Category: Pastoral Care/Theology

The author describes the theological reflections of participants in response to the question how they thought their congregation came to be accepting, welcoming, and supporting of diversity or those with chronic mental illness. Themes include the priesthood of all believers/body of Christ, Holy Communion as a “Welcome Table” for all people, grace/gospel preaching, the theology of the cross, and simultaneously saint and sinner.

This article explores how racism is incorporated into narratives about a deceased family member. This qualitative research study reports on interviews of 26 African American about the life experience of deceased family members. Almost all the individuals interviewed talked about the ways the decease taught them to deal with racism. Findings suggest that a view of African American grief that is insensitive to racism in the African American experience may lead to unhelpful grief support or counseling.

This article highlights the prevalence, correlates, and adverse consequences of alcohol and other drugs (AOD) used by African American women. Efforts to prevent substance use and the nature and effectiveness of treatment are addressed. Several complex issues and limitations that relate to African American AOD prevention and the treatment are addressed including the misinformed assumption of the homogeneity of the African American population.

This article reports on qualitative research project, in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups of African American caregivers during a stressful time in their family development – caregiving at the end of the life – and the grieving through the aftermath. Results suggest that formal care is complicated by the distrust that many African Americans hold toward the health care system. The findings also highlights the importance of hearing from African American families to gain an understanding of what services, including family therapy, and other psychotherapy that families will need during this process.

In 2019, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America affirmed its thirteenth social statement, which is biblical and theological social teaching and policy. As an introduction to a collection of essays, Mary J. Streufert sets this ELCA social statement Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Call to Action within the context of ecumenical and global Lutheran partnerships, seeing gender justice as a faithful, trusting response to God’s gracious call to serve neighbors in Christian freedom.