Pastoral Care is Fellowship with Christ

David Pettett
July, 2015

In her book on revitalising pastoral care, Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger says that Christ’s presence determines the pastoral conversation.[1] If this is true, Christian pastoral care is never carer focused. Yet the surprising conclusion is that it is also never client focussed. In Christian pastoral care it is not the chaplain who brings an agenda of their own. And yet it is also not the client who sets the direction which the chaplain responds to. It is Christ who sets the agenda and to whom both the chaplain and the client respond.

Consider three scenarios:

1.       The chaplain who brings their own agenda.

Most pastoral care practitioners agree that this is the worst form of pastoral care. This chaplain will approach the unsuspecting client with a clear purpose such as evangelism at one extreme. This chaplain does not feel they have done a good days ‘chaplaining’ unless they have told someone about the wonderful saving work of Christ. At another extreme, and equally inappropriate, is the desire within the chaplain to ‘make the patient feel calm’. This assumes the patient wants to be calm. What if she wants to ball her eyes out in grief or scream at God in anger?

Bringing your own agenda as a chaplain or pastoral carer says more about your own needs than it does about the work of pastoral care. It is something to be avoided but too often observed even in people who have been acting as chaplains for a number of years.

2.       The chaplain who is determined to respond to the patient’s agenda.

Too often in pastoral care this approach is promoted as the proper way for a chaplain to act. This approach encourages the chaplain to listen and reflect. Not a bad idea, and often very helpful for the patient especially when this chaplain is the first person who has bothered to hear and to be a fellow human being who is present. But this style of pastoral care most often stops at this point when it should go further. Click through to this YouTube video to see how frustrating for the patient this approach can be.

3.       The chaplain who follows Christ’s agenda.

This does not mean simply being biblically correct. Yet, again, being biblically correct is not a bad idea. Neither does it mean waiting for a personal, audible voice from Jesus to know what to do next. As Hunsinger styles it, Christ’s mediation reconfigures every human encounter, desire and aspiration. His mediation is effective because Christ himself is present in the pastoral encounter. His presence will be apparent primarily to the chaplain because he or she has entered the pastoral space in prayer, asking that Christ himself be present, asking that Christ will mediate between the chaplain and the patient. Asking that Christ’s wisdom will be to the fore when human wisdom fails. Believing that Christ’s strength will be present when human strength is inadequate. Knowing that Christ’s suffering stands between suffering and the sufferer themselves. In prayer the chaplain entrusts the pastoral encounter to Christ. In this style of pastoral encounter the client will also ultimately become aware of the presence of Christ.

The ministry of Christian pastoral care is a difficult privilege. It goes beyond compassion and empathy. It does more than listen and reflect. It is more than drawing alongside a fellow human being with empathy. It is more than two people in conversation. In Christian pastoral care three people are always present. Three human beings. One of them is truly human in a way the other two have never been and can only ever aspire to be.

If the chaplain tries to be the well trained expert who moves to their own agenda, they will fail. If the chaplain tries to be the empathic listener, responding to the patient’s agenda they, and sometimes the patient, will feel good. But neither of these approaches has deliberately invited Christ into the encounter. In both, there is human interaction and there may be some level of pastoral care, one for the other. It is hard, however, to see how these methodologies can be truly called Christian pastoral care because Christ is not acknowledged.

Hunsinger believes that because psychotherapy has so dominated pastoral care many practitioners see themselves as agents of change. The pastoral care encounter is thought to be part of the treatment plan. Contra this Hunsinger makes the bold statement that ‘Koinonia is the central purpose of Christian pastoral care.’ She believes that being present, listening with care and praying are ends in themselves. They are not a means to see the patient made well.

Christian pastoral care will see the chaplain enter into koinonia firstly with Christ and then with the patient. Christian pastoral care will take place when all three acknowledge each other’s presence. Christian pastoral care will take place when two of the three recognise that the one true human ‘stands between’ themselves and their human experience. This is why the major activity of the chaplain in pastoral care is prayer; to invite, to experience, to respond to and to encounter the fellowship of Christ in the fellowship of human life.

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[1] Deborah van Deusen Hunsinger. Pray without ceasing: Revitalising Pastoral Care. Grand Rapids. Eerdmans. 2006

Distinctives of Paediatric Hospital Chaplaincy

Kate Bradford
June 2015

Paediatric chaplaincy is not for everyone. It meets child-patients and families at times of greatest loses and needs. Nevertheless, for chaplains who have found their vocational home within Paediatric hospitals, few would swap their difficult privilege for any other ministry.

Is paediatric hospital chaplaincy different for any other form of chaplaincy? Are not all chaplains trained to minister to vulnerable people ─ suffering with loss and various major life issues? The first and major difference in paediatric chaplaincy is the differing, contradictory or even competing needs of the child-patient themselves and those needs of the child-patient’s family.

The UK NHS Chaplaincy Guidelines[1] highlight two areas that require specialised focus when working with children. The first area is concerned with the particular spiritual needs of younger people and children. This requires highly skilled and imaginative care. Related to this, and of paramount importance, will be ethical and safeguarding considerations for care in specialist paediatric units. Chaplains working in such areas will require enhanced training tailored to their context.

The second area of particular consideration is the concerns families and friends of younger people and children face which pose particular challenges to faith, belief and spirituality. Chaplains in paediatric settings will need to be equipped to support those facing these challenges and will require support and supervision.

Listed below are some ‘distinctives’ around paediatric chaplaincy:

1.       Children have different spiritual needs to adults; children and adolescents are at different development stages: physically, cognitively, emotionally and spiritually depending on their age and experience of life.

2.       Children have a greater vulnerability and require greater safeguards around their care.

3.        Paediatric chaplains very often visit parents and relatives who have been traumatically impacted by serious illness or disability of their child. In this case chaplains must ask, “Who is the actual patient?”

4.       Decisions are being made by parents, guardians, and medical staff on behalf of patients who cannot speak for themselves.

5.       There is heightened intensity around childhood illness triggering precipitation of anticipatory losses of hopes and dreams of the parents, family and wider community.

6.       Childhood illness, disability and death alter family systems forever, indelibly changing lives of siblings.

7.       When a young life does not reach its potential, there is a widespread belief that this is not fair and there are related issues of injustice, blame, guilt and shame.

8.       Our culture perceives serious childhood illness, disability and death as a ‘reversal of natural order’ and consequently does not cope well with these situations.

9.       There is a responsibility on all practitioners to be aware of self and the way in which their actions affect the plasticity of the family system.

Ministering as a chaplain in a paediatric environment does require an additional skill set, and not all generally trained chaplains will be equipped for ministry in a paediatric setting. The US Pediatric (sic) Chaplains Network has published a list of demonstrated competencies of a paediatric chaplain. [2] 

General competencies for a paediatric chaplain are knowledge, skills and maturity around self-awareness, theology, pastoral care, and leadership ability.

Chaplains in a paediatric setting will often find childhood memories triggered. These may be of the chaplain’s own childhood illnesses or disability but can also have to do with issues experienced second hand such as stillbirth, cot death, cancer, neglect, abuse, accidents or a myriad of other losses of hopes and dreams buried deep in the subconscious. These are psychological issues of transference, projection and countertransference that need to be addressed in order to understand whose needs are really being addressed in the pastoral situation; the child inside the chaplain, or the child in the hospital bed.

It is important that chaplains demonstrate emotional and mental stability. This stability is held together with the ability to relate to and connect with people over a wide range of ages and varieties of people. The chaplain also needs to display a non-anxious compassionate and kind presence in stressful situations, while being aware of, and maintaining clear professional boundaries.

Paediatric illness triggers a cultural outrage about the unfairness of innocent suffering; a God who could have prevented it; a notion that the pain of the loss of a child is pain unbearable, unendurable and to even speak of the possibility is to tempt fate.

A paediatric chaplain needs to have personally a well-integrated faith and practice that incorporates well-developed theological perspectives of suffering, prayer, forgiveness, religious faith, community and hope while remaining respectful of the vulnerability of the patient and family. In addition to working with positive aspects of faith the chaplain needs to be able to recognise issues of perceived absence of God, guilt, shame, blame, punishment, theodicies, and instances of distorted or destructive religious beliefs and practices.  When working with children and adults across a variety of ages, stages, faith and cultures it is important to have a working knowledge of stages of faith in order to communicate in the helpful categories, and to clarity issues around the difference between spirituality and religious faith systems. There needs to great clarity around the difference between responding to the patients’ needs and enquiries and proselytization which employs coercion.

Families are never a theological problem to be solved. They are complex evolving social systems and these systems function according to observed trends and patterns and when we apply spiritual intervention we also tweak the social systems. The maxim ‘to do no harm’ applies in spiritual care too.

A paediatric chaplain needs a good understanding of Family Systems and an acquaintance with Attachment Theory as well as various coping styles and grief models. Skills in active, attentive and reflective listening are equally significant. It is important for the chaplain to have the ability to differentiate the various needs of people in the system: the child-patient, parents, family, medical staff and the wider community.

In a paediatric setting compassion, empathy and kindness need to be accompanied by good leadership ability for time when advocacy is needed within a family system, the hospital setting, or the wider community. The chaplain needs to have the ability to develop training resources for church communities and in-services for the hospital community. Well rounded chaplaincy includes planning in conducting services of blessings as well as baptisms, funerals and memorials.

Chaplains care for child-patients and their families as they search for meaning, belonging and significance in the midst of illness and hospitalization. The chaplain accompanies families across a vast terrain of faith, love and hope, moving from immediate horizons out towards eternal horizons.

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[1] http://healthcarechaplains.org/news/documents/nhs_chaplaincy_guidelines_2014_v5.pdf accessed 28/6/15

[2] These are extensive and can be accessed at http://media.wix.com/ugd/bbe2bd_173f63d2cc994d3fb99895105a2ad943.pdf These competencies fall into four main categories: A. Self-knowledge and Personal maturity. B. Knowledge and Skills in Theology. C. Knowledge and Skills in Pastoral Care. D. Leadership Ability.

 

Roger Williams … Patron Saint of Chaplaincy?

Kate Bradford
Feb 2015

Roger Williams (1603 -1683) was a 17^th Century Puritan reformer who lobbied for the end of religious persecution, freedom of conscience, land rights for First Nation Peoples, and a separating wall between church and state, in order to protect the church. Williams established Rhode Island State as a safe haven for refugees fleeing religious persecution. Williams believed all people, no matter which race, tribe or religion, bore the image of God and expressed God-given difference. Therefore, cross-cultural ministry and proselytization must be neither coercive nor accompanied by penalisation or withdrawal of social goods or services.

Roger Williams lived a life that expressed life-long obedience to God in the same direction.[1] Roger Williams saw no separation between our public and private Christian life. For Williams the whole of life was an expression of faith (or lack thereof) in Christ, and was lived out through every relationship and activity of life.

Why do I wish to nominate a puritan reformer as a patron saint of anything? In addition, I do not really think that RW would approve of my plan!  I do wish, however, to introduce and highlight the extraordinary achievements of someone who single-handedly laid out the relationship for Christian ministry and engagement in the public space (in the English speaking world) four centuries ago and has a great deal to offer chaplaincy.  I simply cannot think of any other historical figure who more deeply ploughed a theological furrow for our chaplaincy plough-disk to follow, which draws us inevitably forward into secular intuitions in the public space.

Williams proposed a radical new paradigm for a working relationship between secular agencies and religious institutions whereby the secular agency (magistrate) has no authority to discipline or judge on matters of religion not violating secular law, and religious leaders had authority over only those who have placed themselves under the authority of the minister. 

What Motivated Roger Williams?

Williams’ radical thinking arose out the religious turmoil Europe was experiencing and had experienced through the previous century following the reformation. In Europe, uniformity of religion was enforced and any religious dissent considered treasonous, leading variously to harassment, oppression, persecution or execution. 

Under Catholic rule, Protestants were persecuted and under Protestant rule Catholics were persecuted.  Minority religious groups such as Jews, Anabaptists, Quakers, followers of witchcraft and heathen were subject to persecution by all religious powers.

In 1630, a group of Anglican Puritans left England for Massachusetts Bay Colony, New England, fleeing from King Charles who brutally crushed all political and religious dissent in England. In New England, far from King Charles, the Puritans planned to establish a ‘New Israel’, a city on a hill, a light to the Gentiles. Massachusetts Bay Colony was to be a theocracy, a colony ruled by God’s laws. Roger Williams emigrated with the Puritans in a second wave arriving in New England in Feb 1631.

Roger Williams, the son of a tailor, had been sponsored by one of England’s finest Jurists for his studies at Cambridge and training for the Anglican ministry. He was appointed chaplain to a prominent English Puritan family.  During his voyage however, Williams had become convinced that the pilgrims should break completely with the Church of England. This led to a conflict and he ended up pastoring a Separatist congregation of like-minded parishioners. He came into more conflict with his leaders over several further matters. Firstly, he was incensed that the pilgrims had taken their land from the Native Indians without purchasing it, and secondly, he believed that true worship could not be forced, or commanded by any church or state, as it is a gift given freely from God.

Both issues threatened the authority of the church. As a result, this led to Williams’ banishment from the colony. He spent the winter of early 1636 in the wilderness of New England. Years later he recounted that during this time he was often without ‘bread or bed’. Williams’ life was spared when he found shelter with the Narragansett Indians, leading to lifelong friendship and mutual respect. Williams acquired the Indian language gaining both insights and appreciation into Indian culture. During this time of persecution, alienation and banishment for expressing both ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ views that differed from the religious establishment, his thoughts crystalized into a new way of thinking about the interface of secular and religious principles.

‘[Williams] was a social creature, a man who made friends easily, yet he was now cast adrift emotionally, mentally and physically. But being unmoored in an entirely new world had one benefit: He began exploring, probing, thinking about what kind of society he wanted to create, for he now had…“the country free before me.”’[2]

Williams was both a 17^th century puritan and a radical Christian thinker. Williams’ key principles were securing religious freedom for all people, where charity and civility replaced persecution. He proposed separation of church and state whereby authority of the government lay with the civil power of the people not the church and religion was voluntary, not compelled. People of all faiths were allowed to worship (or not) as they chose.

Touchstones for Williams’ new paradigm

1.       Piety - Williams was a sincere and pious man who depended on God through prayer and study of the Bible.

2.       Humanity – God created all people. No nation or human church acted as his proxy.

3.       Society – Human society was a collection of civil societies. No society, after the coming of Christ, was the New Israel. The New Israel was the invisible community gathered around Christ whose members were drawn from all nations. This demonstrates Williams’ notion of equality.

4.       Sanctity – Each person bore the image of God. People of all tribes, races, cultures and languages were created and sustained by God. Therefore Williams held abolitionist principles, believing that no person could own another.

5.       Legality – There were legal limits and boundaries placed upon all people, the so-called second tablet of the Law. i.e the prohibition against stealing applied to all people.

6.       Liberty - Liberty of conscience; or freedom in matters of religion - worship cannot be compelled.

7.       Generosity - Proclamation of the Gospel of Grace should not be tied to receiving or withdrawal of civic privileges

8.       Charity – Providence. Rhode Island was a refuge for people fleeing religious persecution.

9.       Civility – Civil society where church and state are separate, civic services extended to all members regardless of religion. Each member of the society seeks the common good.

What do these touchstone issues look like in chaplaincy?

Chaplaincy is a Christian ministry. Faithful chaplaincy ministry rests upon faith in Jesus and the prayer and devotional life of the chaplain. A chaplain does not speak for God but rather creates a space to allow a sufferer to explore issues of a spiritual nature while holding out the possibility of discovering the new Community gathered around Christ.

Chaplaincy should be offered to all suffers as a secular institution has no authority to speak on behalf of an individual in matters of religion. Each individual sufferer is a person for whom Christ died and of infinite value to him. Chaplains are empathically concerned about the whole person - physical, social, cultural, political, emotional, psychological and spiritual, yet the sufferer’s boundaries and wishes regarding a conversation on matters of religion are to be respected - a chaplain must seek permission before pursuing a conversation.

Perhaps a good summary of a ‘Roger Williams style chaplaincy’ might be: pray continually, be present in the world, be prepared to given an answer, seek permission, respond respectfully to people not ideas, keep it personal.  (cf 1 Peter 3:13-18)

Beatification for Roger Williams? … Probably not. Saint? … Definitely!!

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[1] An expression used by Eugen Peterson, who quoted the 19th century German philosopher and poet Friedrich Nietzsche, ‘ The essential thing in 'heaven and earth' is that there should be a long obedience in the same direction; there thereby results, and has always resulted in the long run, something which has made life worth living.’

 

[2] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/god-government-and-roger-williams-big-idea-6291280/#g8O3sxMPszkhRykU.99

 

 

Out of the Storm – Book Review

Kate Bradford

Sometimes you come across a book that is just right. Not too technical on one hand, but on the other does not simply skim across a topic.

Christopher Ash’s reading guide – Out of the Storm: Grappling with God in the book of Job – is such a book. This is a book for anyone who wishes to minister pastorally in the lives of others. It is not a commentary or a devotional book but simply a book about God, his people, the world and time.

The chapters of this profound little book were originally a series of talks. This book has retained the accessibility of talks, perfectly crossing the synapse between the ancient text and real people. The book works both as an introduction and as summary of the book of Job.

Deep calls to deep. The book addresses people – those who suffer and those who seek to comfort those who suffer. We see ourselves in it both as sufferers and as comforters having to grapple with evil, wisdom, and the ultimate innocent suffering of Christ on the cross.

Ash explains that Job is a book that raises hard questions. ”There are two ways to ask these questions. We may ask them as ‘armchair questions’ or we may ask them as ‘wheelchair questions.’”[1] ‘Armchair questions’ are asked from the safety of the armchair as if we ourselves are remote from suffering but ‘wheelchair questions’ grapple with God from the wheelchair… these questions do not hold this terror of suffering cheap either for ourselves or for those we love. Job asks the ‘wheelchair questions.’

Ash takes us deep into the book of Job. He describes Job as a staggeringly honest book. A book that knows what people actually say and think. It knows what people say behind closed doors and in whispers; it knows what we say in our tears. If we listen with any care, it will touch trouble and unsettle us at a deep level.[2]

Job is also a book of poetry. It is a deeply personal take on events communicating heart-to-heart, pulling at our feelings, addressing our minds. Poetry does not work like bullet points or neat propositions it goes to work on us and in doing so, God goes to work on us.[3]

Job suffers a tsunami of losses. He is bereft of children, livestock, property, status and comfort – he is terribly alone, can only look back and even in his darkness cannot avoid God – he must deal with him.

Ash makes the astute observation that the privilege of speaking with sufferers is one that is easily abused. Job’s comforters work from their own incomplete theological system:  God is always sovereign, always just and fair, therefore, he always punishes wickedness and blesses righteousness, and furthermore suffering is always the result of punishment for sin.[4]

The comforters are operating from a dogmatic system that allows for no puzzle or enigma,[5] which ultimately affects their attitude. Ash observes that they are not honest; they are not prepared to look at the world as it is but rather try to squeeze reality into their theology. In reality God’s truth fits with God’s world,[6] we need to begin with the ‘real’ not the ‘ideal’.

Secondly, Job’s friends have no sympathy. They do not understand Job’s pain and they are irritated by his misery. They are more attached to their theories than to Job.[7] Sometimes in pastoral work in order to listen attentively, we do need to suspend our own disbelief.

Thirdly, they have no love, and because they have no love for him, they cannot understand him.[8]

In addition to their attitude, the friends have some gaps in their beliefs. Firstly, they do not allow for Satan or spiritual forces of evil. Secondly, they have no understanding of waiting; they live only in the present with a belief of immediate retributive justice. Yet without waiting, there is no hope in the promises of God, no prayer, no love for a hidden God, no yearning or longings, just ‘slot machine’ justice of a mechanistic universe. Thirdly, they have no place for innocent suffering negating the possibility for Christ’s suffering work on the cross, the sinless one for the guilty.

Another thread through the book is that of wisdom. Chaplains are bombarded with so much material that claims to be wise about the human condition, psychology, family systems, social theory, anthropology which we need to evaluate and asses in the light of Biblical truths, yet so often, we are not even comparing apples with apples but things from completely different domains. Ash offers a very helpful paragraph on making assessments when scripture does not offer a clear indication of how something is to be viewed.

Ash’s remarks are worth quoting at length.

The answer goes to the heart of wisdom: godly wisdom is not so much a word spoken to the human heart from the outside, [but] as a character formed in the believer by the Spirit of God working by the Word of God at the deepest level of the human heart. In setting before us in Job these speeches in which truth and error are mixed, God invites us to think for ourselves, to puzzle, to engage with the process of wisdom fashioning our minds and our hearts.

There is an aspect of God, which comes authoritatively to us from above, from the mountaintop of Sinai; this is the Law of God. But there is also an aspect of the Word of God that gets under our skin and into our soul and beavers away within us as we meditate, puzzle and think about the world and our place in it. This latter facet of the Word of God does not respond to the immature request, ‘Tell me the answer’: rather it draws the seeking and searching believer into a lifelong process of wondering and prayerful meditations on God’s Word.

Ash has since published a more comprehensive preaching commentary, Job: The Wisdom of the Cross, but I suspect that Out of the Storm: Grappling with God in the book of Job, is a perfect introduction to the thought world of Job, as it broadly applies to Chaplaincy.

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[1] Christopher Ash, Out of the Storm: Grappling with God in the book of Job, IVP 2004. pp. 12, 13.

[2] p. 13.

[3] pp. 14, 15.

[4] p. 39.

[5] p. 42

[6] p. 42

[7] p. 42

[8] p. 43

Through the Window

Kate Bradford

This week our country lost a beloved sportsman. I turned on the radio just after Phillip Hughes had been hit by a cricket ball. Cricket is not my strong suit, but I soon caught that Phillip was much a loved, precious and gifted cricketer.

As a hospital chaplain I found myself recalling times in the Emergency Department and the Intensive Care Unit with families of patients with head injuries. I could picture the scene in a remote way and felt sorry and prayed for Phillip, his family, the bowler and his team. A day later in a news report I caught a comment that referred to Phillip Hughes’ injury as a catastrophic head injury. I had seen patients with catastrophic head injuries. My heart sank. Although the radio continued to hope and pray, I felt that I had already heard the news others still dreaded - he would not wake up. 

I was affected by the news in a remote way, aware that I felt sad and that there seemed to be a lot of sadness in the world. The accounts felt impersonal, almost as if I was looking through a window onto others’ lives until I read Justin Langer’s farewell to his friend, ‘Get up little fella, get up’, published by the Sun Herald.

In a hauntingly beautiful piece, Justin Langer captures the sense of loss and disbelief at the death of one so alive, the farewell is punctuated with an increasingly despairing refrain, ‘Get up little fella, get up’. As I read this farewell, I was transported to the world through the window, I joined the mourners, I thought how often I have heard fathers, grandfathers and uncles say these same words, express this same hope for their sons, grandsons and nephews. Some of the same men wish they could give their lives for their young, in a sacrifice of love. I had entered the world of those who grieve, I remembered the families that I had stood with, the coroners, the ambulance officers, the police, the Emergency Room staff and the social workers - and all the dashed hopes and dreams. Dreams that the sun might retrace its course, hopes of life resumed.

I remembered the family with a daughter dying in ICU one Friday, who were joining the prayer service. The set reading for the day was Mark 5, about Jairus’s daughter, ‘Jesus took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”).’ I asked the chaplain leading the service what did he think he would do? He thought for a moment and said that it is God’s word for today. The family came, and thanked him for his words, saying, ‘We can go on, for we know that she will get up today, she will rise to new life.’

We pray for the miracle cure, we pray for lives not be cut short, but we pray also that patients will hear the One who has already given his life for them, the One who says, ‘get up little fella, get up’, and we pray that they hear and recognise His voice.

The Extent of Forgiveness

by David Pettett

I have met some of the worst criminals our justice system has ever dealt with. One of the most engaging and personable men I know, I have been told by a member of the police force, committed the ‘worst murder I have ever seen’. I have had lunch with Australia’s most frequent offending serial paedophile. I have discussed Christian commitment with company executives who have defrauded mums and dads of tens of millions of dollars of life savings.

I sometimes don’t know what to do with these facts. Meeting the men themselves, they are ordinary people with the same wants, needs, expectations and desires of any human being. They are all people created in the image of God who, like me, need reconciliation with God. That I can deal with. But if I dwell too long on their crimes …

None of them is any different to me. We are all sinners needing reconciliation with a holy God. Before God, without the intervention of Jesus, I stand equally condemned as any of these criminals. Our justice system has never had any cause to deal with me. I have never committed a crime. But, before God, I am no different to any of these men.

None of these men have any excuse for what they did. Each of them has been justly punished. But when I think about their victims I sometimes think that there is no punishment harsh enough for the pain and suffering they have caused. I even find it hard sometimes, when thinking about their victims, to believe that a holy God would allow them entrance into heaven. But yes, in fact, that is the nature of the forgiveness I myself benefit from. A holy God, who accepts me into heaven, will also accept any of these men into heaven.

Saying all of this is all well and good. I know that as a sinner, I am no better than any of these men. That is, I know it, if I don’t think too much about their victims. I recently read this incredible statement in John Swinton’s book Raging with Compassion, “There is no bipolar separation between the evil-doer and the innocent victim.” Hang on. Swinton is not just talking about no difference between me and the criminal, in that we both need forgiveness. He’s talking about no difference between the criminal and the victim. He continues, “Both need forgiveness and redemption, and, even though we find it difficult, Jesus died for both.” Yes. I know that in my head, and I believe it in my heart, but does it truly shape the way I relate to the criminal?

What I’ve been saying is that I can relate to the criminal as long as I don’t think too much about the victim. What Swinton is encouraging me to do is actually be more holistic and integrated in my beliefs and understand that the shed blood of Jesus covers the whole of every human encounter. I am to understand that me, the criminal and the victim are in need of Christ’s atoning sacrifice for the things each of us has done wrong.

How is restorative justice possible where both perpetrator and victim come together? Ultimately it is made possible only through the shed blood of Jesus. The victim doesn’t remain a victim. They are not simply a person who has suffered or been treated wrongly. They are a person who is restored by Christ standing in their place. And I don’t mean that Christ simply identifies with their suffering. They have suffered wrongly and unjustly. And yet true restoration comes to them when Christ dies for the punishment they deserve for their own wrong-doing against God.

Life often brings things that hurt. There are no easy solutions nor glib answers. The whole of Creation groans. The Christian’s answer is to ask, “How long, O Lord?” This lament both acknowledges suffering and calls out in hope that God will finally bring that Day when there is no more pain and no more tears. It recognises that every part of living is covered by the death of Christ at Calvary.

You see, the hard place in which there is good news, is life itself. None of life makes sense without the good news that Jesus has covered every action and situation, every perpetrator, every victim, every person with his own blood. There is a wholeness to life which is found only in Jesus.

Are ‘Chaplaincy’ and ‘Spiritual-Care’ the Same Thing?

Kate Bradford

The terms ‘chaplaincy’, ‘spiritual care’ and ‘pastoral care’ are used synonymously.

Does this matter?

We live in an eclectic world! We are called chaplains, but our ministry is described in terms of functions of pastoral care. Our main diagnostic tools are spiritual assessment models and pastoral encounters and, described in terms of the case studies of the social sciences, are evaluated by using theological reflections.

Our ministry is defined by an assortment of models and paradigms and these provide a general outline for the practice of civil chaplaincies; pastoral and spiritual care as practiced in hospitals, prisons, aged care and mental health facilities. This generic selection also informs Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Hindu, secular multi-faith, interfaith and ecumenical chaplaincies, spiritual care and pastoral care departments.

The original Christian heritage of the terms, ‘chaplain’, ‘pastoral’ and ‘spiritual’ have become detached from their biblical and traditional moorings.

Chaplains historically were Christian ministers or priests attached to households rather than parishes. In this they were ministers who ministered away from church, and it was this term that was adopted from the time of the Reformation for ministers who ministered to and within hospitals, prisons, military units, ships and colonies.

Pastoral ‘rule’ or ‘care’ was a term chosen by Gregory the Great in the 6^th C to encompass matters concerned with the wise selection of clergy; the life of the minister; advice for caring for people in everyday lives; and warnings about pitfalls in ministry – particularly egoism and personal ambition. Gregory arranged his material around the motifs of the shepherd and the flock – pastors caring for their sheep. At this point the notion of ‘chaplain’ differs from ‘pastor’ in the sense that chaplains minister away from ‘home’ in the world, whereas pastors minister ‘at home’ to those with whom they share a parish relationship and have a designated pastoral responsibility.

Biblically, the term ‘spirit’ refers only to spirit from God or conversely spirits of evil origins. There is no gradation between the two spheres. Where the terms ‘Holy Spirit’, ‘Spirit of God’, or ‘Spirit of Christ’ occur, each use is intimately connected with the persons of the Trinity. God’s Spirit is identified when speaking of creation and re-creation, temporal and eternal or the ‘quick and the dead’. Various scriptural concepts of ‘spiritual care’ uphold all that is created, encompassed by notions of providential care, common grace, and redemption. The bible does not distinguish between physical and metaphysical, matter and energy, particles and waves or concrete and abstract thinking. Even non-material existential thought, is still to do with existence, not-withstanding even the human activity of thinking about God. Existential thinking is of a different order to revelation by God; a gap remains always between the created and the creator. Existential thought is part of the created material world of life lived under the sun which is held in direct contrast to eternal life: the revealed spiritual reality of life lived in the Son.

In a secular context spirituality has broad semantic meaning. The term ‘spiritual’ is used widely in fields of nursing, medicine and social work. In these contexts ‘spiritual needs’ are usually psycho/social/emotional needs that lie outside the therapeutic or social welfare models of patient needs but are intimately related to the health outcomes of the patient/resident/inmate. The domain addressed by the area designated ‘spiritual needs’ has to do with existential thinking and feeling; concerned with deep issues of meaning, purpose and belonging and is often said to transcend the physical environment and tends also to include any or all religious belief.

A representative definition of secular spirituality is:

We shall consider ‘the spiritual’ as pertaining to a person’s inner resources, especially their ultimate concerns, the basic values around which all other values are focused, the central philosophy of life… which guides a person’s conduct, the supernatural and non-material dimensions of human nature. We shall assume therefore that all people are ‘spiritual’ even when they…. Practice no personal pieties.

From a Christian perspective it is clear that there are conflicting meanings and values attached to various meanings and metaphors used in the fields of chaplaincy, pastoral and spiritual care. The meanings and metaphors pose very real difficulties for any Christian wishing to minister within these structures. These problems, however great, are not insurmountable. Christians have always ministered ‘out’ in the world, but it does require careful structuring and formatting of thought and practice, acknowledging the ever present danger of being squeezed into the world’s mould of spirituality.

Christians in these fields need to find their theological voice. Wisdom is needed in negotiating the professional requirement of civil chaplaincy/pastoral and spiritual care in: 1) case study verbatims which analyse ministry offered and which are described in functional, psychological terms; 2) primary focus of reflective listening; 3) the use of ‘spiritual’ assessments in describing a patient’s socio/emotional situation; 4) personal reflections in conversation with psychology and theology.

Chaplains are ministers who minister away from home to people also away from home. These people are from all Faiths or from no Faith and are away from home due to illness, imprisonment, incapacity, grief or trauma. Christians have always ministered to such people who are alienated and lost.


Pastoral care is to do with care of the flock; it is helping Christians continue to find their hope in Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd but also involves seeking and finding lost sheep.


Spiritual care is listening to people as they search for deeper meaning, more intimate belonging and higher significance. A Christian chaplain hosts a space opened by the Holy Spirit, where deepest meaning can be found in Christ, the most intimate belonging experience and the highest hope can be claimed by accepting the promise of forgiveness and eternity.

The terms ‘chaplaincy’, ‘spiritual care’ and ‘pastoral care’ are used synonymously – does it matter? Well… yes and no.

The Ultimate questions to ask are: where does God, the Father and Creator, fit within chaplaincy? Where does the Good Shepherd fit within pastoral care? Where does the Holy Spirit fit within Spirituality? These are the things that truly matter.