Introduction
Anton T. Boisen, the founder of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) was the first ordained minister to supervise theological students in a clinical setting, beginning in 1925. After an experience of mental illness and hospitalization, Boisen resolved to help theological students read the "living human documents" alongside the documents read in their classical study of theology in order to develop a more holistic approach in caring for persons in a crisis of illness.
The primary purpose of my dissertation was to provide a critical examination and evaluation of Boisen's clinical method of theological inquiry. The secondary purpose was to identify specific implications of this method for the psychology of religion, theological education, and CPE.
Motivations and Assumptions
Like many people, the study of systematic theology and Biblical criticism was difficult for me. When I entered Crozer Theological Seminary at the tender age of 22, I did not have enough life experience to fully appreciate the rich theological content that was being presented to me. I remember sitting in Dean Henderson's office, after hearing his masterful presentation on the Q source, saying in great despair that this did not seem relevant to one who was going to become a chaplain or a pastoral counselor. I remember the agonized "all-nighters" when I tried to write five pages on the Doctrine of God, on Christology, or on the Holy Spirit in fulfillment of Kenneth Cauthen's assignments. My 22-year-old well was empty. In spite of (or perhaps because of) the reading I was doing, I really had nothing to say about these great doctrines of the church. What did they mean? Why should I care?!
In spite of the teaching of Albert Meiburg, Edward Thornton, and a unit of CPE, I graduated from Crozer still basically clueless about the relevance or importance of theological study. I did know one thing: I did want to do graduate work at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville with Wayne E. Oates. That program seemed to be the only one at the time which provided a full integration of clinical study with classical theological study. Intuitively, I knew I could survive graduate school if I also had a clinical context in which to learn that was recognizably connected with classical study.
I didn't fully understand why that connection was important until I became chaplain at a geriatric facility in southern Louisville. At first I ran from the very sick old men because I did not want to entertain the possibility that I could be like them someday. Eventually I calmed down enough to get close to the patients and hear their stories.
The story of Bert is a primary example. One day, in the midst of his severe pain from cancer of the bone marrow, he looked me straight in the eye with a severe but desperate look and asked, "Chaplain, why do I have to suffer like this?" In a matter of hours, the benefit of Q source, the Doctrine of God, the work of the Holy Spirit, and everything else my professors were trying to tell me became vitally important. In his suffering, Bert became my teacher. I found myself standing in a Biblical and theological nexus with human experience. Now, in light of Bert's question, I desired to know more about who God was, how God worked, and what Paul was really saying in Romans 8. The next day I went back to Bert's room and became a partner with him on his life-and-death faith journey as we wrestled together on the issue of whether anything can separate us from the love of God.
Thanks to the Berts I encountered in my clinical work, theology now not only made sense but also was foundational to my work as a pastor. In the midst of that transforming insight, I was introduced to the work of Anton T. Boisen. Here was a man talking about "the living human documents" and how a complete theological education required the reading of those documents alongside classical theological study. He was putting words to my experience! He was articulating a principle that was largely missing in my units of CPE, but which had been fully borne out in my work as a chaplain. I had to know more. What was this method? How did he use it to help students think theologically about their clinical experience? Again, I had an intuition that, if I knew this, it would be extremely valuable to me as a teacher of pastoral theology.
In 1984, eight years after I completed my dissertation, Charles Gerkin observed the degree to which the pastoral care movement had become enamored with personal psychotherapy and how pastoral care students are prone to adopt purely psychological language. He noted that theological reflection in that kind of training situation can "become like the bumper sticker slapped on the bus as it is pulling out of the parking lot on its way to a psychologically determined destination" (Gerkin, 1984, p. 17). He was pointing to a problem that had existed in CPE and pastoral counseling education for decades—a problem that impaired the pastoral identity of the pastoral practitioner.
Boisen (1953) had already pointed to this problem thirty years earlier, when he lamented that the psychology of religion had become too Freudian and the clinical training movement had "been disappointing" because of its acceptance of "psychoanalysis as authoritarian doctrine," with the result that "the questions of central importance to the student of religion and of theology are not being asked" (pp. 155-157). Seward Hiltner (1975) echoed this same concern on the fiftieth anniversary of CPE, noting that "the basic theological concern from which Boisen began has continued to occupy, at best, only a secondary position in most training centers" (p. 92).
Surprises Along the Way
With this motivation for my study, I concluded it with the assumption that if CPE and pastoral education in general would return to Boisen's method, all would be right with the world; theological education would improve and pastoral care and counseling would become more holistic. Perhaps I was only partly right.
CPE has significantly improved since I completed my study in 1976, with much more attention being given to theological and spiritual issues. However, I have since seen that the revolution toward holistic care would have to involve more than the religious community if it was going to be complete. About thirty years ago, Herbert Benson began studying a "relaxation response" which involved the use of prayer and which gave measurable results in the decrease of heart rate, breathing, brain waves, and metabolism. Benson continued this research at Harvard Medical School and others have joined him, both in publishing and in annual conferences at the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston, which he founded (see Benson, 1996, cf. Dossey, 1993).
The result of hard physiological data coming from the medical community regarding the importance of religious ritual has been that all disciplines are now talking about the "spiritual" as something extremely important. One of my "surprises along the way" was when I started getting phone calls from nurses who wanted to give their patients a spiritual inventory. My first internal reaction to those calls was, "But why? This is the chaplain's job!" Then when they began defining "spiritual" as ultimate concerns, views of mortality, health of relationships, etc., I switched to "Why not?!" Instead of guarding our "turf," chaplains and pastoral counselors have more of an opportunity to help other professionals do their work in a more holistic fashion.
For the past twenty years, Moravian Theological Seminary has been offering a two-year Master of Arts in Pastoral Counseling degree. The evolution of that degree and its public perception might also be considered a "surprise." A recent review of the program showed that, when we first started offering the degree, the primary market was among parish pastors who wanted to specialize in the ministry of pastoral counseling. We now find that the primary market is among lay persons (many of whom are professionals in other fields) who want to do counseling with a holistic, spiritual emphasis. As I have been involved in making our degree more marketable for students, especially those seeking state licensure, I have found that groups such as the American Counseling Association are affirming that "spiritual and religious issues are therapeutically relevant, ethically appropriate, and potentially significant topics for counseling and counselor education in secular settings" (Burke, et.al., 1999, p. 251). Boisen would be proud. While we still may have to agree on definitions of spirituality, the increasing amount of literature on spiritual issues found in the annals of "secular psychology" is a very positive sign that the "great divide" is dissolving like the Berlin Wall. This development is gratifying. The surprise is that it is coming from within the ranks of other disciplines and not from outside pressure from the pastoral care and counseling field.
Vision
The next "Berlin Wall," which I hope to address more fully in the remaining decade of my career, is the wall which separates the "classical" and the "pastoral" in theological education. Boisen's concern was to join the academy and the clinic in theological education. Now the "clinic" is a significant part of the curriculum of most theological schools, but there are still very differing perceptions on the part of students, faculty, and administration regarding the methodology, the epistemology, and even the objectives of the academic (classical) versus the clinical (pastoral) disciplines. I wish to continue collaboration with my colleagues in all fields of theological study in working toward a holistic methodology and approach to theological education that is unified in its task and which is truly "interdisciplinary" instead of divided.
The new understanding of Pastoral Theology, as opposed to "Practical Theology" has helped in this regard. Pastoral Theology is now generally seen as another discipline in the study of theology instead of simply the added-on "practical stuff" being taught by a nearly-retired pastor or bishop who could talk about, as Urban Holmes (1978) put it, "my life and hard times at St. Swithen's" (p. 7). This has been helped in part by the "coming of age" of Pastoral Theology through its research, its literature, and also the formation of the Society for Pastoral Theology in 1985. Since 1990, the Society has been publishing its own refereed journal, the Journal of Pastoral Theology, with the primary mission of furthering the understanding of pastoral theology as a theological discipline.
Another factor that has helped greatly in "wall-breaking" is the fact that all disciplines are facing a revolutionary proliferation of methodologies for doing the work of that field. Boisen's clinical method of theological inquiry pointed to a method that in itself became content. Now all theological disciplines, faced with an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, interfaith, postmodern context are having to address method to the extent that it becomes a significant part of the content of that field. My Biblical studies colleagues, for example, note that this is an increasing issue in their field because of the recent dramatic increase in the number of exegetical methods or approaches available to them (e.g., Segovia and Tolbert, 1998).
As all theological disciplines address the same issues of preparation for ministry in the postmodern world, it is quite possible that this will be the meeting ground for all theological work. Instead of being equal in death (as symbolized by the same-size, ground level stones in a Moravian cemetery), we will all be equal in life as we focus on a holistic understanding of humanity, ministry, proclamation, and care. In this new frontier, the significant legacy of both Anton T. Boisen and Wayne E. Oates will continue to flourish and grow.
References
Herbert Benson, H. (1996). Timeless Healing: The Power of Biology and Belief. New York: Scribner. cf. Dossey, L. (1993) Healing Words: The Power of Prayer and the Practice of Medicine. San Francisco: Harper.
Boisen, A.T. (Fall 1953). "The Present Status of William James' Psychology of Religion," The Journal of Pastoral Care VII:3.
Burke, M.T., Hackney, H., Hudson, P., Miranti, J., Watts, G.A., and Epp, L. (Summer, 1999). "Spirituality, Religion, and CACREP Curriculum Standards," Journal of Counseling and Development 77.
Gerkin, C.V. (1984). The Living Human Document: Re-Visioning Pastoral Counseling in a Hermeneutical Mode. Nashville: Abingdon Press.
Hiltner, S. (June, 1975). "Fifty Years of CPE," The Journal of Pastoral Care XXIX:2.
Holmes, U.T., III. (1978). The Priest in Community: Exploring the Roots of Ministry. New York: The Seabury Press.
Segovia, F.F. and Tolbert, M.A. (eds.). (1998). Teaching the Bible: The Discourses and Politics of Biblical Pedagogy. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books.
Dr. Glenn Asquith, Jr., is Professor of Pastoral Theology Moravian Theological Seminary Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
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