Preface

As I glance back at experiences during the dawning years of modern pastoral counseling after World War II, I rejoice at the hopes that motivated its pioneers. These were hopes for helping to produce a new, exciting chapter in religion’s ancient heritage of healing human brokenness. I am also aware of the constrictions that have retarded the full realization of these hopes. The constrictions were rooted in the historical fact that the movement’s founders, with all their creativity, imagination and strengths, were predominantly Western, middle-class, individualistic, English-speaking, Protestant Christian males. In recent decades the most enlivening and empowering development has been the rapid enlargement of the movement’s constricted horizons of healing and circles of caring. This has occurred as well-trained practitioners have enlarged pastoral counseling’s caring concerns with increasingly multi-cultural and multi-racial, as well as multi-faith, gender inclusive, and holistic theories and methods. In North America, African-Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos, Native Americans, Feminists and Womanist pastoral caregivers, thinking and working from their diverse cultural contexts, increasingly have enriched the overall field of pastoral care giving immensely. On the global scene, it is encouraging, indeed, that the enlarging vision has taken place with accelerating alacrity. In our pluralistic, interconnected world, our field is blessed by widening awareness of other cultures among pastoral caregivers. It is also blessed by the fact that a growing proportion of clergy worldwide, including pastoral counseling teachers and specialists, are women and persons from non-middle class, non-white, and non-Western backgrounds. A horizon-stretching series of six International Congresses on Pastoral Care and Counseling, and the continuing mission of innovative groups like the International Pastoral Care Network for Social Responsibility, are among the many indications of the increasing globalization of the field in many countries and