The Care of Souls is a collection of essays and short reflections on the art of pastoral supervision in the clinical pastoral education (CPE) learning process. The essays focus on different aspects of supervisory theory, and are juxtaposed with reflections on the raw helplessness of both the patient and the chaplain, which can occur at the bedside. This collection highlights the critical importance of self-awareness, the inexact art of caring, and the hard necessity of listening to another...

The powers of death are closer than we thought. Their perils appear in the forms of increased gun violence, racism, economic disparity, and global warming, to name but a few. Faced with these threats, Christians in this self-absorbed culture tend to use their faith as a kind of palliative comfort that protects them from the truths of what these powers are doing to us as a human community, and the sufferings they are inflicting on others, particularly the poor and the disenfranchised. Moreo...

The condition of stuck is a condition well known by pastoral caregivers and leaders. In When All Else Fails, Wayne Menking argues that the way out of stuckness is not through the acquisition of faddish techniques, but through a deep rethinking of our pastoral vocation and what our pastoral work is to be about. Pastoral care and leadership are not indistinguishable, just as priestly work can never be separated from prophetic work. They are always one and the same. Pastoral care and leadersh...