신학함의 과정으로서의 목회돌봄과 상담

Abstract

This paper is designed to pursue a way of doing pastoral theology that may help the practice of pastoral care and counseling. It is the hypothesis of this paper that the practices of pastoral care of parish pastors should have something to do with doing theology. However, in traditional Christian theology, it is not easy to find any close relationships between the practice of pastoral care and the shaping of the body of theological knowledge. The leaders of the pastoral care movement of 20th century suggested a new methodology of doing theology that begins with human experiences. Anton Bosien’s slogan, “the study of living human documents” nicely denotes this new way of doing theology. Seward Hiltner developed this slogan into his pastoral theology that is guided by pastoral perspective. Hiltner attempted to secure the position of pastoral theology in the faculty of theology by suggesting a systematic methodology. Thanks to his endeavor, pastoral theology began to be considered an important field of study in theological schools. By enthusiastically utilizing the important debates on practical reason in the field of philosophy, Don Browning further developed a pastoral theological methodology to the extent that it contains a detailed way of creating knowledge that guides more appropriate practices. Browning suggests the way of doing practical theology beginning from praxis, then moving to theory in order for critical dialogues between questions raised from the praxis and the Christian tradition, and finally going back to praxis with widened horizon from the dialogue. In the course of arguments, I attempt to review the pastoral care of Pastor P from the perspectives of Boisen, Hiltner, and Browning. By doing this, I tried to argue how Pastor P may provide a more helpful pastoral care, if he would be familiar with the pastoral theological methodologies of these three pastoral theologians. It is the purpose of this paper that pastoral caregivers come to understand that their practices should be regarded as the process of shaping practical theological knowledge. Thus, providing solicitous pastoral care is not just practice of care but also a process of doing theology by which pastoral careviers can accumulate the practical reason guiding effective practices.