care involves soul-care, pastoral care also involves what could be called “storied care.”7 In fact, we may further distinguish pastoral care by noting that it takes place in the foreground of a particular story—the Christian story. I have described the Christian story elsewhere as “the story of God’s creative, transformative, and redemptive acts throughout history, which Christians have most frequently recognized in the history of Israel; the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus; and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit” (Cole, 2008c, 172). Told in the pages of Scripture, this story has been brought to life for two millennia through shared beliefs, passions, and acts among Christian persons. Certainly, the Christian life entails living intentionally in relationship to this story.

      Of course, I want to recognize here that the term “the Christian story” will represent different things to different people—all of whom may identify themselves as Christians. Actually, the Christian story derives from many stories, including those recounted in Scripture and church traditions, but also those stories that are lived out—historically and in the present—in the contexts of various faith communities and beyond. Therefore, we can never be sure of precisely what we have in mind, nor that we agree on what we mean, when making an appeal to “the Christian story.” Moreover, our own understandings of this story evolve. As South African theologian John de Gruchy suggests, how people understand and give expression to the Christian story will change over time as that story gets lived out in different contexts and eras (de Gruchy, 2006, 11).

      Nevertheless, I believe that my description of the Christian story is sufficiently broad. It leaves room for different understandings and expressions with respect to contextual and temporal factors. It also recognizes that the power of the Christian story persists in its varied understandings and traditions.

      We should note here, then, several characteristics of the Christian story as I have described it. First, it makes claims about “the way things are, what holds the greatest value and importance, and what qualifies as moral, ethical, and just” (Cole, 2008c, 172). Second, it presents normative ways of carrying ourselves and being in relationships, including relationships with other people, with the created world, and with God. Third, the Christian story calls those who embrace it to live by its claims and norms; and this entails locating “their personal stories within its story so that it molds, guides, and sets boundaries for their personal stories” (172). As we claim it and live by it,

      the Christian story claims us and makes claims upon us; it offers promises to us and informs how we make meaning of life, including how we view the world, our relationships, ourselves, and ultimately God. We could go so far as to say that the Christian life is a lived story. Giving us our identity, constituting our selfhood, and commissioning our way of being and acting, this story makes us who we are (172).

      Implications of Distinction

      So what does this have to do with pastoral care? Caring for souls in the context of this story—by virtue of allowing it to shape our perspectives on caring—comprises the pastoral caregiver’s expertise and distinguishing contributions among those of other helping persons—those we typically call professionals. In some cases the pastoral caregiver may be a professional, too; but more importantly, the pastoral caregiver is “a professor—that is, one who professes. She professes the Christian faith. She professes belief in and embrace of a particular story, the Christian story. In so doing, she lives her life in accord with what it proclaims and the responsibilities to which it calls its adherents” (16). Furthermore, she rightly sees herself—and is seen by others—as caring for souls in the foreground of this story. Why? Because this story encompasses her own story. Her faith and its practices ground her calling and training as one who offers care to souls because her faith and its practices ground her life.

When it comes to pastoral care, my experience has been that ministers easily lose sight of the distinctiveness of care that unfolds against the backdrop of the Christian story. That is, they lose sight of what it is they have to bring to the caregiving party that other (professional) caregivers do not—which is to say that ministers let go of their distinctive vocation and training as caregivers. Doubting their expertise and contributions to the care of souls, they defer to “the professionals.” Interestingly, ministers rarely defer to others on matters of preaching, Christian education, and church administration; and this suggests that pastoral care challenges the minister’s confidence and comfort with respect to his distinct perspective. A lack of confidence shows when the minister too quickly defers to the expertise of the psychologist, social worker, or psychiatrist through a referral.8 Worse, however, is when the minister imitates their expertise without requisite training, experience, and practical wisdom; that is, when the minister seeks to function as a therapist.9 Incidentally, this imitation likely follows from the familiarity in our therapeutic culture with popular psychology and various self-help movements, many of which claim grounding in one or more spiritualities.

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