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Book Review and Note: An Introduction to Pastoral Care

An Introduction to Pastoral Care. Charles V. Gerkin (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1997). 229 pp. Charles y. Gerkin's groundbreaking book, An Introduction to Pastoral Care, comprehensively widens horizons for pastoral care considerations in this postmodem era of societal transitions. The distinguished author, who is a professor emeritus of pastoral theology, points the pastoral field beyond a preoccupation with the psychotherapeutic paradigm and towards the critical arena of care in the life of the congregational community and its interpreted meanings. .No longer is it sufficient for pastors to regard themselves as dominant conveyers of pastoral care. Rather, the "rediscovery of the congregation as a primary context and agent of care" (p. 92) is the central theme of this thoughtful and penetrating book. The more necessary role for the pastor in this late century and future-based endeavor is one of an interpretative leadership. Values gained from the therapy emphasis are not to be discarded, but a greater pastoral competency is evoked for "helping people make connections between their lives of faith within the community and tradition that identifies us as the people of God, and the day-today individual, social, and cultural realities of our lives" (p, 95) . This thrust implies caring pastoral reflection and dialogue regarding such connectivity. This clarion call for a pastorally interpreted communalism offers to the field of pastoral care a much needed corrective to an individual-