Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #292106 in Books
• Published on: 1997-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 264 pages

Customer Reviews

Not bad, but not what I expected
I expected a book that would introduce me to the nuances and "how-to" of pastoral care. However, this book is more about the socio-historical context in which modern pastoral care emerged.

Like some others have mentioned, it is full of jargon, and, in my opinion, seems to be written as a magnum opus of the author. As such, it is very dense and seems to be an exercise in flexing the intellectual muscles of its author.

Don't get this book if you are looking to understand how to do pastoral care (I would recommed "Strategic Pastoral Counseling" for that).

DO get this book if you are looking for how the role and means of pastoral care have evolved over time.

An excellent place to start
If you are interested in learning more about what "Pastoral Care" is; how it has been practiced in the past; and how it might adapt itself to the challenges of our own time, this book is the place to begin your study. I appreciated the historical overview as well as the insightful theological rationale presented by the author. I would have given the book five stars except that in several instances the author lapses into barely muffled episodes of conservative-bashing (e.g., he criticizes the so-called "religious right" without ever calling into question the equally misguided "religious left").

Full of information and jargon
Here's an informative book from a man with a lot of theoretical and practical experience. It also reads like any corporate rhetoric from the 1990's: full of buzzwords like "schema" and "paradigmatic". If you can deal with the jargon, you can learn quite a bit.