Being(s) in the World: Navigating the Macro Changes in Pastoral Theology in a Neo-Liberal Age

This review article focusses on three new texts in Pastoral theology, each of which, offers an important and interesting turn in the discipline. The three texts – Caring For Souls in a Neo-Liberal Age, by Bruce Rogers-Vaughn1, Race, Religion, and Resilience in the Neo-Liberal Age, by Cedric C. Johnson2 and Care of Souls, Care of Polis by Ryan Lamothe1 – will be reviewed in light of the prevailing themes they share. In what ways are these three authors foregrounding important new dimensions in the study of Pastoral theology and Pastoral care?

Moving Beyond the Clerical Paradigm: Practical Theology in the Korean Context

Over the past few decades, practical theologians in Korea have devised a framework to address important issues, correlating theory and practice and bridging the divide between pastors and lay people to facilitate open communication. However, the clerical paradigm has deep roots in Korean culture and ideology, which, combined with the Confucian patriarchal system, poses a challenge to Korean practical theology. These factors cause practical theology to reflect on its limitations and to move toward a hermeneutical-praxis paradigm by dealing with Christian praxis, connecting church with society for public responsibility, and providing an egalitarian leadership between pastors and lay people.

Recovering Mystery: Ecological Encounters and Practical Theological Ways of Knowing

Western ways of thinking about our ecological context have too often failed to nurture meaningful relationship with it. This failure is rooted in our assumptions about what it means to know. Approaches to environmental education (including environmental education in religious communities and beyond) that rely on rationalist and objectivist epistemologies fail to adequately address the emotional and relational aspects of forming ecological character and identity. Ecological encounter, as spiritual and pedagogical practice, grounds an integrated and comprehensive way of knowing, loving, and caring for a dynamic and mysterious world, and the place of human life within it.